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Short Story Friday #5

Short Story Friday has been revamped for 2015, and I’ll be sharing snippets from my own fiction pieces, mostly short stories.  In addition to the new business, Poetic Book Tours, I’ll be writing and submitting more of my own fiction and poetry this year.

I hope you’ll offer your thoughts on this story that is currently in progress.

Here are the first, second, and third parts posted in previous weeks:

You’re probably wondering why the journal’s called Transcendence. It’s a project that all high school seniors must complete.  We’re supposed to use it to reflect on what we’ve learned here and how it will direct us toward our roles in society.

Now, our city-state is not as rigid as the other communities in the union.  But they still make us complete this project even if we don’t actually do what we conclude by the end.  We’re just checking a box for the unionists.  I’m not even sure what I’ve learned will help me in the real world because there doesn’t seem to be a place for a constant blinker.  I guess I’ll just draw from mom’s pension when she’s gone.  She’s been saving it for me, and says she’ll work until she dies on the job, which could be any day since she chases fugitives of the union who call themselves the No Collars.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this snippet and let me know what you think.

Short Story Friday #4

Short Story Friday has been revamped for 2015, and I’ll be sharing snippets from my own fiction pieces, mostly short stories.  In addition to the new business, Poetic Book Tours, I’ll be writing and submitting more of my own fiction and poetry this year.

I hope you’ll offer your thoughts on this story that is currently in progress.

Here are the first, second, and third parts posted in previous weeks.

I don’t want you to think that I’ve forgotten about this protagonist or failed to post and let this feature go into the dustbin again.  I have been writing, but poetry!

So the muse has shifted my gears for me.  As soon as I get back to writing this short story, I will share again.  That’s a promise.

In other news, I’ve been visiting other blogs! 

I hope you’ll take the time to check out my home library at Daily Mayo and my thoughts for February Firsts at Book Blogger International.

Short Story Friday #3

Short Story Friday has been revamped for 2015, and I’ll be sharing snippets from my own fiction pieces, mostly short stories.  In addition to the new business, Poetic Book Tours, I’ll be writing and submitting more of my own fiction and poetry this year.

I hope you’ll offer your thoughts on this story that is currently in progress.

Here are the first and second parts posted in previous weeks.  Without further ado, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this girl and what you think is going on:

I’m Lythia, by the way, and this is my journal of Transcendence.  I’ve lived seventeen years with this blinking issue, but I’ve never let it stop me.  I’m what the others call a kiss-face because I get good grades in school, volunteer to help the third-raters in the suburbs, and generally make nice with the school’s interface.

There must be adults in charge of it somewhere, but no one has ever seen them — you know, face-to-face.

While I’m not wildly popular, very few students pull pranks on me.  My mother says this is a good thing, but I disagree.  I think it means I’m excluded.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this snippet and let me know what you think.

Short Story Friday #2

Short Story Friday has been revamped for 2015, and I’ll be sharing snippets from my own fiction pieces, mostly short stories.  In addition to the new business, Poetic Book Tours, I’ll be writing and submitting more of my own fiction and poetry this year.

I hope you’ll offer your thoughts on this story that is currently in progress.

If you missed the first part posted last week, check it out here.

Finn would be the one I’d flirt with, but even though he’s new here, he already knows about my condition.  That’s the high school grapevine for you.  No way he’ll let me rely on it as flirting now.  Besides, the blinking is too rapid.

He’s still sweet.  He holds open doors for all the girls, even me.  It reminds me of those books on my mother’s bookshelves.  Men held doors for ladies and helped them into their seats at dinner, an idea as antiquated as my mother’s bookshelves.

All of my materials in school are digital and holograms teach us our lessons, making even human teachers obsolete.  I guess it helped reduce student-teacher violence to zero.  That’s something.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this snippet and let me know what you think.

Short Story Friday #1

In 2013, I introduced Short Story Friday as a way to discuss individual short stories, whether e-short stories or short stories in collections, but I dropped the ball in 2014 and the feature has since disappeared from the blog.

In 2015, I’m relaunching this feature, but rather than discuss published short stories from collections or sold individually, I’ll be sharing snippets from my own fiction pieces, mostly short stories.  In addition to the new business, Poetic Book Tours, I’ll be writing and submitting more of my own fiction and poetry this year.

I’ve decided to share some of that writing here, and you can feel free to leave your feedback on the pieces I share or not.  I’ll leave that up to you, but know that I have a thick skin and can handle it if you don’t like it.

So today, here’s a little of what I’ve been working on:

I’ve been told that my eyes blink too frequently.

The diagnosis must be true because I only see glimpses most of the time. My brain must fill in the blanks to complete the images I see because sometimes I’ll be talking to someone with red hair on one side of their head and dark brown on the other.

Whether the blinking is because of my nearly dried out tear ducts or my fear of germs is anyone’s guess. But when I talk to you, I’m not flirting, batting my eyelashes like some love-sick pup.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this snippet and let me know what you think is going on with this girl.

Short Story Friday: Greyhound by Jean Ryan

Survival Skills: Stories by Jean Ryan is a slim volume, but each of the stories packs a visual and analytical punch as she draws parallels between what it means to be human and the behaviors found in nature.  While I’m still absorbing these stories at a slow pace, I wanted to share a bit about the short story, “Greyhound.”

The narrator seeks out a gift to cheer up her significant other, and finds herself at a greyhound rescue.  These dogs are retired from dog racing after just a few years and mostly due to injury, but Clara’s Gift is special because she chose to stop running at a young age.  While she is like the other greyhounds, shying away from human touch and affection at first, there is a certain intelligence in her eyes.  She meets her new owner, Holly, and the home they will all share, but coaxing does not win the dog over. Ryan paints a cohesive picture of this new family and its tentative steps around one another, but she also draws parallels between Holly and the dog — both wounded and unsure — and how they need to be approached to come out of their shells.

