Two teenagers and three adults—the 'Creek Crew'—volunteer to fight the Big Fire of 2002 in the rolling and heavily forested hills of the Poconos. As local volunteers, they are supposed to work well behind the the fire lines and out of danger, but they soon find themselves in serious trouble. "Mr. Pegg To You" is a traditional story of a young man facing a trial by fire—literally—during a summer of boring work at a fancy resort in the Poconos. "Mr Pegg To You" was honored as a finalist in the 2013 Press 53 Novella Competition.
There are very few literary magazines willing or able to showcase novellas. The Write Launch was kind enough to feature this story—of a 2nd-generation Welsh American hoping to learn about his family's long-hidden past while visiting Wales—in its March and April 2018 issues.Robert Hillis, award-winning Canadien novelist and poet, recommended it in his twitter feed!.
"Stuck" appeared in the pages of the journal WritesForAll in 2013 and was the subject of the Editor's Forum that same year. This disarming short story physically manifests a man's struggle with marital ennui.
You can read a transcript of my interview with WriteForAll's editor by clicking here.
First published in the literary magazine Curbside Splendor in 2014, "Missing Person" is a structurally experimental short story that chronicles the musings of a man too aware of his own weaknesses to benefit from the therapy a marriage counselor has suggested, a plan which he follows scrupulously. His wife's infidelity leads to a sharp decline in his fortunes, a fall both funny and dark.
In 'Beautiful Lies, Wonderful Lies,' Larry Dugin has already been diagnosed. A follow-up visit to his doctor results in a hope-deflating prognosis—which sets into motion a most unusual and unexpected reaction to the bad news.
Greg—married with two daughters—gets a call from his old college flame suggesting they meet for lunch in Key West. On the drive from Marathon, he fantasizes—given that his wife has recently had a fling with a local businessman— about lunch turning into something more. Their powerfully sexual college romance ended badly, but Ruth sounds excited, and Greg feels no moral impediments stand in his way.
Katherine, 73 years old and for 50 of those years a "northerner," is cajoled by her two younger sisters to return to Birmingham, Alabama for the funeral of Alvin Hubbard, a man she has despised her entire life. While there, she reflects on the origins of her hatred, and the circumstances that led the sisters to such different lives.
Neil was damaged goods when Lora met him, fixed him, made him happy. After fifteen years of marriage, she finally decides to accompany him on his annual business trek to Boston, site of his college love affair with Alex—an intense and ultimately destructive relationship that ended badly for Neil. Alex's effect on Neil—long ago muted by Lora's love for him—has not disappeared entirely.
Barton, an Iraq war veteran suffering from PTSD and a recent divorce, spends time with his two small children in his barebones apartment, hoping to impart some sense of himself in the short time he has with them. Terrible Blue' isn't the first story to explore the debris field that is PTSD, but it does something most of those stories do not: it spotlights the struggle to keep the destruction limited to himself.
When high school senior Karen Musial's father comes home unexpectedly early, he interrupts her makeout session with the more innocent freshman Toby Dodson. Karen suspects her father might have assumed the two were engaged in more than just kissing. Within minutes Toby is confronted by Mr Musial—a retired Army staff sergeant—and the young man's assumptions about Karen, and his belief in himself—take a bizarre turn.
Owen, for the second summer in a row in charge of the Manhattan PAL Playstreet on 118th between Lexington and 3rd, inspects the wristband awarded to him by Martinez, leader of the Los Reyes Street Gang. Within the hour he will be tested like never before through a series of events that involve the gang, Owen's college friend living with his parents in the swank East 80s, the owner of the Little Burger Joint and the owner's son.
Roger Nettles, travel author and ex-mountaineer, wakes up woozy and nauseous in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the frame. Emil Gaston, Inspecteur de Police de la Prefecture à Haute Savoie, questions him about the death of a revered mountain guide who had led Roger and his wife Carol on a once-in-a-lifetime off-piste ski experience a few days earlier. Roger is a clever story-teller. Gaston is a clever interrogator. Each man re-creates the day leading up to the guide's death. Each man has a compelling story. But only one of them can be true.
A legal proceeding has put discovery materials (interrogatories, witness interviews and crime-scene evidence) on the desk of a legal consultant, much of which consists of the writings of one of the victims in a double homicide. The victim was a burned-out social worker with serious writing aspirations; reading his confessional notes, and the accompanying materials, we discover what led to his murder–and the murder of the woman whose body was found beside his.
In 2040, as the Cemetery Reclamation and Transformation Options period begins in Chicago, Greg’s wife Sherry insists he visit Graceland Cemetery to have his parents’ remains cremated, and she sends him off with two large coffee tins for the ashes. While there, anti-Reclamation protestors overrun the cemetery.