Whose Ghost highlights the fresh, inventive insight of young writers working in fiction, poetry, screenwriting, creative nonfiction, and more. Typically, we select 1-6 pieces of writing each month to feature on our site. *Depending on how many submissions we receive, these numbers are subject to change.

Welcome Lila Jones as our 2020 Editor! 

Lila graduated from Guilford College with a major in Creative Writing and minor in Visual Arts/Photography. Over the course of three years, she served as general staff, Prose Editor, and Social Media Manager at The Greenleaf Review, Guilford’s student-led literary magazine.

As a RYW alumna, Lila is thrilled to be giving back to a community that has meant so much to her over the years. She can’t wait to read and publish work by young writers from around the world!

Find out more about our sponsoring organization, Richmond Young Writers, here.

Like our mag name? Wonder where we got our inspiration? We’re glad you asked. We live in Richmond, Virginia, and a stunning sight you see frequently here, if you’re lucky (and a river-goer), is the blue heron. So we pored over poems about herons, and Carolyn Kizer’s work gave us wings. And a name.

The Great Blue Heron

As I wandered on the beach

I saw the heron standing   

Sunk in the tattered wings

He wore as a hunchback’s coat.   

Shadow without a shadow,   

Hung on invisible wires   

From the top of a canvas day,   

What scissors cut him out?   

Superimposed on a poster   

Of summer by the strand   

Of a long-decayed resort,   

Poised in the dusty light   

Some fifteen summers ago;   

I wondered, an empty child,   

“Heron, whose ghost are you?”

I stood on the beach alone,

In the sudden chill of the burned.

My thought raced up the path.   

Pursuing it, I ran

To my mother in the house

And led her to the scene.

The spectral bird was gone.

But her quick eye saw him drifting   

Over the highest pines

On vast, unmoving wings.

Could they be those ashen things,   

So grounded, unwieldy, ragged,   

A pair of broken arms

That were not made for flight?   

In the middle of my loss

I realized she knew:

My mother knew what he was.

O great blue heron, now

That the summer house has burned   

So many rockets ago,

So many smokes and fires

And beach-lights and water-glow   

Reflecting pinwheel and flare:   

The old logs hauled away,   

The pines and driftwood cleared   

From that bare strip of shore   

Where dozens of children play;   

Now there is only you

Heavy upon my eye.

Why have you followed me here,   

Heavy and far away?

You have stood there patiently   

For fifteen summers and snows,   

Denser than my repose,

Bleaker than any dream,

Waiting upon the day

When, like grey smoke, a vapor   

Floating into the sky,

A handful of paper ashes,

My mother would drift away.