Staff Spotlight: Shannon L. Bowring

Interview

What do you write? 

My focus is lit­er­ary fiction. Up until recent­ly, I wrote pri­mar­i­ly self-con­tained short fiction, but I am now working on a novel-in-stories, based on the small town where I grew up in North­ern Maine. I’m com­pelled to write char­ac­ter-driven nar­ra­tives and stories where setting, par­tic­u­lar­ly rural or wild places, plays an inte­gral role. I would also like to branch out into cre­ative non­fic­tion and memoir. There are spo­radic bursts in which I dabble in poetry. However, that is the one genre I’ll likely always keep for myself, enjoy­ing the freedom of writing ter­ri­ble poems without the pres­sure of having them read or cri­tiqued by others.

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work? 

I’ve always strug­gled to answer this ques­tion, because I tend to flit from author to author, genre to genre. There are count­less writers whose work has res­onat­ed with me, for dif­fer­ent reasons, at various points in my life and career. I love Eowyn Ivey’s use of sensory details, as well as her touch of whimsy and magical realism, in her novels The Snow Child and To the Bright Edge of the World. I absolute­ly adore Louise Dick­in­son Rich’s memoirs of her time spent living in the Maine woods in the 1930s. And with poetry, I can never resist Whitman, T.S. Eliot, or Mary Oliver. 

Why did you choose Stonecoast? 

After grad­u­at­ing from UMaine in 2012, I found mod­er­ate success as an emerg­ing writer. I pub­lished several stories, placed in a few writing con­tests, and was nom­i­nat­ed for a Push­cart. But in late 2018, early 2019, I hit a cre­ative wall and began to really doubt myself as a writer.

Around that same time, I started feeling pres­sure to find a “real” career path. I work part-time as a cat­a­loger at a public library, and in 2019 began research­ing pro­grams to obtain my Master’s in Library Science. But then on a whim, I decided to check out Stonecoast, which a friend of mine in the program couldn’t stop raving about… I loved what I read online and what I saw when I visited that friend during the summer res­i­den­cy in Freeport. I was struck by the vibrant energy among the stu­dents and faculty, and by how respect­ful and encour­ag­ing every­one was toward one another.

As with most of my major life deci­sions, I ulti­mate­ly chose Stonecoast based off that gut feeling. I intu­itive­ly knew that this program would offer me the chance to grow as a writer and to make con­nec­tions I’d never imag­ined pos­si­ble before. I also felt the program would allow me to dis­cov­er a dif­fer­ent kind of “real” career path—one of my own making, fueled by my need for a life of cre­ative expression.

I’m so glad I didn’t apply to library school.

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory? 

I loved my first res­i­den­cy at the Har­raseeket Inn this January. As a deeply intro­vert­ed, anxious person, the expe­ri­ence was a huge chal­lenge for me—but it was also an incred­i­bly affirm­ing and infor­ma­tive one. I learned so much, about my writing and about myself, and I met so many won­der­ful stu­dents and faculty members, all of whom put me at ease. It’s such a wel­com­ing, accept­ing envi­ron­ment, filled with fellow awkward intro­verts who com­plete­ly under­stood when­ev­er I had to dis­ap­pear and be alone for a while. 

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future? 

Finish that novel! And hope­ful­ly many others, as well as more self-con­tained short stories, other linked story col­lec­tions, and essays. I’d love to explore editing, review­ing books, running a local writing work­shop… Someday, when I finally have that farm­house in the country with lots of extra land, I also want to create a writers’ retreat.

I grew up in the north­ern­most county of Maine. I’ve always felt that area is either mis­rep­re­sent­ed or com­plete­ly over­looked in lit­er­a­ture (and in general), and I hope to bring more aware­ness of the region through my writing. Who knows? Maybe that’s where that far-off writers’ retreat will one day find its home…

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?   

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

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Featured Work

The fol­low­ing is a work of fiction by Shannon L. Bowring exclu­sive­ly for Stonecoast Review.

Afternoon on the Rhine

The luxury cruise liner slips its way up the wide river under dappled sun and shadow. Charm­ing post­card vil­lages cling to either sloping bank, white steeples rising into the air. Claudia has been looking forward to this—an entire after­noon free from tourists pushing and shoving to get pic­tures of crowded cathe­drals and cob­ble­stone squares. No awkward, failed attempts to speak to the local people in foreign lan­guages, no hag­gling shop­keep­ers over the price of a cuckoo clock. Mostly, though, this after­noon is a much-needed rest from all the damned walking she and Bernie have been sub­ject­ed to over the past week.

