Friday morning when I came home from Jazzercise, speech therapy, and a Wal Mart run, this is what greeted me: Today I’m focusing on a final whirlwind run through my manuscript to make sure it’s clean so I can send it out. See you Wednesday!
Read MoreAll articles filed in Fiction
Fiction: Snow Day
The bells of St. Brigit’s are calling tonight, winging over the snow and alighting on my windowsill. All day I have been imprisoned by twenty inches of snow. Something inside me quivers for escape. Something bright, warm, effervescent–and utterly impossible. But real. When I woke this morning I was half an inch above my…
Read MoreFiction: A Legend Is Born
The facts? The facts are these: I am wholly ordinary. Black hair, caramel skin, no extraordinary features, no super powers, although I’ve gotten pretty good at karate lately. Self-defense, you know. I am a city girl, after all, born and raised in the shadow of the tenements. I make my living dyeing and designing special…
Read MoreA Journal Entry
I try not to write about writing too often, but I hope you’ll indulge me this once. I’m in transition right now. My last novel is finished and in the query phase, but its first forays into the hands of the industry were not as successful as I hoped, so I put the brakes on.…
Read MoreAuthor Interview: Erin McCole Crupp
Today I have a special post–a chance to chat with the author of a new Catholic novel: Don’t You Forget About Me, by Erin McCole Crupp, also known online as Mrs. Mackerelsnapper, OP (how can you resist a name like that?). Can you start by telling us what the book is about? Sure, Kate! Thanks…
Read MoreFiction: This Tornado Loves You
They say you can tell a lot about a baby in the womb. I knew this was true before you came along, little man, but I learned it all over again in the last four months you were inside my womb. I don’t think I got a moment’s rest, but I counted it a blessing…
Read MoreThe Avengers and other Quick Takes
___1___ I went to a family wedding in southern Missouri last weekend. It was quite a culture shock; very suddenly, when I turned onto I-44, I found myself surrounded by John 3:16s, Baptist churches three times the size of my (very large) parish, a Mack truck dealership that took up both sides of the highway,…
Read MoreFiction: Stardust
It began on a magical night beside the river Thames… or so my mother tells me. There was a twenty-car pileup and my parents were stranded in the fallout as her labor gained momentum. By sheer dumb luck, there was an OB three cars up and one to the left. An hour later, I came…
Read MoreFiction: Peaches and Bread
“What d’you wanna be when you grow up?” asked Steve. “What kinda question is that?” responded Malachi. “I’m gonna be a machinist like my dad. Just like you. Right?” Steve didn’t answer. He lay on the soft grass in the shade of a peach tree, his hands behind his head, and stared up at the…
Read MoreFiction: The Encounter
The trail map claimed it was only fifteen feet’s worth of elevation change from the parking lot to Copeland Falls, but it sure felt like more. Donald felt the weight of every year he’d lived, and some he hadn’t. The insulated backpack bounced heavy against his spine; every step required unreasonable effort. He’d never planned…
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Kathleen M. Basi 