About
Richelle Lee Slota (formerly known as Richard) writes poetry, novels, and plays. She is an Army vet. Her poetry chapbook is Famous Michael, her novel, Stray Son. Her non-fiction book is Captive Market: Commercial Kidnapping Stories From Nigeria. Her poems have appeared in such publications as Caveat Lector, Quercus, Rogue Agent, Pratik, One Act, Blue Buildings, engine(idling, Yellow Mama, and Yellow Silk. She lives in San Francisco. She is a Meter Mentor to women learning meter on Annie Finch’s online community, Poetry Witchery Community. Twitter: @SlotaSI77902, Facebook.
Featured Work
Stray Son
Stray Son tells the story of a Vietnam vet in the year 2000 in Santa Barbara, reduced to working for a mortuary, picking up dead bodies. One day he picks up a live one—his dead father’s young ghost, a WWII Marine who starts following him around town. The son tries to run, but, moments after the son receives word his old father just died, the young Marine knocks on the son’s trailer door. The son can no longer keep this apparition from his wife and kids. The Marine declares his mission: straighten out his stray son—and bum a ride to see his dying mother in 1942 Iowa. The son needs to go the same place in the year 2000 to attend his father’s funeral. So the young father and the old son (and his family) take their battles back to World War II where they travel across a wartime America toward the deaths of both his parents and an elusive reconciliation.