A year ago, Claudia would have loved wan­der­ing from bakery to bakery, shop to shop, Bernie at her side. But ever since the acci­dent last October, walking for long dis­tances has been dif­fi­cult, even with the ebony cane her son, Seth, picked out for her from an antique shop back home.

“Another drink, ma’am?”

Claudia looks up from where she sits at a round white table on the sun deck of the ship. A server with thick, dark eye­brows and a severe widow’s peak smiles down at her.

“No, thank you, Darius,” she says, handing over her empty cock­tail glass. “But I suspect my husband might want some­thing when he joins me in a few minutes.”

“I vill come back, of course.” Each word drips with a heavy Eastern Euro­pean accent. Last night, she over­heard the young, gig­gling bar­tenders say Darius is from Romania. Claudia has never been to Romania before, or known anyone else who has, for that matter. She’s always thought it seems like a place of legend more than an actual country. Then again, she used to think that about most places other than her little home­town in rural Maine. 

“Tell me, Darius. How many trips have you made up and down this river on this boat?”

“Too many times to count. Alvays one vay, then the other. Back and forth, back and forth.”

“Don’t you get sick of it?”

“Vith guests like you, ma’am?” he says, “Never.” He winks before setting off for the back of the ship, his long stride full of purpose.

Claudia guesses that Darius is about Seth’s age, maybe a little older. Cer­tain­ly not a day past twenty-five. She wonders what Seth is doing at this very moment, con­sid­ers sending him a quick email to tell him about the potato dumplings she and Bernie ate last night in Cologne, a dish so simple and yet so perfect that they both asked for seconds. But she thinks better of it at the last moment and tucks her phone into her bag. She settles back in her seat and watches as the river flows by. Time is like molasses today, passing so slowly it might almost cease to exist. Claudia wouldn’t mind if it did. She wouldn’t mind that at all.

At six feet, seven inches tall, with a body built like a bear, heavy with muscle, Bernie can’t help but cast a big shadow wher­ev­er he goes. That shadow has hidden and shel­tered Claudia for thirty years, ever since they got married at the Dalton town office one humid June morning a week after their high school grad­u­a­tion. It covers her now on the sun deck of the Frigga, cre­at­ing a momen­tary spot of cool­ness on the back of her neck. Bernie eases himself into the seat next to her and reaches over to squeeze her hand.

“Did you win, dear?” she asks. 

“Karl cheats.”

“Does he really?”

“No, damn it. Man’s just better at chess than I am. Did I tell you he and Jackie own sixty acres in Vermont?”

Claudia has heard this at least twice since they met Karl and his wife at dinner the first night of the trip. “No, dear,” she says. “I don’t think you did.”

Bernie scratch­es his bearded chin. “If we had sixty acres, we could have chick­ens. Cows. Hell, you could even have horses like you’ve always wanted.”

“I don’t imagine riding would be com­fort­able anymore.”

They glance first at her cane leaning against the table, then at her right leg. Though it’s covered with her jeans now, Claudia knows they are both pic­tur­ing the ugly, still-red scars running along her calf and halfway up her thigh.

“Well,” Bernie says. “Some­thing to think about, anyway.”

They gaze out over the calm river, the vil­lages, the ter­raced hills. It’s the first time abroad for either of them and Claudia knows it will be the last. The trip was a sur­prise anniver­sary present from Seth and his fiancée. It had felt wrong to let them cover such an extrav­a­gant expense, even with Avery’s fancy job at her father’s yacht club in Port­land and Seth’s recent pro­mo­tion at his IT company. But to refuse the trip would be an insult to them both, so Claudia had gone along with the whole silly idea. “It’ll be good for you, Ma,” Seth had said. “I think some dis­tance will help.” Three weeks in Europe, a grand adven­ture, one most people would be ecsta­t­ic about. Yet she had wanted to flee back home to North­ern Maine as soon as the enor­mous jet began to taxi down the runway in Boston.

She should feel lucky; Claudia knows this. She hears it all the time, from doctors, from friends, from people in their small town. Mellie Martin stopped her on the side­walk outside the library just a couple weeks ago to tell her how blessed she is to have sur­vived the acci­dent, “even with all the rest of it.” Claudia had offered a tight-lipped smile before limping away, her cane tapping out a fal­ter­ing stac­ca­to every other step.

“Have you had any­thing to drink yet?” asks Bernie.

She can still taste the floral sweet­ness of her last cock­tail in the back of her throat. “No,” she says. “I was waiting for you.”

Darius returns to take their orders. A beer for Bernie; gin and tonic for Claudia.

“Vill anyone else be joining you?”

