Writing Samples
published under the name Karen Commings or C.S. Watts

                                                  From Army of Lights (Black Petals, Summer 2007) © CS Watts

I remembered Arthur's words. "Who would you like to be?" I knew in a heartbeat - Tina - blond, vivacious, lovable Tina. The stereotypical blond bombshell. The one person in the office who had no enemies no matter how stupid or insignificant her work was... I wondered what it would be like to have co-workers take me out for drinks rather than drive me to drink.

                                                                From Blue Star OTEL (Dark Recesses, 2006) © CS Watts

mainstream

..we were just talking, and he looks up suddenly toward the back of the restaurant and exclaims, 'Ice cream!' I turn around and there on a metal tray being carried by a waitress was a dish of vanilla ice cream. Nothing fancy. No syrup. No nuts. No cherries on top. Just plain vanilla. I can still see it as if it happened yesterday. As I zeroed in on it, everything around that little glass bowl blurred, became invisible. For the first time in my life I saw ice cream. Understood ice cream...

                                From The Incredible, Indelible Ice Cream Vision (Long Story Short, Nov. 2006) © CS Watts

flash

Incense fills your nostrils as candles sputter and die out. After forty minutes you made it! you rise, still and silent, place your hands together, and bow slightly to your teacher. You walk to the door and put on your shoes, careful not to step too hard with your numb feet, but the rest of you feels oh-so-alive.

                                                From The Persistence of Guilt, ("A Flasher's Dozen," Autumn 2005) © CS Watts

sci/fi

“Good morning to you, too, Ayashe,” she telepathed as she headed past the tiny furball who hummed loudly from his perch above the watering system. His incessant purring could be heard on both levels of the greenhouse. She had found him at a space station’s interplanetary store on their last stopover and couldn’t resist buying him. The tag on his collar read, “Souvenir of Earth. Rare male calico.”

                                                From Alien Intruder of Terrius (the Sun, May 31, 2004) ©) CS Watts                       

 
A pinprick point of sunlight peeked reluctantly through a hole in the cloud cover. A jaundiced, ancient iris too tired to open, it remained veiled and distant. Chilly air permeated her protective wrap and, like an uninvited camper, settled next to her body. The ruddy colored bricks of the building looked familiar. She stroked them, lightly caressing their jagged surfaces with the tips of her fingers like a lover would explore the contours of a beloved. She expected it to feel warm, but cold seeped into her skin as if freon flowed through the mortar...

                                                                From Where Memories Dwell (Black Petals, Spring 2004) © CS Watts

Essays

On the morning of my mother's funeral, she took out a slip that we had bought her at some point in the ancient past. "I was saving this for good," she said, trying to shake loose the creases embossed into the slip's silky fabric from eons of being folded. Her oldest daughter had died, and this was the occasion to which she would wear the "good" slip, under a dress that she had also "saved for good."

                                From "Saving It for Good," in The Rocking Chair Reader (Adams Media, 2005)

Poetry

Zazen

The I vanishes
amid sandalwood smoke.
Sit as a lotus -
nothing clings to earth.

            In The Golden Lantern (Winter 2007)
 

Articles

Scent marking is an identification process: it is the way cats define their space, who the members of their social group are and its fluid hierarchy, what objects populate their environment, and what determines the boundaries of their comfort zones, hunting domains, and sexual territories. Cats leave scent markers in the same way we decorate our homes with personal memorabilia. The process tells others who we are and who lives in the space. Marking other cats, animals, or humans in the social group may be simply a pleasurable part of social contact - the feline equivalent of a hug or handshake. Marking is not like installing an alarm system to keep other cats out or to claim turf.

                                                From A Cat’s Sense of Smell, (CatWatch, November 2006) © Cornell University