February 28, 2024
February 26, 2024
The social worker in the office asked me how long I’d been homeless. I told him for two or three days. That was how long it had taken me to feel destitute on the street and seek help. His next question: Any relation to the man of the same name already in residence at the shelter?
Can it be? I wondered.
February 22, 2024
poised to catapult, tumble in such a way they remain reposed, even when aloft in a flourish of pizzicato bluster.
February 21, 2024
He’d pretty much decided he was going to enlist, thinking the navy would be better than just getting drafted and sent to who knows where in Vietnam. Will knew how to act in a bar because he’d gone with his older brother John to St. Jean’s Social Club many times; he knew you just keep to yourself or shout “yeah right” in reply to a joke or to deflect an insult.
February 19, 2024
Snowflakes
– winter’s love valentines –
not only for one day or one night,
but for the entire season.
February 18, 2024
Story setting is more than just the physical stuff. It’s the mood and culture, period and genre, and many other things all wrapped into one. But it’s worth parsing out to find the sticky spots in your work that need more detail.
February 15, 2024
The Black Swans of Harlem is as steeped in history as the dance of ballet itself, yet time and culture have kept much of its story buried.
February 13, 2024
I swallowed anything my parents gave me as long as it tasted sweet. You do not see
how I’ve grown fierce
February 6, 2024
I’m more stone inside than flesh now, a danger to myself and you. You do not see
how I’ve grown fierce.
February 3, 2024
I had these weird few days where I thought if I could make my room beautiful it might fix me, you know? Like, sure, I still wouldn’t be able to leave the house but maybe if I opened my curtains and let some light in, that would be practically the same thing, right? And now I am bathed in green from the window clings and the sun shining through, and I don’t feel better.
February 3, 2024
February 1, 2024
Why, it’s The Twelve Suspects of Christmas by Ana T. Drew. It’s the Die Hard of cozy Christmas mysteries - an engaging mystery full of intrigue and spies that happens to take place at Christmas rather than a Christmas book that happens to have a mystery. Well, minus all the shooting. There’s really only a couple of knives and a jar of cinnamon.