What Doesn't Kill You

Check out the awesome new anthology from Press 53, which includes my short story, Dirty Girl.

What Doesn't Kill You, edited by Murray Dunlap and Kevin Watson.

"... sixteen authors share stories of struggle with inner demons, fear, loss, fitting in, family, a psychotic neighbor, stereotypes, self-esteem, love, and, of course, a protective and possessive hound."

The Best Man

Here's a great story by Timothy Raymond, up at Necessary Fiction:

"Frank cut out his own tongue so that he wouldn’t have to give the best-man speech. I heard from Kate. She didn’t believe it, either, not until we saw the caterer wringing blood from his apron."
read the rest at Necessary Fiction

Also, check out this short-short from their current writer-in-residence, Peter Grandbois:

"You wouldn’t know it from looking at her but the girl in the green dress is a dancer. She doesn’t carry herself like one, at least not on the bus."
read the rest

My news: I'm as busy as ever, the novel is coming along VERY slowly and Bill and I recently joined the local Search & Rescue team. So now we have training every Thursday night and I feel even busier than before. Ummm . . .

MooseBlind

After climbing Mt. Elbert earlier this year, Bill and I managed to knock out Mt. Rainier in August. Trip report and photos here.

Now that mountain-climbing is over for 2010, I can finally catch up on my online reading! I haven't written a short story myself since the beginning of the year. I'm totally focused on my novel. Still hoping to finish it by the end of December.

Here's a memorable short-short that I found in the Kenyon Review Online:

MooseBlind, by Melinda Moustakis

The Last Pool Party

This week, Necessary Fiction posted an incredible story by John Minichillo:

"Clusters of Home Depot deck furniture, ambience of chlorine, of eighties music murmured from rock-shaped speakers, iced upscale beer and cheapish wine, a no lifeguard on duty sign, a no peeing in pool sign, the pool kidney-shaped and sensible, the too-blue water refracting a vinyl pool liner, platter of splayed white and yellow cheeses in the pool house, the Moores’ screendoor slowly creaked open and clanged shut, a small dog continuously yapping two houses over — all so familiar, like three years hadn’t crawled away and the Moores’ daughter, Candace, had never drowned here. In this pool. The invitations went out weeks ago, and we all thought what we thought, but none of us could say no, with their back patio crowded and an hour of summer radiance left before the sun would refuge behind the tall maple."
read the rest at Necessary Fiction

Last week, I fulfilled one of my New Year's goals by reaching the summit of Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in the US Rockies. There's a trip report and some pics here. Still working on the second goal, which is to finish my novel by the end of the year.

Mucky

My short story Mucky is now up at Night Train:

"When I met him, he was thin and shifty and he did things to my body that no other man had contemplated. I called him the Mucky Man, blushing a little to think where his tongue had been. No crevice on the body too dark and fetid for him. I fell in love with his persistent fingers." read the rest at Night Train.

I've fallen woefully behind in my online reading, though I'm still plowing through novels at a good pace. I'm back in school part-time, working, writing a novel and training to climb a mountain. Also in physical therapy to rehab a torn rotator cuff. As you might expect, I have no social life and am sometimes twitchy.

The Future of Family Radio

Necessary Fiction just posted a beautiful story by Christy Crutchfield:

"Before his father ruins everything and they no longer have car trips, Daniel thinks about the future of family radio. When the whole family is in the car, his father rules a classic rock kingdom where everyone but his sister and her headphones resides. When his father is not in the car, the radio belongs to his sister. Daniel lets his eyes soften against the highway dividers rushing past him, blending into one line and jumping when the divider is dented. Years later, he’ll realize the car is the actual rushing object."
read the rest at Necessary Fiction

Now SnowWhite Is Dead

Here's an unusual and disturbing story from Nannette Croce:

"You wake in the morning with something new and heavy in your chest––like a tight ball you can't breathe through. Then the bad thing hits you like the pan hits the face of the man in the cartoon and his face looks like the pan until he shakes it out, but you can't shake it out. Snow White is dead. "
read the rest at Bare Root Review

Nannette took a lot of risks with this one and really pulled it off!