I’ve been working my way through that how-to-flash-fiction book, with some luck. One prompt was to think about an article of clothing found. I can’t let you read the whole thing until Ocotillo Review prints it in January, but you can have a taste. Click ==> HERE.

The other one just accepted, to be published in December, was prompted by a neighbor whose foot slipped from the brake to the accelerator as he was parking. Frankly, I hope he doesn’t find and read this one, because I’ve taken a wholly innocent slip and turned it into real damage and a family argument. Again just a taste ==> HERE.

 

As the New York Times reported today: A United States District Court judge . . . blocked a White House policy barring military service by transgender troops, noting that the policy did not appear to be based on facts, but instead on ‘a desire to express disapproval of transgender people generally.’

I wrote a flash-fiction story when the President tweeted that policy in July — expecting it would be snapped up. No such luck: It was three months before a literary magazine called Ponder Review, from Mississippi University, accepted it, and it won’t be in print until December.

Until then, I can only offer a taste. But I’ll tell you it was inspired by that book I’ve been reading on flash fiction — a chapter that urged looking for a classical mythical character or story to put into a modern setting.  The title alone will tell you where I’m heading. Read the opening here=> Tiresias

 

Today I presented a lecture as part of the ALP (Adult Learning Program) class series in the Hartford area, sponsored by the University of Connecticut. Several people asked if I they could read my script. Yes, indeed; click here.

I’m not enamored of this increasingly popular form, but it’s fun to try it out. An online literary magazine called 50-Word Stories asks for submissions that are (as you might expect) exactly fifty words.  I had a try, and a bit more than a week later, it’s online: Click to read Earthworm Ruminations

I’m not sure how long it stays up there. They publish one story every weekday, so mine will keep being pushed down. As always, read it here in the pull-down menu titled Short Stories — or click here

Until May 31, the Simone Press anthology “Selected Places” is available as a free Kindle book. Eight short stories in which a sense of place is a central component:

To download it, CLICK HERE

 

I mentioned some time ago that I’d written three short-short stories for a contest requiring that every word be in quotes — not even a “he said, she said.” None of the three won the contest, but all three have been accepted elsewhere, and the second has now been published.  You can read it here, at the Route 7 Review website.

But I’m not wild about Route 7’s typography; for a more legible version click here.

 

It’s hard to keep up with the innovations in presenting short stories. I’ve remarked before on the (I think new) phenomenon of paperback themed anthologies of short stories, which ought to sell well in airport shops, but may also find buyers in old-fashioned bookstores and certainly online. I have stories in four such paperbacks now; the newest is “Mountain Test,” one of a dozen stories in a paperback titled The Mountain Pass.  Get it at Amazon click => on the image or read my contribution here.

An even newer idea: An app of flash fiction to read in the palm of your hand. If you have the app Chronicle Stories on your smartphone and have a few minutes to kill, relax with a very short story. During May, my “Barnyard Election” will be prominent before it’s pushed aside by newer stories. You can look for those readable in your time available (silence a TV commercial break to read mine in 2 1/2 minutes; the longest are five-minute reads) and even pick a story by style (mine is  tagged as Absurd/Humor/Parable; others in this first round are tagged as Sci-Fi, Futurism, Surreal, Romance, Clothes, Loss, Family, Utopia, etc etc). To download the app (free, as are the stories), click on the smartphone image; or read my contribution here.