Photo Story: The Violinist

We had two winners to our December 2025 photo prompt—Emily Rivers and Cheryl Snell.

 

Play like

Play like. Play like your freshman year Bach concerto. Play like Tchaikovsky, first movement, at next week’s philharmonic audition. Play like her first wink, your uncertain hands. Play like a snowball against your back. Play like her shark smile. Play like screaming in a studio apartment. Play like breaking glass. Play like holding her. Play like pacing through long-distance calls home. Play like forgetting small words in your mother’s language. Play like running on the street with friends in a purpled childhood dusk. Play like you are watching them from the window, now, asking yourself to go downstairs and join.

 

Emily Rivers lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest, where her work is inspired by a deep love for all things wild.

 

The First Violinist Explains the Uses of Rosin

Rosining your bow is like driving on tar, or like slamming on the brakes. It’s a task bigger than a breadbox. The first time you get stoned on rosin, each step you take from the orchestra pit to the ocean of the green room has you surrounded by ballet dancers rubbing it into satin soles. It’s everywhere, has more sides than a seal, as with the bull rope that keeps you upright for eight more seconds. Or the hope a pitcher carries onto the mound in the bag of powder because it’s the best guarantee he will get a grip.

 

Cheryl Snell is a writer from Maryland who writes as revenge against reality. Her published books include poetry and fiction of all sizes.

Photographer: theilr