Editor's note: This month's nonfiction offers a bit of inspiration and "how-to" from a long-time student at the Indiana Writers Center. It is not intended as a plug for the Center, but rather as testament to the fact that success in writing, as in anything, is only achieved through hard work and persistence once the decision is made to go for it. Enjoy! From Under the Rubble By Enid Cokinos “ ’X’ never, ever marks the spot .” —Indiana Jones Nearly two decades ago, I found myself in the East-West Bookstore in Mountain View, California. It wasn’t the New Age shop’s healing crystals, Buddha statues, fragrant incense, and CDs by chanting monks that called to me, but a single book: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The red and gold cover, with a drawing of a snow-capped mountain and a flock of Pterodactyls, begged me to pull it off its perch, promising to open my life to new experiences if I would only give it a chance. I marched to the register. I was...
Flying Island is the Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center, accepting submissions from Midwest residents and those with significant ties to the Midwest.