Desire Lines
by Jamie Etheridge
[Editor’s Note: Click on the triptych below to view it at full size.]
Jamie Etheridge’s creative writing can be read in X-R-A-Y Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, JMWW Journal, (mac)ro(mic), Bending Genres, Emerge Lit, Essay Daily and Rejection Letters, among others. She is currently working on a memoir about her fugitive father and her childhood on the road. Jamie tweets @LeScribbler and you can visit her website at LeScribbler.com.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Desire Lines”? In the writing of this piece, I learned that there are more than 15 possible definitions for the noun ‘line’, creating dozens of synonyms. Some of my favorites include: column, queue (cue in American English), echelon, rank, row, tier, chain, progression, sequence, array, marshal, classify, balance, lay out, alphabetize, ambit, arena, circle, demesne, kingdom, boundary, blueprint, direction and purpose. Each takes me one step closer to understanding my daughter’s impulse to create her own lines.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
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Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.
Upcoming
11/17 • Alison Colwell
11/24 • Lucy Zhang
12/01 • Salvatore Difalco
12/08 • Rowan Tate
12/15 • Isabelle Ness
12/22 • Catherine Bai
12/29 • Stephan Viau
01/05 • Allison Blevins
01/12 • Justin Ocelot
01/19 • Yejun Chun
01/26 • Mathieu Parsy
02/02 • TBD
02/09 • TBD
02/16 • TBD
02/23 • TBD