Sweet With Fall and Fish on Amy Hempel

Sweet With Fall and Fish is another blog that seems to be making the short story commitment this month. The blogger doesn't list his name on the website, or I didn't find it, but if you follow his link to his old website you can identify him. He works at an independent bookstore in Florida and calls himself "a buyer among other things," which in my former life was a role I could have related to. He is going to be posting some of his stories but also recommending short story collections. Today he is writing about Amy Hempel.

Emerging Writers Network on Men Under Water, by Ralph Lombreglia

Probably the main reason I even know of the existence of National Short Story Month is Emerging Writers Network. In recent times, I think the chief factotum over there (and maybe only factotum, period), Dan Wickett, has been a bit busy with other things recently, but I'm pleased to see that he is revving up the website for May. Today he's reviewing an anthology by Ralph Lombreglia and giving you the link to the ebook of the anthology, which is currently on sale. You can find out all about it HERE

And do check in over at Emerging Writers Network throughout the month, as you are likely to find a lot of interesting leads, short storywise.

Oh well, if you insist--prompts

No, I'm not doing prompts this year, but I can direct you to a month of prompts going on at Nano Fiction. Their site is all about flash fiction, but there's no reason you can't adapt them to your own ends...

You're welcome. Don't mention it.

National Short Story month, 2014

Well, May has rolled around again. A couple of years ago, I did a month of writing prompts here during this time for the one or two people who either knew I was doing this or randomly happened upon it. Last year there were a couple of big life events going on in May, so I didn't even attempt it. This year, I'm feeling more ambitious about a writing project I just started on than I am about blog prompts, but I think it might be kind of cool to be thinking about stories and story links all month, and I'll include you in the journey too if you want to check in here.


Let's start with a list of great story collections that I just found at Publisher's Weekly, assembled by the short story writer Carolyn Cooke. It's kind of a classic list, not that it means I've read many of them. The name and title that were new to me was Love is Power, or Something Like That, by A. Igoni Barrett.


I can see right now that I am setting myself up for a fall. I'm supposed to be reading The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. I'm enjoying it, but it is not by any stretch (or shrinkage) of the imagination a short story.

podcast of 'The Pirate's True Love' up now

True to their word, the folks at Far-Fetched Fables put up the podcast which featured "The Pirate's True Love" yesterday. I was quite happy with the show and am looking forward to following their weekly efforts in the future. I put up a fairly involved history of where this story has been on another blog, which you can find HERE. But if you'd rather just cut to the chase, here is the link to this second podcast from Far-Fetched Tales. The very well-known author A.A. Attanasio comes up first, and my rather brief tale is at about 44 minutes in.

District of Wonders podcasts

Somewhere around the middle of February, I had an out of the blue email, asking if a new podcast project could read my story, "The Pirate's True Love". I of course wasted little time in saying yes, and it will be going live soon they tell me, but in the meantime, you might want to check out the home base for a variety of podcasts, District of Wonders. They have several podcast series going already, which seem very fun: Tales to Terrify, Protecting Project Pulp, Crime City Central, StarshipSofa. I've barely been able to dig in yet, but I've listened to enough to know that I am very honored to be included.

Flash Jab Drabble Challenge over at Jack Bates' blog

There is still to enter the drabble challenge over at Jack Bates' Flash Jab Fiction blog. It's due by the end of February 28, but it's still doable because a drabble is a story that's exactly a hundred words long. There's no prize except the excitement of getting published over there. I just entered and you can too. Details HERE.