 Author, Carol Novack, sadly no longer among us - except for her extraordinary written works. Lucky us. We got to know and care about her, either in person or through her writing.
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New Yorker Carol Novack is a lapsed criminal defense and constitutional lawyer. Most relevant, she's a persistently re-emerging writer. A book of her poems, Living Alone Without a Dictionary, was published in Australia, where Carol received a creative writer's grant
equivalent to an NEA.
Her poetry and prose have appeared and are forthcoming in many publications, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, Anemone Sidecar, Big Bridge, Diagram, Elimae, Journal of Modern Post, Laura Hird, Mindfire Renewed, Muse Apprentice Guild, Newtopia, Noo Journal, Opium, Pindeldyboz,
Ravenna Hotel, SmokeLong, Unlikely Stories, Word Riot, Insolent Rudder & Yankee Pot Roast.
Carol's the publisher & editor of Mad Hatters' Review. Her prose poem "Destination" was selected as a "best" of webdelsol fiction. She's attempting a blog: carolnovack.blogspot.com.
Lady in Waiting was first published in Newtopia.
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The restroom attendant at the hotel was some kind of Arab, with mouth mask and long dark gown. Maybe in her forties or fifties -- hard to tell with those foreign types what age fast. Anyways, us waitresses think maybe she's got a dirty bomb in her shoes or tucked under her gown because she never looks at anyone and her eyebrows are dense over dark eyes you can't see through; and she makes gross clicking, gloating sounds and prays weird, not like us Christians. So we tell the manager she's spooking us and maybe the hotel customers too and the lady's gone one day; we sigh, thank God, great to feel safe again. We like Maureen, the new attendant, Irish and smiling.
Then a very strange thing happens. The new attendant is reading the local paper one day and I happen to see something on page 27, and there's the Arab's picture; well it looks like her but they all look alike, so I'm not sure. Anyways, she's splattered on the ground, eyes open, and there's the headline: "Widow with Six Children Jumps to Death." And the article goes on to say how the woman had recently lost her job and she was suffering from depression, according to a neighbor, and how she and her husband came here for a better life, and other stuff like that. So I ask Maureen for the page and I check with the manager 'cause I never knew the Arab's name, and it's her. And I feel sorry, I really do, but you can never be too safe. All of us girls agree.
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