Queer writer of weird things
More years ago than I care to count, I dated a boy who lived in a small town south of St. Louis, in Iron County. He was sweet but ultimately we were too far apart, geographically and otherwise. Most of the time, we spent our dates in St. Louis, but one weekend, I drove down …
Continue reading "“Charlotte’s Mother,” A Story in the Saturday Evening Post"
As I've mentioned in the past and which you no doubt already know, my friend ’Nathan Smith dba ’Nathan Burgoine has done a monthly flash fiction draw at the start of every month this year. The idea is he draws cards at random from a deck to select a genre, a setting, and a random …
Continue reading "Flash Fiction Draw: Comedy, a Field of Poppies, and a Broom"
I know, I know. It's Saturday, not Friday. Sue me. (Actually, please don't sue me. Anyway, moving on.) A pre-PS plug: My friend 'Nathan's YA novel, Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks, is available for preorder, but lucky me, I'm reading it right now and I think you should totally get it. Go on, I'll wait. …
I sometimes feel as if I'm cheating when it comes to ’Nathan's monthly flash fiction draw. Instead of writing a self-contained piece of fiction, I often use these to work out a continuation of an earlier story. That's the case for September, which follows up on this post. (Which was a follow-up to an earlier …
Continue reading "It’ll Be Easy—A Flash Fiction Draw Challenge"
Midwestern Gothic has a three-round flash fiction contest ever summer, and this summer, against all odds, I won round 2. Entries for each round are based on a given photo prompt, and you can see round 2's prompt over there on the right. The resulting story, "Transport," came together pretty quickly, which surprised me. I've …
Every month on the first Monday of the month, ’Nathan posts a series of prompts for a flash fiction story due the following Monday. (Well, I say “due” but it’s not as if it’s a homework assignment; it’s completely no-pressure and I’ve saved up prompts and done them weeks or months later. Prompts never expire, …
Continue reading "August Flash Fiction: The Drag Queen with the Emerald Earring"
When ’Nathan posted this picture last week for his Friday Flash Fiction piece (which you should go read), it brought to mind something I wrote about four years ago. At least, I think it was four years. My memory is not what it was. (Narrator: his memory was never good.) I wrote a half-finished draft …
One of the things I like about short stories—or any fiction, really—is imagining the lives of the characters beyond the last page. If the story continued, what would they do next? When it's my own story, I can answer that question fairly easily: write more! And that's what this bit of flash fiction is. Back …
So, this entry in ’Nathan Burgoine's June Flash Fiction Draw is a bit of a cheat in two ways. First off, it's Tuesday, and these are supposed to go up on Monday. Hey, I'm slow. Sue me. Second, the prompt for this month's flash fiction is: Well, I've got the hot chocolate and the scrapyard, …
So last Friday my friend ’Nathan posted a flash fic piece in response to the photo below. I thought it was adorable, both his story and the photo. See for yourself: And I figured I'd see if I could come up with something by today to post, and what do you know, I did. It's …