Claudia is about to say no when she sees Karl and Jackie ambling toward them arm-in-arm. At Bernie’s invi­ta­tion, they take the remain­ing seats on the oppo­site side of the table. Claudia tries to smile and appear gra­cious, but she’s dis­ap­point­ed. It would have been so nice to sit here with her husband and not talk for a couple hours.

Karl orders a scotch on the rocks, and Jackie asks for a glass of red wine. Darius sets off at a brisk pace to fetch their drinks, leaving the four of them to make small talk.

“Sun’s trying to come out.”

“Fore­cast didn’t call for so much cloud cover.”

“But don’t the shadows make for inter­est­ing colors on the land­scape? Wish I had my canvas and paints with me.”

“I’ll take a picture for you, Karl, darling. You can try to recap­ture it when we get back home.”

“Oh, there goes the sun again.”

Karl and Jackie are older than Claudia and Bernie by at least a decade, but they both look younger. Karl is tall and slim, with a swimmer’s body, blonde hair and blue eyes. Jackie has snowy-white hair that she wears swept back from her high fore­head. Her eyes are a bril­liant green, her com­plex­ion smooth and bright. Claudia, whose wrin­kles began to gather at the corners of her eyes and mouth years ago, dyes her dark brown hair to mask the unruly grays that seem to mul­ti­ply by the dozen every month.

Darius returns and hands out their drinks. Claudia wonders if he has a girl­friend here on the ship, or a boyfriend, or maybe both. He winks at her again. “Vould anyone like any­thing else?”

“No, thank you,” says Claudia. “I think we’re all set for the moment.”

“Isn’t he a darling?” asks Jackie after Darius has once more dis­ap­peared. “This is the third cruise Karl and I have taken with this company, and I must say, the staff are always so accom­mo­dat­ing and personable.”

“Third cruise?” asks Bernie. “All here in Europe?”

“This is our first Rhine river excur­sion. We did the Danube last year, and the Seine before that.”

“Sights on the Mekong for the next one.” Jackie beams at Karl.

“Hear that, Claudia?” Bernie muses. “The Mekong. Can you imagine?”

Claudia takes a long time swal­low­ing the gin in her mouth. She closes her eyes, savor­ing the taste—so cool, so light, so lovely. “I’ve heard Vietnam is beautiful.”

Bernie leans forward, held at rapt atten­tion as Karl goes on about rice paddies and float­ing markets. Claudia feels herself drift­ing away from the con­ver­sa­tion. She watches as another ship pulls into dock at a small village. Guests onboard catch sight of the Frigga, wave with wide, wild arms. 

A long-buried memory comes surging up to the surface, pow­er­ful enough to make Claudia feel as though the wind’s been knocked out of her. She remem­bers a muggy August day at their family camp on Moose­head Lake. Seth was four years old, skinny little thing in his red swim­ming trunks and white t‑shirt. Denise, his six-year-old sister, wore a glit­tery purple bikini she’d select­ed from the tourist shop in Greenville. Bernie had taken the kids out for a ride in the boat that after­noon while Claudia remained on the dock with a book and a sweat­ing glass of lemon­ade. He kept driving the boat past the dock at Denise’s insis­tence, just so the little girl could wave and grin to her mother. Claudia had waved back every time, laugh­ing at Denise’s energy, amused by Seth’s white-knuck­led caution as he crouched in the bow, clutch­ing the orange life vest that pushed his ears up into his shaggy, brown hair.

She wishes she could excuse herself from the table to call her son, hear his voice over all the miles between them. In the first weeks after the acci­dent, Seth had been around all the time—sitting by Claudia’s hos­pi­tal bed after each surgery, cooking for her and Bernie, driving her to her phys­i­cal therapy appoint­ments. But after Christ­mas, Seth went back down­state, back to Avery and her big, bright ocean­side condo. By Feb­ru­ary, he was only texting once every few days, saying the four-hour drive back north was just too long; maybe he’d come up the next week, or the one after that. Avery had called Claudia one day to talk about it. “He loves you more than any­thing,” she said. “It’s just that he was there that night too, you know? And he still hasn’t really dealt with that.”

Claudia real­izes that the others have fallen silent and are looking at her expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “What were you saying, Jackie?”

“Just that we’ve been on this boat togeth­er for a week, and I feel like we hardly know each other. Tell us, do you have children?”

Claudia waits for Bernie to answer.

“Our son, Seth, is twenty-three. He’s getting married next summer.”

“How won­der­ful! What does he do for work?”

“Some­thing to do with com­put­ers. Way above our heads.”

Karl laughs. “We’ve long since stopped pre­tend­ing to under­stand what our kids do, haven’t we, Jack?”