“…she rarely imparts information about herself; most of what I know about her I’ve had to piece together.  If she has fallen short of her goals, if she yearns for something more than me and this house we’re constantly mending, she doesn’t burden me with it.”  (page 10)

Wounded animals generally have a couple of base reactions — lash out or retreat — and in the case of “Greyhound,” retreating seems to be the best option.  While the narrator enjoys fixing things, like the house, there are some things that cannot be fixed, but must heal on their own.  The experience with the new dog teaches her to back away, to patiently wait on the sidelines, something that she’s clearly not accustomed to doing.  Even her role as a homeopathic seller imparts to the reader her desire to fix things, to offer comfort to others, and to provide aid where needed, even if it isn’t.

Ryan’s subtle style builds with each page of this story, and her links between nature and humanity become stronger with each connection.  “Greyhound” is just one powerful story, and I look forward to finishing this collection.

What are your thoughts on short stories?  Do you find them as powerful as novels?

About the Author:

Jean Ryan, a native Vermonter, lives in Napa, California.  A horticultural enthusiast and chef of many years, Jean’s writing has always been her favorite pursuit. Her stories and essays have appeared in a variety of journals, including Other Voices, Pleiades, The Summerset Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Blue Lake Review, Damselfly, and Earthspeak. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, she has also published a novel, Lost Sister.  Visit her Website.

Short Story Friday: Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan

It’s Friday again, and as promised, here is one of the occasional Short Story Friday features. Today’s feature will focus on Amy Tan’s e-short story, Rules for Virgins.

Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan is a short story in which a virgin courtesan is being told the ins and outs of the profession.  Set in 1912 Shanghai, Magic Gourd is explaining the ways in which courtesans gain favor with the wealthiest of men.  Violet, a young woman whose mother owned a similar house of women, is being tutored in the ways of beguiling and pampering not only the men they want to attract, but the other women in the house so that competition does not become deadly.

“While you are still a virgin courtesan, you must know all the arts of enticement and master the balance of anticipation and reticence.”

The way in which the story is told is in the form of teacher-student, and while Magic Gourd is harsh at times and provides unabashed detail about the expectations of men.  She exposes the inner workings of the house and the other women’s jealousies, but she also explains the function of the “mosquito press” in spreading rumors that build the reputations of new girls and houses.

“Few men are capable of preserving their ideal self.  If he is a scholar, what philosophical principles were sacrificed to ambition?  If he is a banker, what oath of honesty was dirtied by favors?  If he his a politician, what civic-minded policies were destroyed by bribes?  You must cultivate his sentimentality for moral glory and help him treasure his myth of who he was.”

The narration is reminiscent of Tan’s earlier work, but in this case, the women are not related by birth, but by situation, and the older, wiser Magic Gourd is imparting her wisdom to the younger courtesan.  Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan is a great look into this mysterious world of entertainment and enticement, but it seems too short and would have been great to see Violet begin to navigate this world at the guiding hand of Magic Gourd.

About the Author:

Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film.

Short Story Friday: The Witch Sisters by Alma Katsu

typewriter short story friday

In addition the occasional book news on Fridays, Savvy Verse & Wit would like to introduce Short Story Friday, on which I will highlight a recent short story I’ve read and enjoyed either on Kindle or in book form. Today’s is an e-short story by Alma Katsu.

The Witch Sisters by Alma Katsu is an e-short story spin-off from The Taker series that continues the Gothic feel of her previous novels.  Adair finds himself in England on a nervous steed as he gallops through fens wood, a forest of many superstitions and secrets.  He seems to be still be on his journey to acquire magical knowledge, but he’s also already begun collect his consorts.  In the darkest of evenings, Adair meets Penthy, a fair-haired young woman, who lures him back to her cottage that she shares with her more wily sister, Bronwyn.

Adair is intrigued by these women living alone together in the woods, but he also is aware of his own power and gives into his own vanity, remaining with them for several days as they dote on him.  Readers will find this story a departure from the character depicted in Katsu’s first book, The Taker, but Adair is similar to the man who evolves into in The Reckoning.

“The forest here was not like forests elsewhere. The salty soil had turned it into a nightmarish landscape. It made trees into stunted hunchbacks, gnarled and twisting in on themselves.” (page 1)

Penthy is the more pliable sister, but Katsu’s description of her resembles Lanore in terms of her attractiveness and damaged nature.  It is easy for readers of the series to see why Adair would be attracted to her, but she is less like Lanore in that she allows her sister to lead the way.  These sisters are resourceful medicine women, and they pride themselves on the good they do for the village women.  It is not until they look beyond the sexual object in their cottage do they realize the magic they have at the tip of their fingers.

Readers looking for more of The Taker and Katsu’s characters, The Witch Sisters is a great way to reduce the angst of waiting for the third and final book in the series, but the story could have been longer and included more magic.  Readers may want more spells, illusion, and displacement either on the part of Adair under the control of the sisters or from Adair as he decides how best to punish these women — in true Adair fashion.

AlmaKatsuAbout the Author:

Alma Katsu lives outside of Washington, DC with her husband, musician Bruce Katsu. Her debut, The Taker, a Gothic novel of suspense, has been compared to the early work of Anne Rice and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian.  The novel was named a Top Ten Debut Novel of 2011 by the American Library Association and has developed an international following.  The Reckoning, the second book in the trilogy, was published in June 2012.  The Taker Trilogy is published byGallery Books/Simon Schuster.