Suzanne DeWitt Hall's Blog, page 8

Jamie the Germ Slayer coloring sheets

I created the coloring and activity sheets below for people who need resources to keep kids busy during isolation. They are based on Dan Hayes' wonderful illustrations which are featured in my book titled Jamie the Germ Slayer. Hope they are helpful!










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Jamie the Germ Slayer now available!

Jamie the Germ Slayer in a place called Little While is now available!

Here's the description:

Jamie doesn't like the changes taking place. Worried parents, school at home, and not seeing the Nanas is so alien that it seems almost like a different world. Mama weaves a story about a place called Little While, where Jamie becomes a germ-fighting super hero.

Jamie the Germ Slayer in a Place Called Little While helps kids process their new reality, and offers reminders about keeping safe and fighting the pandemic, together.

Coming Soon: Sex With God

My latest devotional is approaching lift off! 
This book is the companion of A Theology of Desire, so if you haven't gotten a copy of that one yet, you should definitely check it out.

On Orgasm

I'm editing a devotional titled Sex With God, and since beginning work on it, my Dolce has requested that I write a poem about orgasm. I finally did it, as a birthday gift.

And now I offer it to you, as well.

On Orgasm
My beloved asked
for a poem about orgasm
perhaps thinking my words
would summon memories
of fireworks exploding
or waves lapping shores
or hurricane forces, unleashed
but I think what is needed
is a sonnet to their softness
curving into my back
warm skin praying for me
as I slip into sleep.

Orgasm pulls us
away from our minds
into single points of being
incapable of thought
escaping
for a moment
every troubling thing
until awareness ebbs back
returning us
to where we began.

We need escape.
But what we need even more
is a beloved, like mine
curving warm against our backs
pouring their love
into our souls.

Jamie the Germ Slayer in a place called Little While

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I've had a great distraction over the past week and a half. My Dolce discovered a contest offered by Emory University's Global Health Institute for developing a children's ebook related to COVID-19. (Click here to read more about our entry.) With the help of the clever and talented Dan Hayes, we created this book in about 9 days! The winner will be announced May 8, after which we'll be making the book available to the public. Stay tuned!

We Are Not Sisters

We drove from Missouri to Florida this past week, which required multiple stops in multiple states. This poem is a reflection on one of those stops.

We Are Not SistersWe stopped for gas
on a winding Kentucky two-lane
beneath a canopy of Spanish moss
where winter-gray kudzu
awaited spring
to resume its consuming
of barns and buildings
trees and tension lines
anything vertical
a target for destruction.

Should we pretend we are sisters?
The vertical trajectory of our love
a threat
to the insidious increase of demands
about genitals
skin color
faith or lack of it
country of origin.

The gray-haired gas keep’s dialect
scared me;
its twang shocking
only a few hours from home.
He owned the place
and waited, bored
to assess those who entered.

Should we pretend we are sisters?

A young attendant also stood waiting
tongs ready to grasp
hotdogs and breakfast sandwiches
differently bored
nervous
straight black hair shining
brown skin surprising
in the vast whiteness.
So maybe it was silly
to ask the question:

Should we pretend we are sisters?

The women’s restroom
could service two
as long as you were close:
mother and toddler
aunt and niece
sisters.
There were no stalls
two toilets perched
in vulnerable nakedness
on the pissy expanse of tile.

Should we pretend we are sisters?

Twin silver bullets were pulled up next door
gleaming beneath the draping moss 
horses hidden inside
grateful like us
for the reprieve from the road
but like us questioning
the safety of the stop
sniffing the air
and wondering.

Should we pretend we are sisters?

I small talked the gas keep
assessing the likeliness of his stance
on two women who were not sisters
and told him about the roadside rodeo
taking place next door.
“That’s my lot!” he said
annoyed that they’d encamped
without permission
then stomped off to check out the action.

Young people footworked
around the cracked pavement
spinning ropes above their cowboy hats
tossing them toward
a horned creature
made of aluminum
and blue fabric.
Capturing the thing with a swish
and a tug
while an older man tossed instructions.

“I guess they ain’t hurtin nothin.”
the gas keep said
hotdog youth watching
silent
leery
relieved.
I went outside
and filled the tank.
eager to drive away
from a place where we had to wonder:

Should we pretend we are sisters?

A place where
white haired white men
issued rules
about how to best capture life
regulate truth
order the world
keep the universe from shaking apart
at threats like my wife and I
stopping to pee
and asking:

Should we pretend we are sisters?

Latest devotional launched: A Theology of Desire

My latest devotional has been a long time coming. I began writing a blog by this title over a decade ago, and it's finally been transformed into a book.

If you're looking for a resource to help explore the deepest hungers of your heart, this book will help you do it.

Over the next few days I'll share some places you can read excerpts online. But in the meantime, isn't the cover image gorgeous?