“With six of them, some­times it’s just enough to know they’re not living in squalor.”

“Six?” asks Claudia.

“Two togeth­er and two each from our pre­vi­ous mar­riages,” says Karl. “Family reunions are a nightmare.”

“Espe­cial­ly when you add in all the chaos of the little ones. Seven grand­kids so far, and another on the way. Do you see any in the future for your son and his fiancée?”

Bernie fin­ish­es his drink in one quick swallow. “Well, Seth and Avery don’t plan on having any, but we actu­al­ly do have a grand­daugh­ter, Ella. She’ll be five next month. We don’t get to see much of her, though. She lives with her father in New Hampshire.”

Karl and Jackie frown, trying to understand.

“She was our daugh­ter’s,” explains Bernie. “But Denise passed away last fall.”

“Oh, my good­ness, I am so sorry,” says Jackie, cov­er­ing her mouth with a smooth, slim hand. “And here we are prat­tling on about all our kids as if…”

As if you have enough to spare, thinks Claudia.

Jackie taps her finger on the rim of her wine glass. Karl twirls the ice in his tumbler.

“Look at that,” he says. “The clouds are break­ing up.”

Darius returns, and Karl and Jackie both order the same of what they had before. Bernie declines the offer for a second beer. Claudia asks for another G&T, heavy on the G this time, with extra lime if Darius can manage that. “I vill of course make that happen, ma’am,” he promis­es, and once again, he comes through for her. She sucks on a lime wedge as Bernie asks Karl and Jackie about their place in Vermont.

“The prop­er­ty taxes are high, there’s no getting around that. But we have pigs, chick­ens, a few goats…”

Claudia stares into her glass, traces the progress of the bubbles rising to the surface of her drink. If she bends her ear close enough, she can hear them pop and fizz. She takes a long sip, rel­ish­ing the light floral taste float upon her tongue.

Denise’s drink of choice was wine. Claudia used to fret over what people might say if they knew just how much Denise loved wine. The trouble started when the girl was fifteen. Parties, booze, a string of loser boyfriends, a group of drug-skinny girl­friends who remind­ed Claudia of vipers, always thirsty for blood. Claudia and Bernie thought things would change after Denise found out she was preg­nant when she was twenty. And for a while, it was better. She got sober and moved in with Brandon, who worked at the lum­ber­yard with Bernie. She even began taking some online courses in medical tran­scrip­tion, just as Claudia had done years before. But by the time Ella was three, Denise was back at it again, drink­ing one or two bottles of wine a day, ignor­ing all the demands of moth­er­hood, often dis­ap­pear­ing for days at a time and return­ing hun­gover, claim­ing not to remem­ber where she had been or who she had been with. Brandon didn’t tol­er­ate this for long. He quit his job at the yard and left town, taking Ella with him back to his mother’s house in North Conway.

Looking out across the river, Claudia sees a village of white houses with red roofs and wonders what it would be like to live there. To leave every­thing she knows and dis­ap­pear here instead. She could choose a new name, sell post­cards to tourists, let her hair turn as gray as it wants. She’ll be that strange Amer­i­can who lives with seven cats in a studio apart­ment above a restau­rant that always smells like schnitzel and beer.

Darius appears at her side again. He is leaning toward her, smiling, handing her another drink, and Claudia is so pleased by this that she grabs his wrist and holds on, blink­ing up at him. His face swirls above her. He gently pulls free from her grasp and walks away without looking back, shoul­ders pushed up to his ears.

Only then does she notice that Bernie, Karl, and Jackie are staring at her, frowns creas­ing their foreheads.

“How about that man?” she asks. “Do you think Dracula was ever so hand­some as him?”

No one answers. Claudia drinks.

Ahead of them now is the famous Lorelei, a massive rock crouch­ing over the Rhine, block­ing the view of what lies beyond the bend of the river. Claudia has heard the tour guides tell about the Lorelei, the siren who sits high upon the cliff and combs her long, golden hair, luring sailors to their untime­ly deaths upon the rocks below. Claudia knows it’s just a story, a silly little folk­tale. But still, she swears there’s some­thing about the cliff that really does feel haunted, as though she can sense the rever­ber­a­tions of all the past men, real or imag­ined, who crashed upon those rocks and slipped breath­less beneath these waters.

She feels some­thing similar each time she passes the stretch of road back home where a spindly white cross slumps on the shoul­der of the pave­ment. In the weeks after the acci­dent, that cross had been wrapped in a pink bow, teddy bears and pho­tographs and garish car­na­tions lit­tered at its base. Now, eight months since Denise died, it’s just the cross that remains, weath­ered by wind and rain and a winter that didn’t want to end. Claudia never did figure out who put it there—one of Denise’s old friends, maybe, or a long-for­got­ten teacher who once thought the girl showed some poten­tial. Not that it matters. They had never been a reli­gious family, and in the end, that cross was nothing more than two pieces of plywood marking the spot where Denise had drawn her last breath.

