Would you like to read some short stories?
I posted five or six short stories on Kos just to try them out on some readers and, to my surprise and gratitude, the stories made the Spotlight list and got a lot of positive comments.Since then I...
View ArticleNOT a political diary! This is about a book and dogs and a fundraiser for a...
Are you ready for something different?This is a fundraiser for Safe Haven Kennels, a sanctuary for unadoptable dogs that took in eleven dogs from a hoarding situation and will care for them for the...
View ArticleContemporary Literary Fiction: A deeply connected tale
As we have remarked to each other in the weeks since November, it can be hard to focus -- including being able to focus while reading. It is critical now to act against the horror that has befallen us,...
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A Dream of Dogs and Cattle
A Dream of Dogs and CattleI’m not sure if this story is about me or someone else. I woke up this morning with this story in my head, as intense as a real experience. I still remembered every moment;...
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For the holiday season: 9 books for children and young adults that don't lie...
If we were were to dissect all the lies that appear every year in new books about the Native peoples of this continent, we’d be here for a week. Hard as it may be to believe, more published lies are...
View ArticleFlannery O'Conner looks at a Southern, racist mindset . . .
Flannery O’Conner was one of my fave authors when I was in high school. I related so much to how she saw the South (I lived in a small, racist Arkansas town). And she really knew how to write. Here’s...
View ArticleThe Big Toad Of Tibadoodle Swamp and his toadies...a love story
This story is now my defining mental image of the disgusting toad in the white house. I found it quite entertaining, but be warned — don’t read it while eating, or if you have a sensitive stomach....
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Contemporary Fiction Views: The present and the past live together
The best short stories are as rich and complex as any novel. They can contain a universe or a microcosm, a lifetime or an hour. They can be populated with complex characters rich in mixed motives and...
View ArticleOctober's Library: A Short Story a Day for the Halloween Month
Greetings and felicitations, monster kids!Here’s the idea: it’s Halloween month, we all need a distraction from the real-life horrors of the Trump administration, so I figured we could do our own...
View ArticleMany Rivers
*This is a short story that I’m parking here. Humour me, thanks!*October 9, 2019 (A Story for Otter by Michelle A. Palladine, which borrows charactersfrom Charles de Lint) A long, long, long, (very...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP: a DK group of original fiction, poetry & memoir, for fun...
“Something familiar, something peculiar...” from the ‘pens’ of kosaks: our light and sometimes darker tales of life, myth, adventure, romance, science fiction, history, parody, pastiche, epic poetry,...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Short Fiction: "Waystation America", an econopolitical dark...
By intent, ‘though he was newly enthroned, and she a former astronaut, the Emperor of Japan and the Governor-General of Canada flew into Dulles minutes apart, virtually anonymous. They came...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Short Fiction: Out of the Darkness Came a Yule Tide
Yule is a time of spiritual beginnings. Jul, or Yule, is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning "wheel." The winter solstice is the turning point in the natural cycle of the year; this darkest night in all...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP: Short Stories That Are Very Short Indeed
Here are some very short stories. By way of introduction, let me just say they are stories that are not only short, but very short. If I'm not mistaken, one is a very short poem disguised as a very...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Short Fiction: Motorcycle, Apples, Cave, Tales, Trees.
Lil pulled off her helmet, unzipped her leathers, scrubbed her knuckles through her silver-flecked dark hair, and grinned at the little girl coming running to the paddock fence. “Hiya, kid.” “Hiya,...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Short Fiction: Diamonds Like Teardrops Fall - A Sean Story.
by Michele Elaine Wilson © 1997Sean had finished the preparations for the evening's business. All the glasses were shining, the bar was stocked, and the floor and tables were clean. He came over to the...
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⏹️⏹️ Original Fiction, Poetry & Memoir For Fun & Progress: Now...
<big>Now playing!!!Dark Redemption, an urban fantasy novel by writer/artist quarkstomper, chapters running Wednesdays mid-evening on all coasts and in-lands for the foreseeable future, if there...
View ArticleIn the Neighborhood: Jack's Pet
Note: This is an experiment—to see if some of my stories might work to fill in on Friday afternoons. If this doesn’t work for the Peeps. please let me know in the comments!First, da rulz:Here is a...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: A wonderful book of windows
Culturally aware educators, especially culturally aware white educators working in a minority-majority district, know the phrase "windows and mirrors". It means students need both kinds of books --...
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In the Neighborhood: Larsson Helps Out
You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties,...
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In the Neighborhood: The Golden Goose
You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties,...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Fiction: Some short-short stories and one or two others....
Lost It was all over but balloons drifting down as their helium expired, and spilled refreshments staining the banquet tablecloths, and clots of confetti everywhere. The only figures still moving...
View ArticleA 2020 reading challenge: 52 books by women of color in 52 weeks -- February...
We should all be challenging ourselves to read more. More volume. More broadly. More viewpoints. More better.February – an awesome continuation to 2020’s Reading Challenge (please see 52 books by...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP: More shortish stories and one or two longish ones.
