Harrison Solow  Pushcart Prize winning American writer, former Franciscan nun, editor of a Jewish Hassidic Magazine, one of the two best selling UC Press authors of all time; earned an MFA after a three year book tour; one of the five people in the world that Harlan Ellison likes, the Writer in Residence at two British Universities, invited to lecture at Harvard & Cambridge, married to former Head of MGM, Paramount and Desilu Studios, Herbert F. Solow (Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Mannix, etc), lived in Canada for 19 years, former Executive at Advisory Council on the Status of Women, writer for celebrities (one speech now in US Congressional Records) astronauts, The Smithsonian, Hollywood, NASA, Canadian Prime Ministers and Chabad. I collect children's books,  took ten years to get a BA due to taking every course available at University, so ended up with the equivalent of four undergraduate degrees, will receive my PhD this year, find a surprising number of academics to be among the stupidest people I know, raised incomparable sons, speak Welsh, French and several varieties of English, have a soft spot for lawyers, can write backward and forward simultaneously, prefer armed truce to peace, Wales to Malibu;  Disneyland to life;  meritocracy to democracy; synagogue to church; boys to girls; Welshmen, Jesuits and rabbis to most other adults. Most comfortable speaking to large audiences, attending private formal events, and in libraries, castles, hospitals, monasteries, museums and at Gregynog. Oddly happy.

BENDITHION1
By Harrison Solow

Vulcans have an inner eyelid.
In one of the episodes of Star Trek, Mr. Spock is invaded by
a fatal parasite on a remote planet. Exposure to high-intensity light
appears to be the only cure—a treatment that would blind humans.
Because of Vulcan physiology, however, a hidden ocular membrane
descends to shut out intrusive rays, and Spock emerges intact,
undamaged by his contact with an alien world.

It turns out that y Cymry  [The Welsh] have an inner eyelid as well...

1
Bendithion means “blessings” in Welsh, though without a particularly religious
connotation. It is the title of my forthcoming epistolary novel.

Copyright © 2006, 2007 by Harrison  Solow , Nominated for the Pushcart Prize by AGNI Magazine
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THE POSTMASTER’S SONG

 First I wrote:

This is a story about love, but not about the kind of love that most people know about.  Children know about it, but then they forget when they grow up.  Grown-ups remember it sometimes in the night, but they don’t believe it in the morning.  Old people know all about it but they can’t tell anyone because they also know you can’t really tell anyone anything. People have to find things out for themselves.

Then I crossed that out and wrote..."

Copyright © 2006 by Harrison  Solow
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This man-child has a wish to feel something.
Beyond the sensations his mother said were safe.

Fire leaks slowly from the hearth to the pot-bellied stove where he keeps it.
Not enough to ignite anything. Blue flame. Blue
Beasts roar in the cavern behind his songs.
He cries at night. Thinks no one knows.
 
Next morning in the Post Office, everyone says how sweet he is, 
With his too-bright eyes, his trusting smile. No one divulges to strangers 
(Or perhaps they do not know) how easy it is to look trusting, 
When entrusting nothing to anyone.