“Are you two going on the dinner tour in Rüdesheim tonight?”

“We’ll prob­a­bly stay on the ship. Claudia’s leg has been both­er­ing her.”

“Not to be indel­i­cate,” Jackie says, “but might I ask what hap­pened? You just seem so young to be using a cane, dear.”

“We were in a car acci­dent,” Bernie answers after a drawn-out silence. “The whole family. I just had a few bumps and bruises, but our son frac­tured some ribs and sprained both wrists. Claudia broke her leg in two places.”

“I broke mine once,” says Karl. “Took months to recover. How long ago did it happen?”

Bernie looks away, toward the gray-green shore. “Last fall.”

“Was that how you lost your daugh­ter?” Jackie’s voice is soft.

Claudia doesn’t under­stand what makes people think it’s accept­able to ask this ques­tion, poke their greedy fingers into grief that isn’t theirs. Damn voyeurs. She fin­ish­es the remain­der of her drink in one sloppy gulp and gazes toward the cliff looming over the river. It’s closer now, maybe a hundred yards away, and looks as though it’s rushing at them instead of them moving toward it. Claudia had had the same sen­sa­tion that cold October night when Denise swerved sud­den­ly into the oppo­site lane of Route 11, right into the path of an oncom­ing eigh­teen-wheeler. For the briefest of moments, time had stopped, and all that existed was that truck bearing down on them, closer and closer and closer.

It hap­pened so fast. One moment Claudia had been lec­tur­ing Denise about seeking vis­i­ta­tion rights with Ella, now that Denise was in AA and working at the grocery store; the next moment Denise was sobbing and speed­ing toward the log truck, knuck­les white against the wheel, and Bernie and Seth were shout­ing from the back­seat, and Claudia did the only thing she could think to save her daugh­ter, to save them all. She threw herself over the center console and yanked the steer­ing wheel from Denise’s hands, over­cor­rect­ing the vehicle back into their own lane and onto the shoul­der, up and over and down and over again.

Later that night, as Claudia lay in a hos­pi­tal bed woozy from drugs and pain and shock, the police told her that Denise’s blood-alcohol level had been twice the legal limit. “Impos­si­ble,” she had insist­ed. “She’s working the program. She has a job. She’s doing better.” Bernie and Seth would help Claudia piece it togeth­er later—Denise’s lies about attend­ing meet­ings, the truth that she had been fired for steal­ing booze, that Brandon had called that morning to tell Denise he was peti­tion­ing for full custody of Ella.

But none of the facts mat­tered to Claudia. All that mat­tered was that she’d killed her only daugh­ter. She’d killed her trying to save her.

Jackie is reach­ing out, saying some­thing. Claudia ignores her and stares up at the Lorelei rock, prac­ti­cal­ly on top of them now, its shadow block­ing the sun, and swears she sees a flash of gold at the top of the cliff. As the ship rounds the bend, she cranes her neck for a better look. And there it is, not a myth but some­thing solid, some­thing real, a woman in white at the top of the rock, combing her long hair and smiling down upon the river.

As sud­den­ly as the woman appears, she van­ish­es. Claudia blinks, trying to find her again, but there is nothing there other than trees and mossy green rock. Jackie is still talking, her voice low and mur­mur­ing like water rushing over pebbles.

“People must tell you how lucky you are to have survived.”

“All the time,” says Claudia.

Jackie shakes her head, gazes out toward where the river kisses the summer sky. “Clue­less idiots.”

Darius reap­pears, this time stand­ing on the oppo­site side of the table. If Claudia were sober, she’d be offend­ed. Bernie asks for an iced tea, and Karl agrees to another scotch. Jackie asks for two gin and tonics. 

“And Darius,” she says, nodding toward Claudia, “put hers on our tab.”

The Frigga con­tin­ues its way up the river, all the clouds gone, the sun out to stay. Later, Claudia will succumb and email Seth, tell him about those potato dumplings, and about the castles on the hills, and the post­card vil­lages where she will never live. Wish you were here, she will say. Sounds great, Ma, Seth will write back, tomor­row or the next day, or maybe a few days after that. Weather been all right? Neither of them will mention his sister. But she will be there, unseen inside the spaces between the words, and Claudia will know with absolute cer­tain­ty that Denise… Denise would have written so much more.

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