Good-bye

I knew it would be today. I could feel it in my bones as the gray dawn streamed through my window this morning. My last morning. My last sunrise.

The Madonna

Chapter 1

The Madonna's eyes beckoned. Such sparkle, drawing Sasha into the room even though the Madonna's rapturous gaze never left the infant Jesus in her arms. A soft light delineated the rubies circling her head, the alabaster of her skin, the pave jewels of her gown – the clearest blue diamonds Sasha'd ever seen. And yet…what was it? Something seemed…

Face One's Demons

After achieving a decisive victory over the ruthless Ipis who rule the galaxy, Dante Carloman negotiated a treaty that saved all humans from extinction. The treaty allowed the humans and their allied species to become a semi-autonomous sector on the fringe of the Ipis empire—as long as the current Ipis empress, Fravashi, remains alive.

The Sisters of Fire

This new series by Kathryn Shay follows six firefighters, ten years after they became friends in their fire academy recruit days. Each book shows their strong connection, as well as the in-depth story of one of them. Each book also addresses a contemporary issue women face, including domestic abuse, death of a spouse, divorce, blending family with career, discrimination in the workplace, and pursuing a new path in life.

Attack of the Poetry Virus

This is the poem I wrote many years ago. It is made up of samples of the many different poetic forms but certainly not all of them. It was fun to do and I hope fun to read

Attack of the Poetry Virus: A collection of poems inspired by "A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms" by Paul B. Janeczko.

A New Dawn

Now you try. Here's a word spill. Using as many of these words and your own words write several Cinquain. The more you practice, the better. As soon as you get the hang of this form, you will begin to create your own, representing what you're experiencing in your day to day life, using images from nature to connect to human nature, like Haiku.

Rustic Accommodations

I sure hope that feller didn't have a lot of enemies; Lord knows I had more than a few myself. I was wanted in 3 states for stage robbin' and such. I ain't never killed anybody before though I got blamed for it once. I didn't even kill this feller either, he kinda killed hisself through ignorance, I just failed to enlighten him of certain vital knowledge I happen to possess.

Alaric's Gold

"Sir," Private Baker threw a quick salute as he ran towards Captain McLain. "We ran into some old guy up the trail a bit. He started shouting and waving when he spotted us."

Captain Mark McLain pulled off his helmet, scratched his closely cropped hair and growled, "Well, what the hell do you think you should do about it? You know the orders. Our boys and the Brits are landing in Italy somewhere along the Amalfi coast in a few days. We can't take the chance that he'll tell the krauts there's a platoon of US Army Rangers roaming around Calabria, prepping for the invasion."

Best Tips

Lately, I've had more than one story in the works at the same time—a separate notebook for each one, or more precisely, a loose pile of notes and reference material that aspires to, one day, assemble itself into a coherent narrative.

Dark as Chocolate Released

In Dark as Chocolate, food poisoning of a former high school classmate leads FDA Investigator Connie Murphy to inspect Morerich Chocolates. On the surface, Morerich appears to be following the regulations, but she soon discovers the company is hiding illness complaints about their Delightfully Delicious candy bars. As Connie continues to dig deeper, she gets entangled in economic fraud and drug smuggling, and her efforts culminate in kidnapping and attempted murder.

Read a sample of Connie Murphy #4, Dark as Chocolate

The Wind

…the musings of a "empty nest" father, written one lazy afternoon in 1997 while visiting his daughter in Cleveland. It is, I believe, a timeless piece for any parent when the children move out.

Dad's Wooden Rabbit

I also write a lot of memoir. The following, Dad's Wooden Rabbit, was a challenge to write something from the past, but do it in the present tense. I didn't think I could do it, but the challenge presenter gave me a big thumbs up for accomplishing the task.

An Excellent Bookstore

Yesterday's Muse Inc. is an independent used and rare bookseller that has been in operation for over 10 years. We opened our first 'brick and mortar' storefront in December of 2008 in our hometown of Webster, NY.

A Covid Prayer

Daily life looks very different, and this pandemic has impacted everybody in some way. You are not alone in what you are facing. The fears that rise to the surface are felt by billions of people around the world. We are all in this together. Even though the storm is raging right now, famous poet Maya Angelou once said, "Every storm runs out of rain."

Untitled Story

Flash fiction is a short work that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as "twitterature"); the "dribble" (also known as the "minisaga," 50 words); the "drabble" (also known as "microfiction," 100 words); "sudden fiction" (750 words); flash fiction (1,000 words); and "micro-story."

Carrot Ranch Tales

I am a regular contributor at Carrot Ranch Literary where Charli Mills offers a weekly prompt to anyone who wants to participate. We write 99 words, no more, no less, flash fiction stories. Each October we "Rodeo" meaning the prompts are more challenging, specific, and often have twists to them. They are meant to stretch our writing chops and make us, the authors, get out of our comfort zones to try something different.

The Usefulness Committee

Meetings are the most universal — and universally despised — part of business life. But bad meetings do more than ruin an otherwise pleasant day. There are real stakes: bad meetings make bad companies. In businesss, People don't take meetings seriously. They arrive late, leave early, and spend most of their time doodling. People wander off the topic. Good meetings aren't just about work. They're about fun — keeping people charged up.

Punctuation

The average person rarely needs to worry much about punctuation beyond a few basics. For the most part, those we communicate with don't care if the punctuation is off as long as they understand what we've written. Once we go beyond everyday communication and enter the world of business, clarity of meaning becomes more important.

Timely Converstaion

Rick Iekel sends us a timely piece that we are going to Grandfather in...

LCRW Round Robin

One of the most famous writing challenges was between C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. It was called the Challenge from Beyond. In this writing exercise, the writers each wrote one short section that ended in such a way as to leave the next author in a difficult spot. Now we present the LCRW Writing Challenge - 2020 Round Robin. But I won’t spoil the ending.

LCRW Inklings

What if there was a place you could meet your fellow writers virtually? What if there was a place where you could read your draft work to others, without having to edit it or spend hours using a spell checker? What if there was a place you could help other writers with their work… no prep necessary? Now there is. Every Tuesday 8 PM