Three Naked Ladies Playing Cellos is a beautiful collection of works from 16 of today's best authors. All of the writers are well-known in either the fiction or non-fiction arenas. Some have won prizes for their fiction.

The title is from a poem penned by one of our writers, Michelle Buckman. We feel it is about the freedom writers feel when creating and being able to express themselves by shedding all pretenses.

Three Naked Ladies Playing Cellos

Three nymphs perched unashamedly on a
precipice by the sea.
God's design in flesh and song,
beauties they stood all three.
Golden locks of angel silk they wore
as their only dress,
While strumming the music in my soul
with a fingertip caress.
Three naked ladies played cellos
on a precipice by the sea
And in my earthly self-centeredness,
I thought they played for me.

M.B


The Anthology contains the following works. Additional notes about the stories were added in brackets [] by Mary Sullivan Esseff.

Love Made Visible - by Mary Sullivan Esseff       1

Khalil knows the phrase, love one another, but to a nine-year-old it was only a saying. He learns something of its true meaning when he sees it expressed by his saintly father.
[A truly spiritual story]

Goat Lady - by Douglas C. Smyth      23

A traveling peddlar loses his professional detachment when he realizes the extent of the goat lady's vulnerability. He doesn't have time for this, you know.
[About the ravages of development on the environment and within families. Things are not what they always seem, and some things are inexorable once we intervene. We can't take back what we've done and it may turn out badly even if our intentions were good. It's also about how shiny and pretty isn't everything; the goat lady had a life and it was taken from her partly from misplaced concern, partly because of greed.]

Invisibility - by Gabriel Stevens       31

Sometimes you think you're as low as you can go, and then things really go wrong.
[A wonderful story about a homeless man]

Options - by Terry Burns      39

And what were you going to do with that gun? How can a simple knock at the door so radically change your options?
[Is it Divine intervention that prevented this suicide?]

Warriors - by Michael Ostlund      45

After more than four years of combat Major O'Malley understood the hazards but still relished the fight. His team was the best, and he owed it to his son.
[How war affects the lives of those around you; stimulate thought about those who have served, sacrificed and given so much to their country]

The Pendant - by Michelle Buckman      57

What was more symbolic of Allysia's union with Chris than her wedding band? Could losing that symbol herald some crushing tragedy?
[The trick in the story, as in life, is to separate what is true from what we only perceive to be true, and to draw factual conclusions.]

Another Time, Another Place - by James Ross Wiley      71

A boy of twelve has the chance to prove to the old woman that he is not a hooligan. The old woman has the chance to prove she is not... not what? Not an old woman?
[A time travel piece. The full book has been picked up for publication.]

The Third Virgin - by Lee Smith      91

The strange things people did to regain God's favor after those suitcase atom bombs started going off all over the crazy place - on average three a week in the U.S. alone! And what worse place to go report on such antics than the site of what had once been Hanoi!
[The Third Virgin is a tale of dystopia and yet hope at the end of the current cultural earth cycle. Sci Fi at its best. ]

Unalone - by Cindy Appel       117

Calinda is just a lone transport pilot shipwrecked on an uninhabited chunk of cosmic debris. Who is it, then, that provides for her in such familiar ways?
[This is story about a lonely person's "awakening" to love... to show that no matter how isolated or down on yourself you are, there is always the potential to love and to be loved in return. Love is what makes us "human" whatever our outward appearance may be, and it is by love we define ourselves and place in society.]

The Big Black Shiny Cadillac - by B.J. Lawry      141

On a very long road trip, don't you inevitably encounter the same nuisance vehicle again and again? Sometimes you're ready to report it to the authorities, too.
[This humorous story was inspired by an actual five-day trip across the United States with the author's mother who, indeed, was a little bird of a thing scared out of her mind to have been more than five miles away from home, and with a daughter/driver in whom she had no confidence to boot.]

Straight From The Heart - by Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández      149

Can an ill-gotten gift say what's in your heart? If it's from the heart, is it truly ill-gotten?
[A beautiful story set during Christmas, a time for telling others you love themand exchanging presents. Hilario accepts an expensive gift from his girlfriend, but cannot give her his present until several days later. She is expecting something the next day. Helped by Armando, his cousin, Hilario gives Amelia a gift straight from his heart.]

Governor Edwards' House Is For Sale - by Susan Shell Winston      157

The memories don't go with the house, do they? Can't leave them behind. The buyer won't know what to do with them.
[The four sections of this story were once separate vignettes modified to become the pivotal moments in the life of a single family. Only slight clues, a name, or an event referred to in a previous section, are given to connect these moments together. If the reader catches these clues, the story as a whole can become a gestalt, a story complete in its tragedy, with the memory of the pain it causes haunting the Edwards' family until long after their house is sold It is this title then that completes the arc, implying the final long-lasting moment of the family's tragedy.]

The Lesser Gods - by Pat Brown     161

Fabled person of the sky, meet fabled inhabitant of the planet that might have been earth. Courtesy is due, but beware of what you don't understand.
[In this excellent Sci Fi piece, the author explores the issues that might arise if a culture that is sophisticated and highly advanced met with a group of humans, isolated for centuries that are a futuristic version of the cargo cults. Moss people were originally meant to settle a planet that turned out to be too harsh for them to survive as more than primitive savages. ]

That Face - by David A. Woodbury     171

There was more to her than her face. Much more. But he loved that face.
[Many stories are constructed around the sin someone commits and its effect both on the sinner and upon the person who is directly diminished by the act. In "That Face," Donnie's father, a teacher, has apparently molested a high school girl who was his student. Perhaps he got away with it at the time. Perhaps neither party to the affair was significantly affected by it. This story shows what can happen when the sin is long forgotten and supposedly can no longer affect anyone else.]

The Day I Should Have Died - by Don Windle      179

Oh, and the stuff that makes for blood-racing fiction also happens in lived-to-tell-about-it real life. There's a big difference between imagined and remembered.
[A factual account of a war-time incident that can cause the reader to consider important aspects of life. There are junctions in people's lives such that if another path had been taken, no telling where it would have lead. Who can know the outcome if a different choice had been made?]

Mercedes - by Deb Hartrum      183

Is there anything more poignant than letting go - really letting go?
[This poignant poem was inspired by the author's brother's much too early death from AIDS. It reflects the spiraling direction his life took while he was a part of her family and as a member of the larger community.]

Number of pages: 200
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