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Interested in a Writing Residency? Consider the Kimmel Harding Nelson.

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Kimmel Harding Nelson Center

South 85 Journal is happy to present the first in a series of interviews featuring directors and administrators of various writing residencies to give our readers a peek into how these programs are organized and facilitated. Or first interview is with Holly McAdams Olson who is the current director of the Kimmel Harding Nelson Artist Residency in Nebraska City, Nebraska, and welcomes both visual artists and writers. Their twice yearly application deadlines are March 1 and September 1. You can apply here.

Tell us a little about the origins of the Kimmel Harding Nelson Artist Residency.

The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts is a program of the Richard P Kimmel and Laurine Kimmel Charitable Foundation. Laurine Kimmel was a well-known watercolor artist from Nebraska City. The residency program continues her and her husband Richard’s legacy of supporting the arts in Southeast Nebraska.

KHN is located in a unique Prairie-style residential complex built in 1969 by another established Nebraska City couple, Peg and Karl Nelson. Mrs. Nelson’s maiden name was Harding, and the complex was built on the site of a past Harding home. In honoring this history, the program was named the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and opened as an artist residency program in 2001.

What makes the KHN residency distinct from others?

KHN is known for its serenely quiet and homey feel. Just as the Nelsons designed the multi-unit luxury home to facilitate both independent living and ease of socializing, the facility’s architecture provides a superb layout and an intimately spacious setting for a small-cohort artist residency program. The facilities support up to five residents, generally in the mix of two visual artists, two writers, and one composer.

Main Gallery

Residency program models are as varied as their facilities and locations. While some programs are known for their chef-prepared meals and daily networking opportunities, KHN provides uninterrupted time and minimal obligations so that each individual can deep-dive into their own rhythms of work and exploration.

Nebraska City is a vibrant rural town with just over 7,000 people. As the home of Arbor Day, the town’s tree-lined brick streets, small museums, local shops, and sprawling parks provide many opportunities for residents to explore local attractions without the burden of too many events and “places to be” to detract their focus from their creative work.

What is your role in the organization today?

I have been the Program Director since 2017. I oversee all aspects of the residency program, our regional exhibition program, and the Kimmel Permanent Collection, which comprises over 250 visual artworks, 200 literary works, and 75 musical works (albums or scores) donated to the center by former residents.

What do you find most rewarding about your work with KHN?

I had fallen into grant writing and development work before coming to KHN five years ago. I often joke that after years of building case statements for why people should want to support, talk to, and listen to artists, now, I just get to. Taking part in boundless cross-disciplinary conversations between visual artists, writers, and composers is the most rewarding part of my job. As much as I love art of all varieties, even more, I love hearing artists talk about what they do and why. Considerations such as composition, design, and character development, as well as the hustle and logistics of piecing together a career, are both unique and universal for all media and disciplines. I just love the “aha” moments for myself and others when one individual’s work or process spurs someone of a different discipline to say, “huh, I never thought of it that way before. Say more”.

What about the residency most surprises writers who attend?

KHN is their first experience in Nebraska or the Midwest for many of our residents. Most report that the residency, our facilities, and their experiences with the local community exceed their expectations. For writers especially, we repeatedly hear that although time went faster than they had expected, their productivity exceeded their goals. In hindsight, many resident writers have stated that each week at KHN seemed the equivalent of a month’s worth of productivity in their daily lives.

Autumn in the Midwest

When and how do writers and artists apply?

We host two application cycles each year: March 1st and September 1st. The March deadline determines awards for the second half of the current year (July – December), and the September deadline determines the first half of the following year (January – June). All applications must be submitted through our online application portal (via Slideroom), and there is a $35 fee to apply. Writers submit up to 10 poems totaling no more than 30 pages, or two stories, essays, or book chapters totaling no more than 7,500 words; a résumé; two artist statements; and contact information for two references. Additional guidelines can be found on our website (https://www.khncenterforthearts.org/residency/how-apply). Writing applications are always our largest pool of applications. We generally receive about 100-120 writing applications each deadline and award approximately fifteen, two- to eight-week writing residencies each session.

What makes you laugh?

My husband would tell you that I do. I have an extremely dry and punny sense of humor, so often, other people in the room only awkwardly laugh because I am laughing. Or they just roll their eyes.

~

Holly McAdams Olson joined KHN as Director in February 2017. She holds a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, as well as a BA in Arts Management and a Master of Business Administration from Bellevue University. Prior to joining KHN, Holly established her love for supporting artists and cultivating the Arts in Omaha, working at The Union for Contemporary Art, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and as a former board member of WhyArts? Inc. Holly lives in Union, Nebraska.

