A Prayer For Owen Meany
John Irving
1989
I found this novel lying outside my door about ten years ago. I still don’t know who put it there, but whoever did it had a unique taste.
Continue reading “Writers Read: A Prayer For Owen Meany”
Tag: Reading
Love Handles by Susan DeFelice
After his anxiety attack in the barely cold sea water, Barry walked to the outside European-style tiki bar where a woman with a roiling accent was singing Sinatra, with just a stand-up bass and conga player accompanying her.
Continue reading “Love Handles by Susan DeFelice”
My Unimaginary Friend by George Oliver
My friends had always been transparently envious of Molly, even if they weren’t verbalising this. But it was obvious.
Continue reading “My Unimaginary Friend by George Oliver”
Working the Dirt by J Bradley Minnick
Mighty Broom left the first notch in the dirt at three that afternoon: the first of hundreds of parallel lines exactly five feet apart across the width of the halls that started in front of the Janitors Closet and ran the length of Weatherspeake High. Wilson never had to measure the rows. He had the five-foot knack.
Continue reading “Working the Dirt by J Bradley Minnick”
Write me a story in the style of Hemingway by Stephen James
I watch the middle-aged man in the tailored suit with disdain as he states commands to the soulless, unblinking Ernest.
Continue reading “Write me a story in the style of Hemingway by Stephen James”
Book Stuff by Ryan Priest
There were men and women throughout the library reading books. A librarian wearing a sweater over her shoulders sat at a desk organizing a stacks of three by five index cards. A young man sat at a table, his face visible behind two columns of heavy, academic tomes. He held his finger up to his lips in the universal sign of “Ssshhh!”
Continue reading “Book Stuff by Ryan Priest”
A Dreamt Preface for a Reading at Nahant Library by Tom Sheehan
(“Please come to read for us from your new book.”)
I want to let the audience enter the cubicle where the work came from. This is what I’ll tell them:
Continue reading “A Dreamt Preface for a Reading at Nahant Library by Tom Sheehan”
Week 177 – Time, Jimmy Hoffa And A Cure For Tarzan’s Constipation
Week 176 has come and gone and here we are at week 177.
I’ve been working on a story this week. I’ve enjoyed thinking about it, structuring and editing and trying to spot the inevitable mistakes that are invisible to me but obvious to Nik and Diane! I’ve spent quite a bit of time and that doesn’t bother me. It’s a lot of fun.
Enjoying time is relative. I can spend hours cooking, reading, working on this site, listening to music and appreciating alcohol. Time doesn’t matter when you are doing what you enjoy. But working, getting a haircut, travelling to work, watching TV all does my head in. I resent the time that I spend. But the worst ever is gardening. Sorry folks, but those of you who enjoy this activity are masochistic perverts. To be fair, I have let my garden become fairly manic this year and yesterday was its first cut. I’m hoping for a drought from now to September, then the frost to hit. One cut a year is more than enough.
I had to borrow Death’s scythe due to the length of the grass
Continue reading “Week 177 – Time, Jimmy Hoffa And A Cure For Tarzan’s Constipation”
Week 72 – Transition
This week I mentioned to my twenty-two year old gaffer something about Irvine Welsh’s book ‘Trainspotting’. She hadn’t a Scooby. I thought about it and realised that I wasn’t mentioning something ‘Hip and Happening’. There was no ‘Respect’ or ‘Bringing It On’. The only thing that was there, was me, an old git mentioning a book that I thought was ‘Street’ and bang up to date, when the actual fact was that it’s twenty-three years old! This got me thinking on the books that I have read, when I read them and the difference between them and short stories.
The Chocolate Kid by Tom Sheehan
Today it all came back. Once again, on another brilliant dawning, the Western Yetness still calling me, I woke with a toothache. A stupendous one! In half an hour, despite quick brushing, the stimulator poked here and there, gargling, all proving useless, the ache remained in force. It was, without a doubt, the chocolate again, or the mere thought of chocolate. I knew I was weak to most any candy, and to chocolate in particular, right from the beginning.
literally stories 