Flashback post: The reality of a grilled cheese sandwich

I wrote this a few years ago, but it was shared today on the Cookbook Love Facebook page. The topic aligns with a recent post by Jessica Faust (Bookends Literary Agency) about the need to properly attend to details in writing, so I thought I'd post it again.
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I've got a beef this morning. A writing beef.

I'm reading a book, the last in a pile of three that I began and then threw to the side. I may have to ditch this one as well if it doesn't cut it out.

This time it's a problem with details. The author seems to just make things up without bothering to see if they actually make sense. One of the characters is a baker, and so there are frequent references to baking processes. But the author isn't particularly concerned if they are correct. Here are a few examples.

In one case, the baker can't be interrupted because she is kneading. A few minutes later she comes out saying that she finished the tarts.

PROBLEM: There is no kneading required when making tarts. They use pastry crust.

Later on, an assistant complains that there is something wrong with the buttercream frosting she made. The baker tastes it and proclaims that the egg whites were bad.

PROBLEM: There are no egg whites in buttercream. Or yellows for that matter.

Another detail violation happens in a bathtub. The protagonist is soaking and enjoying a plastic water tumbler of Chardonnay while musing about her terrible life, and then describes a loofah getting snagged on her leg stubble.

PROBLEM: Stubble wouldn't snag.

Perhaps if you had very course, very curly, very long leg hair there might be a Velcro effect. But stubble? Stubble sticks straight out. It's not snaggish. It won't run a pair of pantyhose let alone slow down a sponge.

Why, why, why, oh why?

Are cooking references really such a selling point that it doesn't matter if they make sense? Is there such a rush to go to press that editors don't pay attention to what they are reading? Was this story the second piece in a two-book deal with a very short deadline?

I'm trying to figure it out, hopefully so I can learn by negative example. Perhaps this is similar to what artists try to teach; to draw what we actually see rather than what we think we see. This author is writing what she thinks leg loofahing is about, without actually getting in the tub and testing it. Or even imagining through recollection. It's like the story is running merrily along and she captures it, thinking leg hair might be amusing, so down it goes and in it remains.

On the plus side, I guess I have learned something. While writing details, I need to really be in the scene. If I describe making a grilled cheese sandwich I need to actually walk through the process, at least mentally. The butter has to be spread. The cheese has to be unwrapped. I'll need to remember how the toasty bread lifts up like butterfly wings and the melting orange oozes over the edges if I cut it too soon and too hot.

I've learned that I need to really live the darned sandwich experience rather than assume I know what it is and say something nonsensical.

I guess I won't throw the book across the room. I'll continue reading, and see what else I can glean.

And now, I'm ready for lunch.

The Shroud is Ready

I'm continuing to process my grief through poetry. Here's this week's entry.
The Shroud is Readyby Suzanne DeWitt Hall10/23/19

The clacking bones called us
“That Bunch”
when we audaciously planted
an orgy of produce
then invaded their sacred space
to feed the hungry
doing things ways
they hadn’t been done
and making the bones very
very
uncomfortable.

That Bunch helped our pastor pack
his office this week
filling boxes with books
family photos
worn collars
a virgin baptismal stole
a diploma from Princeton
note-scrawled legal pads chronicling his call
to the sepulcher which came to reject it.

Some of the bones clacked through while we packed
making sure he’d be out by the deadline
chattering a demand
that keys be returned
that locks be changed
in case That Bunch decided to stage
a final feast
without permission.

We finished loading boxes
into vehicles
and stopped in the sanctuary
which had been draped
to protect it from debris
when roofers banged new shingles
into place
everything shrouded
as if someone had died
their house prepared
for vacancy.

A fitting place
for bones to molder
and ghosts to multiply
as the living are borne away
by the winds of grace
to continue feeding a world
desperate for love.

Rictus Victory

Rictus Victory
by Suzanne DeWitt Hall

Our church voted yesterday
to accept the resignation
of its young pastor
a gay firebrand
irritant bringer of “others”
inadequately obsequious
to the spirits of those
who’d come before.

The back pews clapped
When the vote announced
it was finished.
Skeletal hands clacking
smiles stretching wide
in rictus victory.

His time in that stone sepulcher is over
and he is gone
as are we; the queer couple
the musician dad
the single black mother and her three kids
the Moms Demand Action rep
the planter of a community garden
the tireless doer of deeds who kept the place running
the “others.”

The bones in the back pews clapped
as we wept for lost hope
for the broken world
for the pastor
for ourselves.

The bones clapped
for next Sunday
when they will hobble in
to find us gone
and they will dance
their skeletal dances
unaware
that the skin of their hands
is a mirage.

Happy to be alone
to chatter and clatter
their death dance
as the dust gathers
and the doors clang shut
leaving them to join the ghosts
who wait
and shriek
that they have won.