Short Fiction
Contemporary Poetry
1 min
The Tourists Get Their Rental Car Stuck in Cannero
Linda Nemec Foster
Such an embarrassment in northern Italy: the Lake District filled with large tourists in tiny cars. Or in this case, small tourists in a big car. No matter the details, they can't find their hotel—a small boutique number on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Not as crowded as Como, but they still drive past the front door and the bewildered locals who can't imagine where they could be going with that car. Creeping down the pedestrian lane, ignoring the universal road signs (an outline of a car with a stark red line slashed across it), they take a left turn onto an even smaller road. Narrower than an alley, a footpath, a bicycle lane. The car gets stuck between a bar and a pizzeria. They can't move an inch until a kind waitress rushes out, gently frees the side mirrors, and directs them to drive in reverse down the steep path they just came from. They disappear with their car, the buildings streaked with black, black scars.
The Tourists Get Their Rental Car Stuck in Cannero was accepted as part of the MSU Library Short Edition call for work on the theme of “recovery,” in coordination with the MSU Broad Art Museum's exhibit of Beverly Fishman's art, also called Recovery.
Linda Nemec Foster has published twelve collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk, Talking Diamonds, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book) which was created with co-author Anne-Marie Oomen and artist Meridith Ridl. Her work appears in magazines and journals such as The Georgia Review, Nimrod, New American Writing, North American Review, Verse Daily, and the 2022 Best Small Fictions Anthology. She has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and awards from Arts Foundation of Michigan, National Writer's Voice, Dyer-Ives Foundation, The Poetry Center (NJ), Fish Anthology (Ireland), and the Academy of American Poets. In 2021 her poetry book, The Blue Divide, was published by New Issues Press. A new collection of flash fiction, Bone Country, is forthcoming in 2023. The first Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan (2003-2005), Foster is the founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College.
Linda Nemec Foster has published twelve collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk, Talking Diamonds, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book) which was created with co-author Anne-Marie Oomen and artist Meridith Ridl. Her work appears in magazines and journals such as The Georgia Review, Nimrod, New American Writing, North American Review, Verse Daily, and the 2022 Best Small Fictions Anthology. She has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and awards from Arts Foundation of Michigan, National Writer's Voice, Dyer-Ives Foundation, The Poetry Center (NJ), Fish Anthology (Ireland), and the Academy of American Poets. In 2021 her poetry book, The Blue Divide, was published by New Issues Press. A new collection of flash fiction, Bone Country, is forthcoming in 2023. The first Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan (2003-2005), Foster is the founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College.
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