Tim Carmichael
Bio
I’m a firm believer life is messy, beautiful, and too short, which is why I write poems full of heart and humor. I am an Appalachian poet and cookbook author. My book Beautiful and Brutal Things is on Amazon, Link 👇
Achievements (18)
Stories (252)
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The Language of Absence
The stovetop ticked as the burner cooled, a rhythmic, cooling sound that bit into the silence of the kitchen. John didn’t move. He sat at the pine table, his fingers tracing the wood grain, waiting. He watched the steam curl toward the ceiling, a white plume turning dull in the dim morning light. Only when the heat had settled into a low, radiating warmth did his daughter, Mara, enter the room.
By Tim Carmichael27 days ago in Fiction
The myth of the Wailing Woman. Runner-Up in What the Myth Gets Wrong Challenge.
The fog in the Holston River Valley never just hovers in place; it breathes. It drapes over the hemlocks like a thick white blanket, and when it thins, it reveals things the locals have spent two centuries trying to make sense of.
By Tim Carmichael28 days ago in Fiction
The Meridian at Founders' Ridge
The sign at the entrance was tasteful, navy lettering on cream stock, the font the sort that suggested old money had always been there, like a geological feature. The Meridian at Founders' Ridge: A Curated Community for Patriot Families. Below it, in smaller text: By Appointment or Open House. Today: 1 to 4 PM.
By Tim Carmichael28 days ago in Fiction
The Library of Possible Prefaces
If you have come this far, you have already made a mistake. The library does not let you know you are there. It appears between a tobacconist and a shop that sells umbrellas, in a city whose name I will not give you, because the name of a city is the end of a city, and this city has not yet decided what it is.
By Tim Carmichael29 days ago in Fiction
Medusa's Nest That Never Sleeps
Medusa felt Kestrel wake before she did, a slow tightening near her left temple, the turn of a narrow head testing the dark. She had given that one the kestrel’s name for its hunting patience, for the way it surveyed the middle distance as though the cave wall might suddenly take flight. The tongue began its work at once, sampling the cavern’s stale breath and bringing back its report. Cold stone, mouse droppings tucked behind the eastern wall, the mineral trace of yesterday’s rain.
By Tim Carmichaelabout a month ago in Fiction
The Persistence of Elpis
Everything disastrous in that household had been Epimetheus's idea, and Myrto had worked for the family long enough to know that when the master of the house said something like it's perfectly safe, just don't open it, the correct response was to begin mentally cataloguing which of your personal belongings could be easily replaced.
By Tim Carmichaelabout a month ago in Fiction
The Voucher Program
Tennessee's Education Savings Account program was introduced to the legislature in 2023 with a specific image attached to it. A poor child in a failing school whose parents finally have the power to do something about it. That image did most of the political work. The bill passed. The program launched. And then the data started coming in, and the data described a different child entirely.
By Tim Carmichaelabout a month ago in Humans
The Legible Child. Winner in A System That Isn’t Working Challenge.
A particular form of exhaustion arises from performing unseen tasks, distinct from the fatigue of overwork. It settles slowly, over months or years, until one day a teacher stands at a photocopier early in the morning, watching pages collate, and notices she no longer knows why she chose this profession. She gathers her papers, walks to her classroom, and begins another day of documentation.
By Tim Carmichaelabout a month ago in Humans
