Horse and Cart: Stories from the Country [Paperback]

Elisabeth Stevens (Author, Illustrator), Laura Schleussner (Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this slim volume, Stevens ( Fire & Water ) boldly sets about shaping and communicating the inchoate impulses of the unconscious, with sensitively drawn characters, and subtlety and economy of expression. "The Dark-Eyed Boy" enlarges a disturbing incident between a pregnant woman and a troubled boy into a complex, poignant exploration of vulnerability and victimization. In the title story, a woman who volunteers in a hospital finds herself inexplicably attuned to an indigent preacher traveling through her town. The unwilling bond persists until she is once again called to the hospital; with a chill inevitability, her patient is the old preacher. Less satisfying is the fairy-tale grotesquerie of "My Hands": under a toadstool in a garden seem to grow life forms that not only cannot be destroyed, but multiply. In "The Other People," the narrator suffers from strange urges, including a wolfish hunger for a nearby infant. But Stevens's lucidity and grace outweigh the occasional overreaching.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 99 pages
• Publisher: The Wineberry Press; 1st ed edition (September 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0961215852
• ISBN-13: 978-0961215859
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies

More About the Author

I was born in Rome, NY but now live in Sarasota, FL. I am a writer artist: I have designed and illustrated many of my books of short stories and poems. I suppose I am what is called a literary writer: I think in words AND pictures. I SEE what I write--whether it's real or imaginary. This may be because, in my "day Jobs" as a journalist I have usually written about and reviewed art. I have been art critic of THE WASHINGTON POST, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE TRENTON TIMES and THE BALTIMORE SUN, and here in Sarasota, I've written about art for the SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE and a now-defunct magazine called SARASOTA ART & CULTURE.
Sometimes, when I am circulating my poems and stories to various little magazines (with only intermittent success) I wonder if I am the only American writer left who doesn't teach "Creative Writing." Yes, I did teach Freshman English in various colleges around Manhattan when I was getting an M.A. in Contemporary Literature at Columbia, but truly, I would rather teach someone to diagram a sentence than teach creative writing. What could I say? My stories and poems come to me unexpectedly--like uninvited guests. There is someone/something at the door, and I have to answer. This isn't an experience that can be taught.
I have always been a graphic, figurative artist, but many of my works are imaginary--not real. My graphic works used to be separate and independent from my writing, but now there is often a union, a blending. I am particularly happy to have been able to bring words and pictures together in my just published SIRENS' SONGS. SIRENS' SONGS consists of 48 poems and 13 original, copper plate etchings published loose leaf in a beautiful, cerulean blue clamshell box by Goss Press. I could only afford to do an edition of 20, but the work, which follows the example of ERANOS, short story with five etchings published in 2000, makes me very happy. The correct name for this sort of art work is the French term: "livre d'artiste." I have been looking for a small press to publish a paperback facsimile of SIRENS' SONGS next year, but so far, no luck. The poems are romantic and erotic--perhaps too frank. The thirteen etchings are beautiful. They will be exhibited in Sarasota later this year at Stakenborg Fine Art.
##