365 Short Stories: Catching Up!

It’s time to play catch-up on my short story daily project. While I seemed to be able to commit to reading every day, I find it difficult to find time to write a review post for each week. I’m way behind. Here’s a synopsis of what I’ve learned in the past 50 stories (plus or … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories: Eight More Days, The Bay Area

My LOVE theme spilled over into another week and wrecked my tidy little plans to post a 7 day week-in-review for 365 Short Stories. Love will do this. Wreck plans. In the similar way, vacations will knock systems off-kilter. If you’re just joining in, I review an on-line short story every day of the year … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories: Week 6 (and a few days), Love

A few week ago, I fell in love again. For me, it only takes a small opening. I felt the zing in my chest, found 8 pm energy even as the sky fell grey with rain and sleet, and wanted to talk about my new beloved to everyone. I tend to fall in love easily … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories: Week 5, Mother Figures

Something pretty interesting happened at 365 Short Stories this week–remember, the choices are random. They were all about mothers. Beginning with Robin MacArthur’s beautiful story at Shenandoah, “Wings, 1989″ and ending with a visual narrative brief by Amy Porter in First Inkling, each story this week featured a narrator whose close observation of a mother/grandmother … Continue reading »

47 Flat Street Gets Some Love Letter Lovin’

February rolled in with biting temperatures, yet stalwart romantics flocked to an empty storefront bedecked in sheets of cardboard painted red. As the night progressed, so did the interactive art installation called One Thousand Love Letters, a project conceived by Dalia Shevin, an artist in Brattleboro, Vermont. Dalia’s goal is to save the love letter, … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories: Week 4, Discontent

I do this: read one short story on-line, each day, every day, and I am doing it for 365 days. Why? I need to know what’s going on out there and what I mean by that is this: I need to know what’s going on right here, as in, right in front of me on … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories: Week 3, Short

I must have had a busy week or maybe I’ve got the flash bug that Robert Vaughan talks about in his 2010 interview at Lake Effect: Flash Fiction Fridays, because all of the stories from Week Three, we’re very short. So, in deference to the form, I’ll keep this post brief. What I gleaned from … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories in 2013: Week 2, Family

Week Two of my New’s Year’s Challenge and I find myself looking forward to reading shorts on-line in the way I use to look forward to unwrapping the tiny wrapped packages in my Christmas stocking when I was kid. The big presents were great! But the little ones were shinier, extra sweet, and more and … Continue reading »

365 Short Stories in 2013: Week 1, Death

Seven days is as good a number as any to take stock of my New Year’s resolution experiment, a Facebook Group, 365 Short Stories in 2013, “a forum where I give a brief review of a short story that may be read on-line, one a day, 365 this year.” One of the group members, a … Continue reading »

An Idea, A Flash

I never know how or when a story will come, or where I’ll be when an image or a phrase drifts into my consciousness and lands. Some people carry paper with them everywhere they go, or at least know how to use their Smart Phones to take notes better than I do. I’m not an … Continue reading »