‘Bedside Manner’ was originally penned for a 100-word microfiction competition. Little Anne woke up screaming. Her forehead glistened as she wrapped her thin arms around herself and shivered. ‘Nightmares again?’ I asked softly. We were used to the routine by now: Anne would awake screaming and I would come and sit on the corner of the bed. Downstairs, her mother and father hurled abuse. A plate smashed, followed by loud…
Tomato Soup is an imaginative response based on the writing style of J. D. Salinger (author of The Catcher in the Rye). The storyline is adapted from the poem Gooseberry Sorbet by Simon Armitage. Well, if you really must know the truth, it was probably around this time last year that I started setting the table with an extra bowl, of tomato soup. It’s a helluva food to serve. Real…
Why Limitations Are Helpful You want to create, and you’ve been doing it your whole life. As a child, you drew pictures without worrying what others thought of them. You told stories with toys. As adults, however, our desire to create becomes complicated. The joy of simply doing is lost, and replaced with a host of anxieties and frustrations, as our imagination becomes better than our skill or ability to…
For a variety of reasons, authors lie to their audience. It makes perfect sense because most fiction is a falsehood. The author tells a story, with an implied wink, and for a short time, we choose to believe it at some level. Most of us have those moments when we are transported during a good story and briefly forget at the conscious level that it isn’t real. This one of…
