The idea struck me as ripe for humor: Suppose a handsome, personable, younger-than-most man moved into a senior retirement community
like mine, and suddenly began escorting a young blonde bombshell to his quarters? When asked, he might claim her as a granddaughter, but who would believe that?
OpenDoor Magazine found it a good fit for its Summer ’23 issue on the theme of “envy”.
It’s out now. You can download the entire virtual issue ==>here, and scroll down to page 89,
Or read it ==>right here at my blog
The isolation of old age
I began what became “A Purpose of Words” when a friend mentioned having considered suicide in her childhood.
I’d recently read several articles about loneliness and depression in communities of the elderly, and one older person I knew had taken his life.
It turned out to be hard writing; I re-worked it (and re-titled it!) more than once. I finally got it where I liked it – as did the editors of a Pennsylvania college literary magazine. You can read it there, at ===>River & South Review
or of course ===>here at my blog
A lakeshore carpeted with fish
Occasionally memory goes back to 1966-67, when the Alicia Patterson Foundation sent me with the family to
study the governance of two great rivers that traversed both Communist and non-Communist nations — the Danube and the Mekong. Although my reports dealt with government action, there was time to marvel at how people lived — and in Cambodia, one unique way they fished.
Wanderlust Journal liked the account; you can read it ==>there
Variants of dawn
Most Seabury residents are determined to keep exercising 
into old age, and if I step out at daybreak I’m sure to see some brisk walkers. If I watch for her, I can also see the lady who delivers newspapers making her rounds.
She must also see the walkers, I thought one day; suppose one of them literally started out at sunrise: Could she tell the time of year by where she crossed paths with him? An opportunity to wax eloquent about early morning sights and sounds..
The Westchester Writers Workshop liked it. It’s out in their magazine Confetti. You can read it ===>here
Mirrors in the wagon
A relatively new entrant to the huge array of literary magazines, The Muleskinner Journal is different because it sends out the stories and poems chosen for its next edition one per day by email, then later compiles them into a paper version.
Editor in Chief Gary Campanella says, “We look
for writing of all kinds that uses skill, wit, and determination to deliver the goods.” I wasn’t sure about all that, but when I saw that the theme for the next edition was “Mirrors,” I was delighted: I’d recently written a short story whose protagonist goes to a mirror to compare her old-age face with her high school yearbook.
I titled it “Likenesses,” and it’s out now. Read it online here
An Irish blessing
An Irish blessing
I don’t usually offer stories to magazines in other countries, but an Irish magazine called Sonder 
got my attention: The theme for their next issue was “identity,” and I had a short story that ought to fit exactly. I sent it off, and it did. My “Extraordinary” is published today.
Sonder is a magazine published in paper and ink, not online. You can order a copy for 10 pounds Irish, or read it ===>here
PS Sonder is an obscure word: The realization that everyone you encounter has a mind as vivid and complex as your own.
Not the eating; the catching!
My Dad loved nothing more than standing in the pounding waters
of Montana’s Madison River, casting for trout No diversion pleased him more, although other contests with waterways came close. It took me a while to understand the allure; when I wrote it up, The Museum of Americana liked it. It’s out now; you can read it –>>there
Re-kindling attraction
I can’t remember what prompted me to start writing Déjà Vu; someone barging into dinner? It was two years ago, and I set it 
aside incomplete, then had trouble finding the draft because I hadn’t used the accent marks the first time! Anyway, I finished it and began sending it out seven months ago. An online magazine called “Discretionary Love” liked it, and it’s out now; read it ==>>there:
A fiery vendetta
I wrote most of what finally became “Arson” in one night almost three years ago. I can’t remember what prompted it; probably a news account of violence against 
a girl friend. It’s wholly made-up fiction, but my daughter correctly observes that the poodle sounds like mine.
I set it aside, thinking it needed a more decisive ending. I find, scattered over time in my computer, four versions of this story, each with a different name, all strikingly similar. I finally decided that an inconclusive ending was okay, and began sending it out. The Vineyard, a new magazine of an old literary site, liked it, and it’s out now, in print soon here==> , and online (scroll to page 14) here==>
Caribbean memories
My short story Miss Sam is a nostalgia trip: The setting is unmistakably Calabash Bay, Jamaica, where Brad and I had 
our Villa Hikaru built 55 years ago. (It’s still there, handsomely improved by new owners and still for rent by vacationers. See recent pictures at villahikaru-dot-com; read my book, Near A Far Sea, elsewhere at this website.) I even borrowed some names from the neighbors, although Samantha and her three-generational family are entirely fictional, as is the story.
But I owe an apology to the Jamaican zoning authorities and power company: No one would build a power line along a beach, if nothing else for fear of hurricanes. That proposed line is purely an invention; I needed something for Tommy to sneer at.
The story is now published by Meat for Tea, The Valley Review, but isn’t at their website — only in a for-sale book. But you can read it ==>>right here
