WAID BOOKS BLOG SPECIAL EDITION: BAD GIRL TALES

It started with a call sent out to the Internet.  Please send us your short stories and poetry about being a "bad" girl and whatever that means to you.  What we received were amazing pieces from women all over the WORLD! Bad Girl Tales was a labor of love and we enjoyed every minute of putting this anthology together for you.

This 2-part blog will highlight the contributors to this wonderful anthology.  Enjoy getting to know our fabulous partners in this venture.

Available on Amazon now in Kindle and paperback!  "Bad Girl Tales"

Cassandra Dallett

Cassandra Dallett resides in Oakland, CA. Cassandra writes of a counter culture childhood in Vermont and her time of adolescence in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been published widely online and in print magazines. Her work has appeared in Slip Stream, Sparkle and Blink, Out Of Our, Up The River, Hip Mama, and The Criminal Class Review, among many others. A full-length book of poetry Wet Reckless will be released from Manic D Press in the spring of 2014.

Excerpt from The Makeout Room:

No longer in an angry room

shades drawn

a man at the end of the bed

yelling at me how horrible I am

the betrayer the slut

I may be all of those things

but for now I’ll revel in

sheets soft on bare flesh

pulsing spring time

in voluptuousness.

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Christina M. Sparks

Christina Sparks is a recent graduate of Carlow University where she studied under Jan Beatty. She is also a member of The Madwomen in the Attic and has worked with Stacey Waite and Nancy Krygowski. Her poems have been published in the Chapter and Verse section of The City Paper online and in the Carlow University Undergraduate Journal, The Critical Point. She is currently earning her masters in poetry from Pacific Lutheran University where she participates in the Mt. Rainer Writers' Workshop.

Excerpt from Hydra:

on top of the cranberry-juice-red vodka.

He hands you the drink with a flourish, packs the bowl & you smoke

until the vodka is in your veins & the weed makes your lips & lungs

numb.  Say he is the first guy you give a fuck about,

say you want him.  Mean you’re really horny & this place is warm

so you don’t want to leave; only it’s not his place

so you have to.  Say, in his car he puts his hand on your thigh,

your stockings sparkle under his hand & make you miss the stars.

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Tammy Robacker

Tammy Robacker served as Poet Laureate of Tacoma, WA in 2010-11 and she is a 2011 Hedgebrook Writer in Residence award winner. In 2009, Ms. Robacker published her first collection of poetry, The Vicissitudes. Tammy's poetry has appeared in WomenArts, Comstock Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Columbia Magazine, Floating Bridge Review: Pontoon, and the Allegheny Review. Her poetry manuscript, We Ate Our Mothers, Girls, was selected as a finalist in the 2009 Floating Bridge Press chapbook contest.

 Currently enrolled in the MFA program in Creative Writing at Pacific Lutheran University,

Tammy is currently working on a second poetry collection titled, Villain Song.

Excerpt from Badlands by Way of Bus, 1983:

until I realized

it was just another gritty teenage girl

like me. A runaway, I guessed,

strapped down with a crappy knapsack.

In a t-shirt with no bra,

and jeans that had been drawn upon

with magic marker—her thighs covered

in peace symbols, butterflies and hearts.

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Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny

Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny Currently lives in El Paso, Texas.  She has a Bachelor Degree in  Hispanic American Literature, from the University of Sonora and a Masters Degree in Humanities from, Tec de Monterrey. Sylvia has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas at El Paso,where her thesis was a translation of a book of poems by Maggie Nelson. She is the author of three short-story books: Gente Menuda (1999), No son gente como uno (2003), Nenitas (2013) and the novel Una no habla de esto (2007).

Excerpt from Plates Were Huge:

There was no way out. We barely had a few seconds to empty our plates. We started. Cut a bit of meat. Swallow some potatoes. Push a few peas. Barely touch those scary carrots. The disgusting taste of food. Chewing our Mother’s food had become a scary sport.

Marina and I tried to eat fast. Picture us like those kids on the seesaw that start slow pace but then long for speed to fly away. We wanted to fly away. We ate in a hurry. Chomp chomp every bite. But for our Mother we were slow, the slowest ever. Yes, she was already there, right next to us. Observing, her eye on us.

Plates courtesy of www.kaiandicatering.wordpress.com

  

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Maria Chippendale

Maria Chippendale was born in Worcestershire, UK in 1964. A descendant of Thomas, of furniture design fame, the creative “Chippendale” gene has passed through five generations.

An Avid writer from early years, she initially worked in design and then in Children’s Educational Services, where, as a teacher, counselor and youth worker, she founded and edited youth-led magazines and was the author of a multitude of work-related resources and publications.

With a number of poems and freelance articles published along the way, her novel “Reality Check” was published in 2011.

She has two books of poetry; “The Transient Stream & The Deathly Hush” (2013) and “Skin, Bones & Random Leaps of Faith & Foolishness” (imminent).    

Excerpt from Dragon Queen Demon:

Yet Dragon and Queen are sweet as pie

For you haven't yet met the Queen's dear Child

Whose eyes are empty darkest black

Takes no prisoners nor gives them back

Where shadows form a deathly chill

Her formless silence bears all ill

Unseen your fear will know this presence

Demonic depths of debauched malevolence

Beyond the realm of present or past

The fear you feel will pierce the heart

For she is the breath before you part.

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Yasmin Ramirez

Yasmin Ramirez is a native of El Pasoan.  She attended the University of North Texas, located in Denton, where she earned her degree in Psychology.  In 2010, she moved home to pursue her heart’s desire of writing short stories and received her MFA from the University of Texas at El Paso.  Yasmin stays active in the literary community and writes “And Then”, a weekly blog.  Her short stories have appeared in various literary magazines, and just recently received an Honorable Mention for “Tastes Like God” in the 2013 Texas Observer Short Story Contest.

