Publications
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The Longest Day
The dog days of August 1974 had found us at our local crag. Perched on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, Taylors Falls is a narrow gorge of billion-year-old basalt, 40-foot cliffs carved 10,000 years ago by the meltwaters of retreating glaciers. The gorge hosts over a hundred trad- and sport-climbing routes. Relatively flat ground above…
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JULIAN
ADELAIDE LITERARY AWARD ANTHOLOGY 2020 Steven Markusen Julian “Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” —Pema Chodron, The Pocket Pema Chodron Julian sits across from me in a Spartan classroom in the education department of the Duluth Federal Prison Camp. A bundle of barely restrained kinetic…
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THE WARRIOR
ADELAIDE LITERARY AWARD ANTHOLOGY 2020 Steven Markusen The Warrior “This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the…
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Grand Design
GRAND DESIGN – Non-Fiction by Steve Markusen – Author’s Note: An abbreviated version of this article was published in Rock & Ice in November of 2017. This article has been published on Dreamers website https://www.dreamerswriting.com/stories-poems/exum-ridge/ An insistent voice brought me out of the void and darkness. “What is your name? Where are you?” My eyes…
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Chasing Ghosts: Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine, January 2018
It is June 26th, 2017, six days after the summer solstice. Thad Spencer and I are chasing ghosts across Southern Minnesota. The ghosts are of course, thermals, stepping stones for cross country pilots travelling down a river of air. Thad is my mentor. Flying paragliders since 2002, he is an excellent cross country pilot and…
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Genesis on The Grand: Rock & Ice Magazine
An insistent voice brought me out of the void and darkness. “What is your name? Where are you?” My eyes opened to see a chiseled face with furrowed brow. Pain stabbed my side, and my head, arms and legs were covered in blood. I spoke softly, giving my name and our location as the Grand.…