When The Flowers Breathe
Alice Douglas stands across the street from Tranquility with a letter, a kitchen knife, and a broken heart. She is not sure what to expect from the Manhattan theater, or Aunt Lilith, the black sheep family member who owns it, but has nowhere else to turn. Alice quickly learns that Tranquility is not quite a theater, not quite a nightclub, not quite a bar. It is a place where orchids, dahlias, and chrysanthemums grow in the walls, where butterflies in paintings flutter their wings, and where the air smells different to each person that visits. Aunt Lilith tells Alice to listen. The people that work at Tranquility—the singers, the bartender, the receptionist—work there for a reason. For some that work at Tranquility, it is their forever home, and for others, their stay is temporary. At the end of the week, Alice must return to college. But no one leaves Tranquility unchanged.
Maureen Edwards—who writes under the pseudonym Attalea Rose—is a fiction writer native to the Pacific Northwest, from the Midwest, and currently residing in the South. She is an undergraduate student at the University of Alabama majoring in accounting and double minoring in Creative Writing and Spanish. Her short stories appear or are forthcoming in The Marr’s Field Journal, The Albion Review, Dewpoint, The New College Review, and minor literature[s]. In her downtime between business classes and homework, she can be found drafting short stories, listening to music, or reading. She can be found on Instagram @attalearose.
RED ROOK PRESS 2023
Red Rook Press is a blossoming publishing house for developing novelists and poets, with a goal to foster and premiere the creative minds of undergraduate and graduate students still establishing themselves in the writing world by giving them the opportunity to bring their voice to life.
With staff made up of undergraduates dedicated to every process of publication and a stellar collection of professional advisors, we hope to bring two new books of prose and poetry into the world every academic year. Hit the bookshelves next April to find the newest of Red Rook Press!