Excerpt from Drum Beats:

I saw the top of the drummers head as he slouched over the drums. The beat did something, what I wasn’t sure, but I felt as if he was playing something familiar, intimate, something only I knew. How did he know my beat? I wanted to see his face to see how this stranger with two wooden sticks in his hands had found this moment, in this song. As it ended he finally raised his head and I saw the same face I had seen earlier...

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Charie D. La Marr

Charie is primarily known as a ghostwriter in the field of sports - mostly baseball. She has had at least one book go to #1 on Amazon in 2 different categories.

 Currently working to establish herself as an author in her own name, she has created a genre called Circuspunk (listed at Urban Dictionary) and has sold a book of short stories in the genre to Chupa Cabra called Bumping Noses and Cherry Pie. She also has upcoming stories in Alex S. Johnson's heavy metal anthology Axes of Evil and Shwibly Magazine, James Ward Kirk's Bones, Sydney Leigh’s Ugly Babies, In Vein for the benefit of St. Jude’s Hospital, Chupa Cabra’s We Walk Invisible, Dynatox Ministries’ The Bree, Ripple Effect for Hurricane Katrina relief, Surreal Grotesque and other anthologies. She was September's featured writer at Solarcide. She is known for writing in many different genres from crime to bizarro to erotica and even Seussian. She is currently editing a Circuspunk anthology called The New Bizarro Circus—the Greatest Show on Paper.

 A redhead with a redheaded attitude, she lives in NY with her mother and son and beloved Shih Tsu Bailey Corwin.

Excerpt from The Dressing Room:

He came up behind her. “The shoulder pads should come out,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and adjusting them as he brought his face close enough to her neck to catch a whiff of her perfume. “A soft, rounded shoulder is so much more feminine and elegant. And your hair belongs up in a proper chignon to show off your beautiful throat.” He gathered it up in his hands and lifted it. “See? Stunning. Jewelry should be kept to a minimum. One or two classic pieces. Don’t overdo it. A matte lipstick, nothing too red, a touch of peach on your cheeks and smoky eyes. And you will light up any room you enter.”

 

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ChocolatePoet

Lisa Marshall's pen name is ChocolatePoet and she is from Jacksonville, Florida.  She has been writing since she was in high school. As a child she always had an active imagination and always had stories in her head.

Her debut book titled "Confessions of My Heart and Soul" is a book of poetry that gives readers a peek into her world.

You can see ChocolatePoet on Youtube:  chocolateroses35
Follow her on Twitter: @blackbarbiepoet
Like her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/lisa.p.marshall

Excerpt from Beautiful:

I stand before this mirror with a naked body and a naked soul

Like an illusion on a deserted island everything isn’t always what it seems

I am the perfect illusion of what you want to see

When you see me on the street you think I can have any and everything I desire

But when I close my eyes I see an innocent soul that’s looking for love, trust, and respect

I am beautiful on the outside but I feel ugly on the inside

When you see me you call me beautiful and I ask myself why I am beautiful to you

Am I beautiful because of what you see on the outside instead of what’s on the inside?

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Stormy Scott

A native of Washington, DC, Stormy has been writing creatively since the age of twelve.
She is an inspirational speaker. She is the proud mother of two and Grandmother of six.  

Stormy Scott is the author of a collection of inspirational poetry  titled, “TheWoman Within”, which is currently available at www.amazon.com

Excerpt from Tekoa Raynne:

The conversation was pleasant, the lunch wonderful.  As it came to an end Tekoa was thinking now can I just give her a casual hug and be ok? H*&& no, as soon as I touch her all defenses will be blown.

“Thanks for lunch and I owe you.”  Tekoa managed to push these words out. 

“You know how to pay me.” Amari said in a cat-like voice as she left the office. 

During the drive home and for the rest of the evening, the fire just continued to burn.  It felt as if it was coming right out of her fingertips.

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J Lea

A native of northeast Pennsylvania, she currently lives in Texas with her three children, ages 6, 3 and 1 month.  She loves to read, crochet and spend as much time with her children as possible, but her passion is writing.

Excerpt from First Night:

Chloe sat the last moving box down and sat down herself.  Her decision to leave her life behind in New Mexico was hard but she did it for her children.  She moved back home to Virginia to be closer to her family and friends.

Because of social media she was able to find an old boyfriend from when she was a teenager.  The first night she and Charles talked for hours catching up.  After years of feeling down and broken, she felt great.  For months they talked when they could.

A month after moving and reconnecting with her family they decided to get together.  Even though they had talked for months she was nervous as hell.

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BGT Cover Artist - RUEL PACQUIAO RUELAN

The incredible cover for "Bad Girl Tales" was created by Ruel Ruelan of @2tontarantula Design.  Ruel is a former Marine who clamis to be an art school dropout from the Art Institute of Las Vegas specializing in Drafting and Design.  He is available for more work and can be contacted at: 2tontarantula@gmail.com

 

Our fab cover artist Ruel Ruelan!

Thank you Ruel for a fierce cover girl to represent our Bad Girl authors!

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 THANK YOU ALL FOR SUPPORTING OUR FABULOUS FIRST ANTHOLOGY!  "BAD GIRL TALES" IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!

WE ARE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE OUR NEXT ANTHOLOGY TENTATIVELY TITLED "COLORS".  WE ARE ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS NOW SO PLEASE SEND YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION, EMAIL, PHONE NUMBER AND SHORT STORY OR POETRY TO EDITOR@WAIDBOOKS.COM

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING WHAT YOU CREATE!

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