Community Update

Mt. Airy author Janet Mason unveils new work at  the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergies Pub, Wednesday, June 25th at 7 pm.  Fergies is located at 1214 Samson Street in Center City Philadelphia, 19102

Janet will be reading with her partner, Barbara McPherson on percussion and the evening is themed "Love and Marriage."

Here is an excerpt from Janet's recently completed Art: a novel of revolution, love and marriage: 

(1977)

Art strode from the counter, past the grill and the fryers and into the backroom.  She tore her yellow headscarf off triumphantly as she clocked out.  Then she put on her sweater and her padded royal blue jacket and slammed the metal back door behind her.

The sun was setting. It was about ten after five and her brother was scheduled to pick her up at five thirty. Art stood behind the building and put up her hood and looked up at the sky.  It was streaked pink and violet and long white wisps of clouds unfurled in banners.  She saw what looked like a single bright star come out from behind a cloud.  She watched it for a moment.  It stayed in one place and was a star, not an airplane.  It was bright enough to be a planet -- either Jupiter or Venus.

She thought about the fact that the star was light years away.  Maybe her junior year physics teacher had been right.  Maybe they were made from the stars they wished on. Atoms were spinning around in her body. Most of them were made from stardust. Art would never admit it -- in physics class last year, she had just rolled her eyes along with the others -- but the fact was that she did have dreams.  She wished that she could be with Linda forever. She wished that Linda's mother would stop telling her daughter that it was a waste of time to study trigonometry and that she would stop telling Linda that her life was going to turn out just like hers. She wished that Linda would stop seeing Mark.  She stared at the star.  It was so bright that it seemed to be burning a hole in the winter sky.  She wished that she and Linda could make a life together.  She wished that they could get married.  She wished that they could even have a kid or two if Linda wanted to. But first they had to get through this last year of high school. Getting into the trig class would be easy compared to the rest.  

Janet Mason is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. She is the author of Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters.