Marilyn Hope

Marilyn Hope is a queer writer and visual artist who studied English literature at the University of Denver, where she was a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize. Her watercolor and oil portraits were featured in Chapiteux’s 2016 Winter Solstice Art Showcase. In 2019, she received first place in CRAFT’s Short Fiction contest, and was an Editor’s Choice winner for CRAFT’s Creative Nonfiction Award in 2021. One of her short stories was recently published in Mud Season Review.

NOSEBLEED WEATHER by Marilyn Hope

Twelve-year-old Tibby Wallace takes the winter with him when he dies, but it’s an act of rage. Summer scrapes through the valley overnight. Pollens convulse, lakes flood. Hundreds of snowshoe hares wear their December-whites in the sudden verdure; easy prey for owls, foxes, Mazzie Mako’s feral cats. Soft, torn bodies everywhere. Tibby evokes eight-foot-tall stalks of hogweed from every ribcage, furious and toxic to the touch. But it’s the yarrow that spells murder to me and Cricket. “Never seen anything natural grow in such straight lines,” Cricket says, studying the row of rusty blossoms that slit across the town limits…

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