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!

Night Train 10.1

The new issue of Night Train is up and contains some mind-boggling fiction. Two of my favorites are Spanish and King by Murray Dunlap and Run Little Girl by Sheryl Monks.

Spanish and King
"I want to tell you my fishing story. If you think you've already heard it, you probably have. But don't worry. It's different every time."
read the rest at Night Train

Run Little Girl
"Brother Harpy delivered serpents to their house, to her daddy, the minister of Lick Branch, who put them in the icebox so they'd grow sleepy enough to handle next day at church. "Takes just as much faith to reach into a bag of sleepy serpents," her father said, for the congregation was unaware, if she wasn't."
read the rest at Night Train

I also loved This Is Who We Really Are by British writer David William Rea.

Interference

There's a great story by Brad Green up at Night Train:

"The cops took Cora's daddy away the day he kept putting out cigarettes with his fingers. With a forefinger and thumb calloused as cowboy leather, he squished the orange embers and she marveled at the sizzle."
read the rest at Night Train

And if you like his writing, check out this gorgeous post on his blog:

"I once watched a girl burn herself with a cigarette. With her left palm she carefully raised her right breast and twisted the orange ember into the folded flesh underneath. Her foot shook and her face came alive with maniacal bliss. She was a beautiful girl, able to look in one moment as pure as an apple on a plate and in the next distraught as unraveling rope. Those behind-the-knee tendons quivered whenever she hummed in the shower. Her beauty was a terrible force."
read the rest at Brad Green's blog

There are six weeks left now until our attempt on the West Face snow route on Mt. Elbert. I'm training so hard that at times I can barely stagger out of the gym. People keep commenting on my workout routine. Yesterday someone asked if I was training to climb Mt. Everest. Not yet, I said. Everest is a bit too crowded for me. I want to climb K2 one day.

My novel and my training are largely consuming my whole life.