When I was nineteen, I transferred from the University of Texas to the University of Utah. My sister was getting a divorce that summer and asked if I would come out and be there in Salt Lake City with her and her kids. I was happy to do that since I knew she needed some…
Tag: short-story
Flash Fiction: Over the Hill and Through the Snow
“Come on, Henry, we need to get going,” Nell Castle said to her husband. “They’ll all be waiting for us.” Henry reached for his black hat resting on the top shelf of the closet. “Mother, I would rather just stay home, if you don’t mind.” He waited, hoping he’d get a reprieve. “Henry Castle, don’t…
Flash Fiction: A Trade Worth Making
Margaret Johnson was eighty years old and lived in an assisted living facility. She was in good shape for her age—except for her thick glasses—and she had a secret. She was madly in love with Sy Silverman, a seventy-five-year-old newbie who’d arrived only two months before. Sy was not quite as spry as Margaret; he…
Flash Fiction: Lesson from the Scrub Jay
“You could make a living doing that kind of thing,” Mary Jo said as she watched her sister refinish an oak coffee table in the shade of the backyard pecan tree. “I suppose I could, but I’ve never thought about it,” Louise said, running the tack rag gently over the sanded finish. “Maybe I’ll consider…
Flash Fiction: When Silence Breaks
It wasn’t that she didn’t love Jacob; he just drove her crazy. He was one of those men who never said what he was thinking, but instead turned silent and stared off into space whenever he was upset. That silence could stretch on for hours, leaving Mary to stew. Mary said to him, “Give me…
An Approach to Writing Flash Fiction That’s Fun and Fast
I wrote the story below a while back during one of those quick writing exercises I like to do when I’m looking to stir things up creatively. I grabbed a deck of alphabet cards—the same kind I’ve used with younger kids when they’re learning letters—and spread them face up on the table. From that deck,…
Flash Fiction: A Matched Pair
Madeline was tired. She had been boxing up all sorts of antiques all afternoon since the owners, Maude and Jason Fredericks, were going out of business. These boxes would be heading to an auction where they would all go for what Maude described as “pennies on the dollar.” Madeline was especially upset about three different…
Happy Upcoming Anniversary, Sarah and Gregorio!
This is a piece I wrote back in 2014. Sarah and Gregorio’s wedding date is approaching, 11 years later, and I thought it’d be fun to share the tension that preceded that civil ceremony before their big church wedding near Thanksgiving. Sarah and Gregorio told us several weeks ago that they were going to get…
Flash Fiction: A Life Composed Anew
Janet wasn’t sure why life felt so complicated these days. Maybe it had something to do with the way the wind never seemed to stop blowing, tugging at her short gray hair, and stirring memories of happier times—before Chet died. Chet, her husband of 35 years, who’d woken up one morning saying he didn’t feel…
Flash Memoir: The Locked Door
When I was five, my family moved to a big two-story house with a full attic that had stairs leading up to the 3rd floor from a door in the second-floor hall. Before we had moved into the house, the man who had lived there had committed suicide, not in the attic, but in an…
20 Minutes a Day 