L. Shapley Bassen

FICTION

BLUE MONKEYS

Keywords for BLUE MONKEYS: archeology, Atlantis, Bronze Age, copper, Costa Rican, Crete, Dominican, eruption, fiction, Fordham University, human genome, Juilliard, Kenyan, LI, Linear A, manhattan, Mexican-American, Minoan, Moslem-American, Orient Point, pandemic, Phaistos Disk, Rockefeller University, Santorini, Seattle, Shoshone, St. Bart’s, synesthesia, Thera, upmarket, Upper West Side, volcano.

By the end of May, BLUE MONKEYS [72,000 words] was complete! 

The novel begins in Spring, 2019, as NY Times journalist David Rochester and his TV star husband Alan Tapley move from LA with their twin toddler sons & Nanny Mercedes to the ninth floor of a NYC Beaux Arts apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Here, the people and events they encounter include both the autumn arrival of a new tenant who is murdered within a month, translators of Minoan Linear A — and a global pandemic. What begins as a New York story expands over space and Time, from Manhattan to Minoan Crete, from the Hamptons to Yellowstone & Seattle. The ‘first end of the world in Bronze Age Atlantis’ didn’t end it. Blue monkeys still dance on walls.

Hillary’s Classmate was published in the May/June 2021 issue of The Writers and Readers’ Magazine. Go to thewritersandreadersmagazine.com/ for details.

You can also order an issue through Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B096LWK95D/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_MMTF450QQ89X4B9WS81K

Image courtesy of Mike Stanko

April 17th, 2021:
National Poetry Month Promopalooza – L. Shapley Bassen

April, 2021
The Writing Disorder will publish “Annual Rites” in summer 2021 issue. http://writingdisorder.com/l-shapley-bassen-fiction/

March, 2021
New Kansas journal; Choeofpleirn Press published How It Began, in premier journal, Coneflower Cafe. https://www.choeofpleirnpress.com/home
Print copy at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1073421
Also at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YQMCHMY/?coliid=I1PX7OVEDJ9GB2&colid=1JOIZVEEOIEYD&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

New poetry published since last June 

March, 2021
A Host of Vermillion Poppies from SCENE & SAID by Whispering Prairie Press in Kansas for issue 16 of Kansas City Voices. http://www.wppress.org/kcv16-digital-available/

February, 2021 
Grisaille, 2020 – Physicists at the Beach – Past Life Experience — Salix Babylonica

Four Poems – L. Shapley Bassen

October, 2020
After the Race ‘Best of Kindness’ anthology –  Origami Poems Project
https://www.origamipoems.com/random-acts-of-poetry/origami-contest#after-the-race-l-shapley-bassen
Print copy: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Kindness-Origami-Poems-Project/dp/B08L9PNGVS   

Losing Luster, by L.Shapley Bassen
Published in Issue No. 284 ~ January, 2021

POETRY

June, 2020

“A Host of Vermillion Poppies” from SCENE & SAID by Whispering Prairie Press in Kansas for their next issue 16

“Brain Coral” and “Freckles 55th edition of Welter http://blogs.ubalt.edu/welter/contributors/ Print issue

May, 2020

“Entanglement” and “Ram Dass Is Ready to Die” https://oyedrum.com/were-tied-up-in-knots/

April, 2020 https://issuu.com/themuse_magazine/docs/supplementary_magazine_april_2020 “COVID-19”is the first one in this special issue, page 9

“Physicists at the Beach” https://www.amazon.com/Gyroscope-Review-Spring-poetry-around-ebook/dp/B08692TM4F/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2EA2121KNBYKI&dchild=1&keywords=gyroscope+review&qid=1594656947&sprefix=Gyroscope+Review%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-2

February, 2020

“Higg’s Moment” accepted by The Journal of Undiscovered Poets

November, 2019

“Gertrude’s Letter to Hamlet” is read/audio starting at 23:00 at https://www.patreon.com/posts/story-of-howl-31051538?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=postshare

FICTION 

September, 2020

“The Night Before the Snow Day” will appear in Lunch Ticket Amuse-Bouche. https://lunchticket.org/

June, 2020

“The Rains Down in Africa” https://persimmontree.org/summer-2020/the-rains-down-in-africa/

May, 2020

“A World of Mirrors” [Chi Wing, short]. https://oyedrum.com/?s=Bassen

April, 2020

“St. Anthony, St. Jude, and Deborah Walk into a Bar…” was a contest runner up & appeared at https://jerryjazzmusician.com/2020/04/st-anthony-st-jude-deborah-walk-into-a-bar-a-short-story-by-l-shapley-bassen/

“The Dead Are Always With Us” https://www.unlikelystories.org/content/the-dead-are-always-with-us

March, 2020

“Roger Williams Is an Anthem” in Fiction Friday at

https://manquemagazine.com/2020/03/27/fiction-friday-roger-williams-is-an-anthem/

I have a new story in the February 2020 issue of thewritersandreadersmagazine.com:

Cabochons, starts on page 94, right hand side .. continues through 98 — last story in the magazine!

You can read the story at:
thewritersmagazine.readmag.online/read/28669/full?page=94
Print is available, payment in pounds.

My first poetry collection titled WHAT SUITS A NUDIST is published!

Here is a description from the Clare Songbirds Publishing House:

“To read Lois Bassen’s poetry is to be led by a priestess into a place that is part laboratory, part seraglio, part garden, part observatory and part weapons forge. This learned lady with the nicely turned ankle will show you her intricate and ingenious machines, that contain a bronze and amethyst bird that will sing on the hour. Mistress of metamorphosis, blue-stocking, dangerous mother and wry comedian, she’ll carry you off if you’re not careful.”

~Frederick Turner, Founders Professor, School of Arts & Humanities, UT Dallas

You can order the book by following this link:

www.claresongbirdspub.com/featured-authors/l-shapley-bassen/

Other News:

9/15/19 “Finding Factors of Very Large Prime Numbers” accepted by thricefiction.com and will in late December or early January in 2020.
9/9/19 “Resistance to Decoherence” was accepted by Berlin’s www.thewildword.com
8/30/19 Woven Tale Press accepted “Denatural Selection”. This is especially nice because the fiction editor was a creator of the Ploughshares magazine.

3 pieces of poetry news beyond the book/collection:
9/19/19 “Poet’s Tachycardia” will appear in the British 12/15/2019 Issue 40 of The Blue Nib https://thebluenib.com/
9/13/19 “Ebbtide” was accepted by Gyroscope Review http://gyroscopereview.com
Press nominated “Where the Well Was – 2017” for the 2019 Best of Net http://bit.ly/2k9PElm

 

My short story Thaw was chosen to appear in the 10th anniversary issue of the Westchester Review.

The issue is available through Amazon