Centuries after the Eastern Orthodox Church began celebrating the Epiphany, the Roman Catholic Church decided to start doing so too. But for some reason, the Western Church really latched on to this image of the Persian priests bringing gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to the infant Jesus, guided from their homeland of Iran by [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Short Fiction'
There’s Got to Be a Morning After
January 7th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Tags: Humor · In the News · Short Fiction
Non-Holiday Holiday Reading
December 16th, 2009 · 4 Comments
I had occasion recently to hunt down a story by James Thurber which I hadn’t read in *counting*… uh, many years. But the first time I “read” it, I didn’t actually read it: I heard it, read aloud, by my seventh-grade English teacher.
The story itself has nothing to do with Christmas or even winter (as [...]
Tags: Humor · Looking Backward · Reading · Short Fiction · Writing
What’s Your Story? (Are You Sure?)
December 4th, 2009 · 11 Comments
From whiskey river:
The Story, Around the Corner
is not turning the way you thought
it would turn, gently, in a little spiral loop,
the way a child draws the tail of a pig.
What came out of your mouth,
a riff of common talk.
As a sudden weather shift on a beach,
sky looming mountains of cloud
in a way you cannot predict
or [...]
Tags: Humor · Music · Poetry · Ruminations · Short Fiction · Writing · whiskey river Fridays
The Quickening Squirrel
November 18th, 2009 · 9 Comments
Marta was wondering a few days ago about writerly magic numbers: specific quantifiable targets which writers hope to achieve within some given time period. She’s doing NaNoWriMo, so of course over her head looms the magic 50,000-words-in-a-November target. But she asked what other writers might choose to be satisfied with: N pages or words per [...]
Tags: Reading · Short Fiction · Style and Craft · Writing
Have I Forgotten to Remember to Answer the Right Question?
October 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment
[Found this image here.]
From whiskey river (highlighted portion):
The Difficult Simplicity of Certain Contemplations
Tapping a tarot card with her dusky finger,
the woman tells me
sit with your emptiness,
in time answers will come.
She says I know them all and only must remember.
My friend tells me I must decide what is enough,
then live with it.
Even my shiny-suited banker waxes [...]
Tags: Music · Poetry · Reading · Ruminations · Short Fiction · whiskey river Fridays
Ultra-Short Story Competition
September 30th, 2009 · 9 Comments
Can you write a ghost story in no more than 124 characters?
Stuart Neville, author of The Twelve (which I reviewed on The Book Book the other day), is running a little contest. The occasion? That book’s publication tomorrow in the US, called here The Ghosts of Belfast. Following is a brief description of the rules/guidelines [...]
Tags: Short Fiction · The Internet · The Online World · Writing
The Ick Factor
September 21st, 2009 · 12 Comments
The Missus and I saw District 9 on Saturday. I’m tempted to review it in full, but fear I’d reveal too much of its plot. So I’ll just say that District 9 is one of the, I don’t know… two or three best movies I’ve seen for the last 10 or 15 years — in [...]
Tags: Language · Movies · Ruminations · Short Fiction · Style and Craft · The Missus · Writing
Hauntings
August 28th, 2009 · 11 Comments
From whiskey river (first stanza):
Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for [...]
Tags: Celebrities · Movies · Music · Poetry · Reading · Ruminations · Short Fiction · whiskey river Fridays
The Ill-Behaved Hat
July 9th, 2009 · 7 Comments
I don’t often like to quote at length from another work. This is almost too good, though — too apt for Running After My Hat. It’s from “The Tramp’s Tale,” one of Czech author Karel Capek’s Nine Tales for Children. The man who’s telling this story has interrupted a court proceeding (which is where “the [...]
Tags: Language · Reading · Running After My Hat · Short Fiction · Writing
Paying Attention to Your Sense of Play
May 23rd, 2009 · No Comments
I’d already written this post’s title. And I almost began the body of it with these words: “Sometimes, you just have to”—
But, nah. I don’t think everyone, not even every writer, “just has to” do almost anything, much less experience the sort of off-the-wall moment I did one afternoon, years ago. And even less than [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · Humor · Looking Backward · Paying Attention · Short Fiction · Writing