Summer Poetry and Flash Fiction Contest Underway

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Submissions are now open for the Julia Peterkin Literary Awards in Flash Fiction and Poetry.

Established in 1998 by the Creative Writing program at Converse College, the Julia Peterkin Award is a national contest honoring both emerging and established  writers. The award is named for Converse graduate Julia Mood Peterkin, whose 1929 novel,  Scarlet Sister Mary, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in literature.

South 85 Journal seeks submissions of unpublished flash fiction of 850 words or fewer and previously unpublished poems of 50 lines or fewer.  We are especially interested in stories and poems that demonstrate a strong voice and/or a sense of place, but consider all quality writing.

The winning selection in each category will be awarded $500 and publication in the December issue of South 85 Journal. Contest finalists will also be selected and published alongside the winning selection.  Submissions are read blind by an outside judge.

Judges for this year’s contest are Cary Holladay for flash fiction and Ashley M. Jones for poetry.

Cary Holladay has published six short story collections, including Horse People, The Quick-Change Artist, and most recently, Brides in the Sky, as well as two novels and over 100 short stories and essays in journals and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Arkansas Review, Five Points, The Georgia Review, The Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, and Tin House. Her awards include an O. Henry Prize and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of Memphis. She lives in Virginia.

Submit Flash Fiction Here

Ashley M. Jones is Poet Laureate of the state of Alabama (2022-2026). She received an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University (FIU), where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow. She is the author of three poetry collections: REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press, 2021); dark // thing (Pleiades Press, 2019), winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry; and Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press, 2017), winner of the silver medal in poetry in the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Her poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including CNN, the Academy of American Poets, Poetry magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, Prelude, and The Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among others.

Submit Poetry Here

SUBMISSIONS CLOSE AUGUST 15, 2022

Someone to Clean

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by Walter Cummins

When the hospice nurse came down into the living room to tell Mason that Virginia had died, his first thought was to call Lila and ask her to clean.   Even as he followed the nurse back up the steps to the guest room, he wondered why of all things that notion came into his mind when he had to inform his children, some friends, and then the funeral home.  He hardly knew Lila, rarely saw her during the ten years she had arrived once a week to scrub and polish for Virginia.  She had been there the past Monday, sitting on the edge of Virginia’s bed, speaking softly.  From the hallway, Mason, working at home, had watched Virginia gaunt and ashen, barely nodding.  Then the nurse came, and Lila left without even dusting.

The nurse was a sturdy woman, hair cropped short, reading glasses dangling from a chain. At the doorway, she touched his arm, eyes soft with sympathy, but said nothing, just gestured toward the bed where she had pulled the covers up to Virginia’s chin. His wife’s mouth was open, jaw contorted as if she had made one last gasp for breath and froze in the midst of it. Had she wanted him to call Lila? Were those her last words, gasped to the nurse because he wasn’t there to hear? He shook his head, aware that he was being foolish.

Mason phoned the children, miles away, forewarned and awaiting his message.   He called the two daughters and a son in the order of their ages, the way he always did in an attempt not to pick favorites.  They had visited separately a month ago, spending time alone with their mother, saying their goodbyes, and Mason gave them privacy.  But despite the doctor’s predictions Virginia had lingered, and Mason put off sharing his own farewell, wanting more time as he rehearsed the words in his head, not believing he would ever have to speak them.

This night the conversations with his children were brief, his gulp of hesitation and then, “She’s gone.”  Soft sobs from both daughters despite the inevitable.  He could feel them squeezing their phones, groping for words.  He promised to give them details about the funeral tomorrow.  “All right,” they told him, both of them speaking in the same tone of voice.   It struck him how alike they had always sounded.  His son asked the exact time his mother had died, and that struck Mason as odd.  He hadn’t thought to look at his watch.  The nurse would know.   She was writing on forms in the next room, giving him privacy, but he could hear the tap of her pen.

While he waited for the undertakers, alone, the nurse gone to make another visit, he wondered if he really should call Lila, this stranger whose name had popped into his head. But she wasn’t a stranger to Virginia, who spoke of her often, recounting their weekly conversations, shaking her head at the endless series of miseries in Lila’s life. For all those years the day Lila was due to clean, his wife had left her work at the shop for an hour to unlock the door and talk over coffee before Lila began her chores.

“Do you consider her a friend?” he had asked Virginia once.

The question seemed to surprise her,  “I never thought of it that way, but I suppose she is.”

