Tag: Short Fiction

All Stories, Latest News

Week 76 – Pen Names, Nicknames And Shame

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typewriterI was wondering about protocol with pen names this week. If there is contact from an author to us regarding writing, should we refer to the person by their pen name? I’m honestly not sure. Historically most people had a pen name because their gender was getting in the way. Now-a-days you would hope that isn’t an issue. I suppose something that is politically loaded or against a hierarchy, you could understand the person wanting to be obscure. But let’s be honest, it is difficult to hide, not only your views in this day and age but you, yourself. There is a camera, a microphone or some twat on Facebook who is always willing to spill the beans.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Humour

Goodbye Wall Street by Edward S Barkin

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A few years ago – actually a few more than a few – I was ever so close to becoming a full-fledged drone in the beehive of modern-day America.  During that time, I was still merely an apprentice — one of many youthful human resource units at the disposal of a large and powerful Wall Street corporation.  My job was to sit at a desk ten hours a day and do various unimportant things.  In return, I received money.  Not that much of it, but just enough so that I didn’t have to worry constantly about how much I was spending.  Forty thousand a year, let’s call it, though it was probably only thirty-eight at best.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Tupperware Party by Rebecca Lee

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typewriterIt started right after college graduation when I ate my degree.  I spent four years working on my bachelors. In a second I had devoured it whole.  Okay, maybe not whole. I took the diploma back to my dorm room, climbed under the covers, and with a fork and knife, cut up the piece of paper into tiny square bites. In a matter of minutes I had successfully done what all the popular girls told me to do in seventh grade.  Like Weird Al, I ate it. I ate all of it.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Elves by Frederick K Foote (contains sexual content)

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typewriterIt’s 2:30 am and Charlotte and I are wide awake holding hands in our new bed in our new house. This is our third sleepless night in our new home in the West Virginia wilderness.  It’s the howling, hooting, chirping, scraping, squealing night noises that keep us from sleeping. There’s a sudden scraping sound on the roof and the sounds of a cavalcade of creatures marching above our heads.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Sleep by Cameron VanderWerf

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By dusk, he could feel the coming of another sleepless night, so after Helen left for her book club meeting—stooping from the weight of the pregnancy—he left a note on the kitchen counter and walked out the front door. It was a beautiful evening, and maybe that was why he didn’t feel like sleeping. The dying light in the west cast a rusted glow from the horizon, and the air was warm and slow. The only traffic on the road in front of his house was a beat-up brown station wagon gliding past. He watched it disappear up the road, no trees to block his view.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Last Look by Tom Sheehan

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Shots had been fired in Black Limb, a town in the Dakota territory, a bank teller and a bystander wounded, the thief caught in the middle of the robbery, knocked down by, of all things, a woman sheriff with a badge worn on a most prominent chest, dark and beautiful eyes seemingly full of pity and something else the unsuccessful robber managed to draw from her, him the handsome dog, handsome robber George Crown brought to his dusty knees by a woman sheriff, a knock-out sheriff.

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All Stories, Writing

Week 74 – Homer Or Rankin?

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typewriterI’m not a hundred percent sure why I thought on my topic for this week but I wanted to have a wee look at book snobbery.

Should Ian Rankin have less status than Homer? The character of ‘Rebus’ is fascinating and he’s the star of twenty novels. (So many crackers but ‘The Falls’ was superb). And what does it say about popular culture when there are more results for Rebus than Homer in Amazon. And the icing on the comparison cake, if you type into the internet the word ‘Homer’, it is Mr Simpson who pops up before ‘The Iliad’?

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All Stories, Horror

Kensington Gore by Lise Colas

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His blood reaches out to me across the polished flagstones, pooling in luxuriance half a centimetre from the toes of my new Belle Vivier pumps, as if about to kiss them. A perfect match for their patent sheen, the colour of a good Burgundy too, what a waste.

“Excuse me–” a man in a dark suit touches my arm and I step back.
“Do you know this person?” asks the suit. There is a wire leading to his ear. A woman behind him screams, dropping her chic carrier bag.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Imaginary Friends by Julianne Carew

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typewriterAuburn hair and freckles sprinkled across his face, a red hat that he was never without and grubby sneakers that were ripped and torn, I first met Alvin when I was say, three or four. Alvin simply emerged in the middle of the grocery store parking lot that was really a sandbox that only I could see. He tapped on my shoulder as my mom was loading bags into the backseat of the car and from that moment on, from the second I laid eyes on his crooked teeth and goofy half-smile, we were inseparable.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Dead Man’s Last Home by Michael Glazner

literallystories2014

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Clint’s sleeping body takes a breath, stretches and rolls over. The large man wearing a white coat scribbles notes on his pad while the dim sunrise light peeks through the window. Clint’s body rolls back to its original position. The white coat checks his watch and then checks off a box on his notepad.

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