All articles filed in Fiction

“Hey, Jenny!” My little brother’s voice pokes through my hazy brain as I try to figure out what  propensity and vouch mean, and what in the world they have to do with a headless horseman. I pull off an ear bud. “What?” Caleb quivers with excitement. “Guess what, Jenny? Daddy is Superman!” “What?” I want…

“It must have something to do with the Aztecs,” said Matt. I glanced over at Jude, who was staring at the words on his laptop screen with the heel of his hand jammed into his temple. He was biting his lip to keep from laughing. “You mean the Mayans, numbskull.” Tina stuck a post-it note…

This week, Write On Edge asked us to explore locale–local flavor  that adds realism to fiction. Today I’m borrowing from my completed, but so far unloved novel, In An Instant. Beth is a single mother and aspiring concert pianist who’s returned to her Iowa hometown to raise her son. She gets involved with someone she had…

The first time Ned laid eyes on Zin, the sight hit him like a tsunami–stole his breath, laid his soul flat on the floor of Summerset High. Her eyes nicked his face and moved on, and he wanted her like he’d never wanted anything in his life. She swept past in a dizzying swirl of…

In retrospect, I should have handled things differently. David came home from his Toledo run last night, his face bleached white with jealousy. “What’s this?” he demanded. “What’s what?” He waved a yellow envelope. “‘I’m looking forward to seeing you Friday’?” I looked up from the dishwater. “Who’s that from?” “Eric.” The word was a…

The moment Patrick opened the door, heat punched him in the chest, so heavy with moisture he had to lean on the car to withstand it. A few yards away, grapevines shimmered in the bright sunlight as they marched like stiff toy soldiers toward blue-shrouded heights. “Germans,” he muttered, shaking his head. Well, those rows…

Those damn yellow shoes. Zin massaged her ankle as she watched Ned disappear into the gloom of overhanging oak with the rest of the party. Flashlight beams danced on the thick canopy as their voices chattered. Soon even that was gone, and she was left on the porch with nothing but an ice pack, the…