Jean Esteve

Written By Joe Smolen

Her land-line answering machine prompted, “This is Jeannie. Leave a message on the machinie.” Her feet the same size as popsicle sticks, everything else except her personality in that proportion, Jean Esteve mysteriously considered herself a “failed writer,” never mind she’d published hundreds of poems in many Literary Magazines such as Iowa Review. Cornell scholar, and raison d'etre of the Oregon Coast writer’s group Tuesday, Jean Esteve could just as well have escaped from a bottle into the 21st century, as been born. I repeat that during the heady twenty-five weeks in which my novel Lostine emerged, Jean Esteve’s unhesitating, emphatic “YES! Absolutely, that is publishable!” is the key reason we have the sublime story Lostine at all. No question, the force of Jean Esteve’s persona entirely suspended my disbelief in myself as a writer.

Joe Smolen

Joe C. Smolen, AKA L.W. Smolen is an Oregon Coast writer of insufficiently exaggerated notoriety. Never having been arrested, he lives with his wife Sherrie and the ghost of their black, Standard Poodle Rico Suave in a really pretty good, Prairie Style house they built themselves. Since the Literary Magazine Fleas on the Dog of Kitchener, Ontario has permanently stopped accepting submissions, in order to read L.W. Smolen’s 2021 short fiction, A Real Guy, you are referred to joecsmolen.com. Some of L.W’s other, subsequent short fictions are archived at Olive Tree Review, Ginosko, Cardinal Sins Journal, Wrath Bearing Tree, Wilderness House and etc. Kirkus reviews once interpreted his work favorably.

https://joecsmolen.com
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