The word “suppose” echoed in Mason’s memory as he opened a kitchen drawer and searched through Virginia’s address book, realizing he didn’t know Lila’s last name.  But there was her number, under L, as if Virginia had not known either.

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[Lately when sorrows come]

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by Susan Laughter Meyers

                                                —with a line from Sappho

Spring 2012

Lately when sorrows come—fast, without warning—
whipping their wings down the sky,
I know to let them.
Not inviting them, but allowing each
with a deep breath as if inhaling a wish I can’t undo.

Some days the sky is so full of sorrows
they could be mistaken for shadows of unnamed
gods flapping the air with their loose black sleeves:
the god of head-on collisions,
the god of amputated limbs,
the god of I’ll-dress-you-in-mourning.

Is the buzz in the August trees,
that pulsing husk of repetition, an omen?
I hear it build to a final shaking. I hear it build
louder and louder, then nothing.
Like a long, picaresque novel that’s suddenly over.
Like the last inning of kickball until the rain.

What falls from the sky is not always rain
or any kind of weather. Call it precipitous.
I’m fooling myself, of course. Wearing sorrow
is nothing like skin shedding water.
It’s more like the weight of a cloak of crows.

And yet the sun still shines on the honey locust
arching its fringe over grass. Lit, too,
the pasture and its barbwire strung from post
to leaning post. See how the stump by the road
is rotting and how the small yellow leaves, twirling,
catch light on their way to the ground.

Susan Laughter Meyers, of Givhans, SC, is the author of Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press), winner of the inaugural SC Poetry Book Prize, the SIBA Book Award for Poetry, and the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. Her poetry has also appeared in The Southern Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other journals, as well as Poetry Daily, and Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column. Her blog is at http://susanmeyers.blogspot.com.

Bloodmoon + Supermoon + Total Lunar Eclipse

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by Kerry Trautman

Winter 2018

Tonight’s September sky is busy,
and the world gazes up,
knowing only what the internet tells them,
what news anchors describe with tv graphics.
We watch the white sphere greying slowly
into its holy auburn coma,
lacking any sacrificial ritual or gods.

Seventy miles away from me
my grandmother is dying,
asking her slate-faced doctor if
she could please just lie down, please,
when in fact she hasn’t risen from
bed in two weeks, hasn’t stood
beneath the sky in at least three Julys.

My father would have wheeled
his wide computer chair out to the grass
rolling over these earliest brown leaves,
with a bottle and binoculars,
would have willed away the clouds—
whose names he knew—
obscuring everything heavenly.

My cellphone camera documents only a blotch
of somewhat-glow behind clouds where,
a moment ago, I swear I saw
that last curved sliver—like a clipped toenail—
wink through clouds, attempting to cling
to its mother body, then relenting to the black
we all can agree is there.

Kerry TrautmanOhio born and raised, Kerry Trautman has had her work appear in various anthologies and journals such as Midwestern Gothic, Alimentum, Free State Review, The Fourth River, and Third Wednesday. In 2017, her poem “Pixie Cut” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the editors at Slippery Elm. Her poetry chapbooks are Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press, 2012), To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press, 2015), and Artifacts (NightBallet Press, 2017).

Driving to the Blackberry Valley Transfer Station on Inauguration Day

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Greenville, South Carolina, January 20, 2009

by Gilbert Allen

Maybe a seven-minute ride. Turns out
a lot of us white guys are here today,
pickups mostly, stuck with American flags
like Band-Aids over bumpers, back windows,
in honor of the history behind us.

Hauling two months of litter and beer bottles
from my blue luxury sedan, I must
appear to be a lost investment banker
hiding the bender he’s still getting over.
The guy beneath the HERITAGE NOT HATE
cap smiles. “Looks like you had yourself a time.”

He smells like he’s biodegradable.
I toss Buds into the dumpster, one by one,
so he’ll gimp off before my box is empty.

It works. It’s only me, as I repop
my trunk, and drag bag to the garbage bays
to fortify the artificial hill.
Mission Accomplished. Although I’ll be back,
sooner or later, with another load
of crap my cat and I want to be rid of,
filling what cavities our land still holds.

Gilbert Allen lives in Travelers Rest, SC, from where he frequently proceeds south (and north) on I-85. He’s the author of five collections of poems, including Driving to Distraction (Orchises, 2003), which was featured on The Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily. Since 1977 he’s taught at Furman University, where he’s currently the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature.blog

Lady Akuaro

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by Garuda Love

I am river flesh and willow-bone
undulating along the banks of the Chattahoochee
whose mud waters and iron scent
cleave to my skin. My tears salt
the mud, pebbles and clay
river weeds, and moccasin’s nests. I am a tangle
of weed and snake. My venom, a sweet drip.
Honey-thighed, I float, like a lotus.

