Category Archives: Writing

I posted a flippant question on a social media site recently, telling friends that I planned to write a story about a town I invented, asking who would like to be in the story. Eight people responded, giving me feedback on the … Continue reading →

Swift. Like a seasonal stream swishing down the side of a mountain after a spring downpour. That’s what it felt like. The world changed in an instant. The stream turned into a torrent and the torrent turned into a flood and … Continue reading →

This set of interrelated vignettes sprang from my fingers with little prodding. I don’t know the whole story here; not even the main parts of it. But I know there’s a story beneath this scenario. I know there’s more than … Continue reading →

I plunge into the underbrush, slashing at chest-high weeds in the choking thicket, my machete in hand. Long since dulled against reeds and briars, the knife’s once razor-edged blade makes it more useful as a club than a sickle. The noise of cold steel rustling … Continue reading →

Standish Cole, watching the morning sky as pale light blotted the horizon, hoped for signs of warmth and a day dry enough to take his tractor into the fields. If he couldn’t get into the fields today, the crops would be lost. … Continue reading →

“I offer you this advice as a handsel for the new year upon us: be as gentle with yourself as you are with those you love most dearly, yet measure yourself against high expectations. By so doing, you make yourself into … Continue reading →

What if even the most powerful volcano was simply a trick, a display of the amazing power of a fizzlewhuzzcan engine that melts rock and sprays it into the sky? What then? Nothing, of course. We’d simply come to recognize … Continue reading →

Cyrus Bedlam watched as the pieces of a cosmic puzzle slipped through the sky. The bitter taste of dark chocolate and kale. That’s the association that popped into his head as he watched the setting moon grind against the horizon at … Continue reading →

I listened to a voice in my head as it told a story. This voice was from a man who survived the siege but who wished he had acted, much earlier, to warn of what was coming. He failed to … Continue reading →

How can I write about such drivel as I posted earlier, my frustration with toilet non-delivery, in the face of the impending presidential inauguration? My answer is this: the little frustrations have their place; sometimes, it’s the little frustrations that … Continue reading →

Soft, filtered light seeped through the canopy of mixed oak and pine, brightening as if the sun were awakening as it inched over the horizon. Fog drifted low between the ridges of ragged remnants of a worn mountain range. Fallen … Continue reading →

Maria invited him to meet her again, saying she needed to ask his advice about approaching a local political figure with a ticklish, almost accusatory, question. Based on what he later wrote in his journal, he claimed he saw through her … Continue reading →