Premiere Day

Inspirational song: Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)

It's been a long time coming. When I was barely a teenager, I wrote the first short story that I liked enough to share with my friends. I loved writing, and being good at it carried me through school (even when I was too lazy to start my essays sooner than the night before their due dates). When I was in my early twenties, I wrote a few that I liked enough to put up for judgement in a semi-annual mixed-media arts and crafts competition. Most of them were well-received. Then I had a long, dry spell, where all of my stories stayed locked up inside me, growing and morphing in my head, until I bored with them and laid them to rest. Occasionally I tried to pull one out and turn it into a long-form work of fiction, but so far nothing has ever made it all the way to book length.

Then I started these nightly passages, and I learned how much I can say in a very short space. I rediscovered my love of brevity. I adopted the habit of daily writing so fully, I decided it was time to start freeing those fictitious prisoners in my mind. Last fall, I had a couple random images that kept appearing when I closed my eyes, so I gave them a chance to tell me what they wanted to say. One was a story so abrupt, it was over and done in four paragraphs, ending on a discordant jolt. The second arrived at essentially the same end, but with peaceful acceptance and consent. I loved them. I was finally ready to share fiction with the world again.

A family friend turned me on to a new literary magazine, called Ant vs Whale. It celebrates the greatness in very small things. I was certain it was the perfect venue for the premiere of my tiny stories. I sent both of these first stories in to them, and today the first one has appeared on their website. It's called The Seat, and it is a bittersweet look at old age and the end of life. Please go over and read it. The full issue, that also includes my darker story, The Farm, will come out on Monday.

Ant vs Whale - antvswhale.com