April Lott
Excerpt
When the light tap comes at the door, Lionel hustles to answer, in the end, not brave enough to make Barney wait. He stretches up to unlock the door, fingers barely able to twist the knob. Barney stands in the doorway studying him. Lionel can’t help squirming. Barney is losing patience. Soon he will start making demands. Barney thinks he owns Lionel, the same way he owned Gillian, when she was still living, the way he owns all the parts of the circus, props, people and creatures. But Gillian was Lionel’s guaranty for staying, and now that’s she gone, well, what’s to keep him.
Bio
April Lott has a MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia. She graduated from Clarion West in 2004, and Cave Canem, a series of three summer workshops for Black poets, in 2005. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she has lived the last decade and a half in Minneapolis.
Publications
I have had poems published in the anthology To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present, and in the magazines Tiger's Eye, Flyway, Dreams and Nightmares, and others.
Writing Description
I write fantasy stories that I think are odd, maybe a bit dreamy, partly in their logic and structure, in how they leap. They tend to be quiet, giving a sense of unease. My poems usually reference myths and fairytales, and, although they are lyric rather than narrative poems, they have dense stories they are trying to illumine.
Goals
I am planning to finish two stories and two poems. The story excerpted above is one of the ones I hope to finish. It started life as a dense, cryptic poem which I was exceedingly pleased with but most were unhappy with. I'm working on a longer work (novella? short novel?) about a creepy circus owner and I thought he would be the perfect way to flesh the story of that poem out and make it into a story.
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