Well, how about that? Once again, I am excited to report that another of my micro stories, “ONCE IN ABLUE MOON,” has been published in The Haiku Shack Magazine, this one in Issue 7.
The issue’s theme is “Desert,” so my little story of a midnight trip across the Mojave fit the bill—and I’m tickled the wonderful Cendrine Marrouat agreed!
To download your copy of Issue 7 and read “ONCE IN A BLUE MOON” (page 17), along with the other amazing stories, visit:
The international online writing community Globe Soup has been holding monthly micro fiction competitions for a few years now.
On the first day of each month, GS publishes a new prompt and invites group members to write stories of no more than 100 words based on that prompt. I’ve been fortunate to have had my share of finalist selections over the last couple of years (ten, by my count), but last month I finally broke through with the winning story out of over 250 entries.
June’s prompt was “Mountains.” I cogitated on that for a couple of days, trying to find just the right take on the prompt, when I suffered a bout of insomnia. It was on late-night TV where I came across the 2015 movie Everest. The movie features an outstanding ensemble cast—including Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Robin Wright among others—that chronicles the May 1996 disaster where eight people died on the slopes of the world’s tallest mountain. It seemed a natural fit for my story, and I’m tickled the judges’ agreed!
My regular readers (and he knows who he is) know that I have been getting into micro fiction lately.
Micro fiction is a subset of flash fiction, but while flash fiction is generally limited to 1,000 words max, micro stories are usually less than 300 words and are often limited to 100 words or so. I plan to talk more about the intricacies of writing micro fiction in a future post, but for now I want to let everyone know about an exciting milestone in my writing development!
A Drabble is a piece of micro fiction that numbers EXACTLY 100 words and the international online writing community Globe Soup recently held a competition for the best Drabbles—stories told in exactly 100 words.
To make a long story short, out of the nearly 3,000 entries submitted to the contest, my story, Night Train, was selected the winner!
I am so thrilled and honored by this phenomenal milestone, truly humbling.
You can read Night Train, along with the second and third place stories, here:
Back in February, the international competition group Globe Soup sponsored
a 7-Day Story Writing Challenge. Each participant was given the theme “A Twist
of Fate” and one of twelve randomly assigned genres:
Western, Paranormal, Thriller, Magical Realism, Chick-Lit, Historical,
Horror, Dystopian, Crime, Romance, Science Fiction or Fantasy.
I was assigned the CRIME genre. We were then given 7-days to write a story
of no more than 2,000 words.
One of the conditions of the contest was that the entries be judged
anonymously and could not be published elsewhere until the winner was
announced.
Well, the winner was announced this week and, although I did not win the
£500 First Prize, my short story Roses are Red WAS chosen as a
finalist in the CRIME Genre category! My regular reader (he knows who he is)
will recall that I was also named a finalist in my first attempt at writing
crime fiction last fall, so this small victory was particularly gratifying. I am trying to get this story published in a magazine, so I am withholding the posting of it on this website.
Roses are Red is a noir style murder mystery set in 1948 Brooklyn.
I just wrote a short story for the Spring 2022 contest run by Short Fiction Break magazine and The Write Practice writing community. The theme of the contest is Happily Ever After. The word limit is 1,500 words so it is literally a 7-minute read! (You’re not that busy are you?)
My story, The Final Question, was published along with the other contest entries in Short Fiction Break magazine here:
Once you are on the Main Page look for the greenbox that says “SEND MY READERS’ CHOICE VOTE HERE” and then select The Final Question from the drop down menu.
Voting Closes April 25.
If you know someone who you think would enjoy my story, feel free to forward this message along. Constructive comments are always welcome!
Thanks in advance for your consideration. I hope you like my story, let me know what you think!
I started listening to podcasts a couple of years ago when I first discovered the brilliant Revisionist History, hosted by the incomparable Malcom Gladwell. In his podcast, Gladwell takes us on a journey through overlooked and misunderstood events (or persons, ideas, songs, etc.) from the past and reexamines them to figure out whether “we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.”
Gladwell tells the stories in his own engaging way, weaving tales to make the historic characters come alive, to make them relatable to the listeners of today.
There are tons of good podcasts, of course. This American Life is another one. In this podcast, Ira Glass and his fellow correspondents explore a weekly topic in detail through four different stories on the same theme. The conclusions reached are often surprising and always interesting.
What we learn from both of these podcasts is that it’s all about the story telling. Whether truth or fiction, it’s all about the story telling. Stories help us understand our own lives as we negotiate our daily existence.
A podcast that I recently found that specializes in story telling itself is Read Lots Write Lots – A podcast for those who love to write. In each episode, Deidra Lovegren and Russell Norman talk to a guest writer about their personal writing journey. I urge anyone who is interested in writing and story telling to listen to all of the episodes (Thirty as of this morning). Each interview is unique and illuminating.
Which is why I was thrilled and excited to be invited to be a guest! Yep, I am Episode 27. The interview was so much fun and Deidra and Russell clearly did their homework, having read my stories and prompting such an interesting and enjoyable conversation.
This past December, I entered another Globe Soup 7-Day Contest. As with previous competitions, each participant was given a theme and randomly assigned one of twelve genres.
In this contest, the theme was “A Christmas Like No Other.” I was assigned the DYSTOPIAN genre (Think: A Clockwork Orange, 1984, Fahrenheit 451) . We were then given 7-days to write a story of no more than 2,000 words. Once again, this was my first try at that particular genre.
Well, the winners were announced last month and, although I STILL did not win the £500 First Prize (I’m working on it!), my short story Kristoforo made the LONG LIST of entries, falling just short in the DYSTOPIAN genre category!
As I previously mentioned, I’m refraining from posting some of my stories onto this website until I am sure that it won’t be published commercially (many magazines consider posting on an author’s own website to be “published” and so won’t consider it), but if you would like to read it, give me a shout and I am happy to share via email.
Meanwhile, shortly after the Christmas winners were announced, the next 7-Day competition was announced and I wrote my second CRIME story, a detective story. The winners of that challenge will be announced around April 30. I’ll keep you posted!
Late last summer, I entered a story into another competition sponsored by the international competition group Globe Soup. As with previous contests, this wasa 7-Day Story Writing Challenge in which each participant was given a theme and randomly assigned one of twelve genres:
In this contest, I was assigned the FANTASY genre. The theme was “Knowledge is Power.” We were then given 7-days to write a story of no more than 2,000 words.
As before, this was my first try at writing a story in my assigned genre.
Well, the winners were announced last week and, although I STILL did not win the £500 First Prize, my short story A Wizard’s Journey was given HONOURABLE * MENTION as Runner-Up in the FANTASY genre category!
I am in the process of polishing this story for possible commercial publication, so I don’t want to post it here on my website (many magazines consider that to be “published” and so won’t consider it), but if you would like to read it, give me a shout and I will send you a copy.
Back in June, the international competition group Globe Soup sponsored a 7-Day Story Writing Challenge. Each participant was given the theme “Cheating” and one of twelve randomly assigned genres:
I was assigned the CRIME genre. We were then given 7-days to write a story of no more than 2,000 words.
One of the conditions of the contest was that the entries be judged anonymously and could not be published elsewhere until the winner was announced.
Well, the winner was announced this week and, although I did not win the £500 First Prize, my short story The Craftsman WAS chosen as the winner of the CRIME Genre category! This was my first attempt at writing crime fiction, so this small victory was particularly gratifying.
Robert Burns: Chapter Next 