The men, they come to me.
From the cobbled brick streets
they come, the soldiers, whose musky lips
suck embers from cigarettes, and clamp the rims
of shot-glasses filled with honey-whiskey and gin.
In red-eyed rooms, they roll their muscled tongues
around shouts and groans. The young girls dance
and whisper dead promises into their vacant ears.
In their voices, I float, like a lotus.

The men, they come. After “last call,” after the exchange
of coin and flesh, some young warrior
or battle-weary corpse, strays
from the blood-brick streets, he ambles
through bracken, moss-skinned branches weeping
quail feathers onto his head. Guided by rumor
or jasmine and camphor simmering

Garuda LoveGaruda Love is completing her BFA at Goddard College. Her writing has appeared in Recovery Today Magazine. She is working with Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro on a screenplay adaptation of his autobiography, Dreadnaught: King of Afro-Punk. Raised in rural Alabama, Garuda now lives in Los Angeles.

Witness

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by Kevin Carey

It’s the first warm
day of spring
and I feel like the world
is waking around me.
I stop raking
and watch the fat kid on his bike
toss a newspaper to the driveway
and the guy next door waves
to a pick up truck speeding by,
loud rock and roll evaporating
down the block,
and I hear a faint scream
from a slightly open window
and there’s garlic cooking somewhere
and tires rolling on
the highway beyond,
one set after another,
and there’s a kid I once knew
bouncing a basketball
on the playground,
he is five feet tall
with an un-tucked Celtics jersey
over his shorts to his knees,
he is standing at half court
looking toward the tilted half-moon backboard
yelling over and over again,
“can I get a witness.”

Kevin CareyKevin Carey teaches in the English Department at Salem State University. He has published two books – a chapbook of fiction, The Beach People, from Red Bird Chapbooks (2014) and a book of poetry, The One Fifteen to Penn Station, from Cavankerry Press, N.J. (2012). He co-directed and produced a 2013 documentary film about New Jersey poet Maria Mazziotti Gillan called All That Lies Between Us and is currently working on a documentary about Salem poet Malcom Miller. A new collection of poems, Jesus Was a Homeboy, (also from Cavan Kerry Press) is due out in the fall of 2016. Kevincareywriter.com

Twenty-Four Hours in Vladivostok

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by Michelle Matthees

Fall 2013

It is tempting not to speak.
Rather, to breathe in cold catacombs
with eyes wide open.
I think I understand the way you hope.
In your mind, above, crisped spring:
white plum blossoms
icing up saplings. Belief is like this, getting
carried away by progress.
I cannot believe in history.
Still, the fisted buds flare
into wicks burning atop stone-
cold facades tipping deeper into silence.

Michelle Matthees lives and writes in Duluth, Minnesota. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s MFA program in Creative Writing. Recent work of Michelle’s can be found in PANK, The Prose Poem Project, Cider Press Review, 22 Magazine, Proof, Memorious, Anderbo, Defenestrationism, 5 Quarterly, Humber Pie, Specs, Third Wednesday, Paradise Review, The Mom Egg, Sou’wester, Thrice Fiction, and elsewhere.

Curlie Blue

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by Valerie Smith

Summer 2017

The Blues down south would cut you
like a paper mill and let your rotten stink
blow all the way north on a hot summer breeze.
That’s how she left, you know.

She was the second oldest of thirteen,
stocky as a sawed-off shotgun, red hair,
freckles and plump green eyes that traced
an un-retraceable line.

When I met her, she was Sunday dressed
in a full-length cashmere coat and matching
camel-colored hat. The wide brim tilted over
her right eye leaned into each heavy stride.

Legend has it, she snatched a black snake
out an oak tree in mid conversation and
ripped his head off in the street. She gripped
my hand and pulled a knife one night –

we stayed too late at Menlo Park Mall
and had to walk out the service exit.
I was just tall enough to see the blade
flash in the corner of my eye.

Her anointed hands could rub a rash clean
and make me believe the Blues
were always one bitter snuff can away
from spittin’ out the truth.

Valerie Smith

Valerie Smith delights in writing poetry and creative nonfiction. She is currently studying Creative Writing in the Master of Arts in Professional Writing program at Kennesaw State University where she is also a Graduate Teaching Assistant of first-year composition. Most recently, she presented her poems at the 2016 Decatur Book Festival. Her poetry has also appeared in Exit 271: Your Georgia Writers Resource and BlazeVOX15.