Jack’s End Catfooting down the dank, blankwalled alley, the Ripper awaited the inevitable moment of screechings of nearby cats to muffle his final rush at the slattern limping mere yards ahead along...
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It Could Happen to You
The Karnakos home...Mountain Lakes, New Jersey...9:27pm, February 13, 2011...Delia lay on her side; wondering if this was the last Valentine’s Day together. Jason had been ill for some time, and the...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP: Short tales per prose and per verse.
To start with….Two Tales in A Version of the Ongoing Saga of a Callow Youth & Stout ComradeOne, in playscript form(8/8/2013)[Our young androgenous protagonists bedizen themselves with bastard...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP: Three short stories
The burn pileAfter my grandfather died, the field behind our house was left to grow up with brush. At some point my father decided to have the whole thing cleared off, and while he was at it, to clear...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: Vivid dreamscapes
One unexpected aspect of this unexpected stay-home months has been vivid dreams. Not just any kind of dream, but the kind that make sense while they are unfolding, continue even if you know you are...
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⏹️⏹️Original Fiction, Poetry & Memoir For Fun & Progress Illustrated...
Our bookshelf to date, right at your fingertips:Dark Redemption, an urban gothic fantasy novel by writer/artist quarkstomper, chapters running Wednesdays mid-evening right here at OFPMFP and at...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Creative NonFiction: The Grower
The GrowerChapter One The Budding Entrepreneur Many many years ago, like all the way back in the seventies, the federal government was operating a marijuana research program at the University of...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Short Fiction: After the First Four or Five Times Dying
By methodological means, Calebai reached certain hypotheses — after the first four or five times, you do have to. So, it did occur to her that those mightn’t have been recoveries from war wounds...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: Upcoming and available reads
A novel about the Wobblies, protests and rich gentry in a small Northwest city just after the turn of the last century? Yes, please. Jess Walter, one of the most insightful writers I know, has his...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: A divine gift
"At some point you have to accept it. The real world isn't made of poetry."So a doctor tells her best friend, an assistant professor, before she is diagnosed with terminal cancer in "Talinda", one of...
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In the Neighborhood: A Halloween Story
You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties,...
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In the Neighborhood: We Gather Together
You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties,...
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In the Neighborhood: The Fruit Collector
You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties,...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: Keep it short
One of the great delights of reading is inhaling a well-crafted short story. It may have a great significance to a small portion of the meaning of life. Or it may be a quirky tale that pinpoints a...
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In the Neighborhood: Farley and the UFO
Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rulesDo not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your...
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In the Neighborhood: Clyde Goes Green
Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rulesDo not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your...
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In the Neighborhood: The Whiskey Spring
Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rulesDo not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your...
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PWB: In the Neighborhood: The Central Municipal Beer Authority
Here are few not-too-onerous PWB rulesDo not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your...
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Snowite, RozRed, BriarBron, CinderBlaq, TomoeTan, PunzlBlond, GaiaGreen,...
“She’s almost here.” Roz nudged Bri awake. Bri crawled out of her arctic-grade sleepbag, yawned and looked around. “Where? I don’t see anything.” Sipping coffee, Roz pointed pole-ward into the...
View Article⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP - Short Fiction: "The Water Spike"
Pete Gura’s last patience ran out the day half the corn bogged down in floodwater the fifth year in a row. It’d been still okay late that afternoon when he came past, driving the bulldozer home...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: Women seeking to be their best true selves
A woman whose retired father keeps calling her and whose marriage ended some time ago, although the divorce hasn't happened, is distracted from trying to build an artwork involving rare plants in a...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views:
Any new work from Jess Walter is a cause for celebration. When it's a new collection of short stories, such as The Angel of Rome, every story is reason to celebrate. (I don't know about you, but right...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: Who are we?
Who are we, really? Are we destined to bear the dreams and sins of our families, of our home countries, of our newly adopted homelands? Are we worthy of happiness? What is a facade and what is...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: What it means to be human and to be heard
Three beings are attached to a wall, programmed to Speak as the head of the house (their owner?) programs them to Speak. He controls the topic, the tone, the pace, the vision. The trio practice to...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: Atwood on the times of a woman's life
At the age of 83, Margaret Atwood has experienced most phases of being a girl and a woman in modern society. She brings the wisdom gained from these phases in her latest story collection, Old Babes in...
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Jenny’s Gifts: A fairytale in Glasgow, 2023
Jenny’s Gifts A fairytale in Glasgow, 2023The first one wasn’t made accidentally. No, Jenny meant to crochet a wee toy for the new baby, the wean that was so soft and tender. Babies like shiny things,...
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Contemporary Fiction Views: Striving toward truth in a debut story collection
Of course I remember you.You were born on one of those days where the sky won't break apart for the rain, where the sky won't break apart from the sun. .."No, you need to know that you were born on a...
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