Category Archives: Uncategorized

I found a picture of dice on dreamstime.com that I really liked. I immediately thought of a woman who uses the dice to help her make decisions in her life and the title came to me at the same time. … Continue reading →

Like a lot of writers, I have a lot of false starts: stories I began, got a few pages into, then abandoned. In the old days I would keep these starts in file folders and store them in a filing … Continue reading →

My short story collection, Miniatures, has just been published by Green Snake Publishing. Here’s a look at the minimalist cover: Miniatures collects 41 of my best short short stories. Nothing in the book is over 2500 words long, and there … Continue reading →

My latest challenge story has lizards, a snow storm, marital strife, and lots of broken crockery. It takes a look at what happens to a couple when one of the partners “wakes up” from being kept under a mask. I … Continue reading →

I’ve heard about parents billing their children for their upbringing. I thought that might be an interesting subject for a short story, so I invented a twelve-year-old who gets such a bill. He is in debt to his parents for … Continue reading →

This one came from a picture of Kim’s. We were at the labyrinth at The Grotto in Portland and saw a snail crawling on the bricks. Kim took a few pictures of it and one of those pictures inspired this … Continue reading →

Like Susan Sarandon’s character in Bull Durham, I have always believed in the church of baseball. But on this Super Bowl Sunday I understand that particular faith needs to take a back pew to football. So, in honor of the … Continue reading →

This week’s challenge story is a little early because I’m going to be on the road on the day I usually write them. No matter. I got up at 5 this morning and dove into this piece about a sentient … Continue reading →

The first stories that really moved me when I was a kid were science fiction tales, those futuristic flights of fancy that came out of the pulp tradition. The stories were vivid, strange, and thrilling. They were filled with action … Continue reading →

When I was a math major, I enjoyed the paradoxes dealing with infinity. The ones where you can prove mathematically that Achilles can never catch up to that tortoise. Or the one that proved that motion was impossible. That sort … Continue reading →