When you’re ‘home for the holidays’, ever revert to a child-like state?
Happens to me sometimes…
In this case, a couple of a years ago, summertime.
~
Sociology 2260 Students:
With this clip, I’m blurring the ‘veil of secrecy’ between my professional ‘front’ and ‘back’ stage personalities right here on the Internet–just for you.
[Not as extreme as the clip we saw of Bill O'Reilly, though ...]
What key thinkers am I referring to?
The story–originally published in PicFic December 2009–
was recently republished in the new Folded Word Press paperback anthology,
On a Narrow Windowsill: Fiction and Poetry Folded onto Twitter.
Now, the anthology is also available as an e-book, here, here, and here.
~
Are you an indie publisher? Want to learn the art of converting
“a highly formatted literary book from print to .epub to .mobi in one smooth workflow”?
If so, sign up for FoldedWord’s free tutorials. They’re willing to share what they know…
Join the lessons by dropping a note at this address:
editors [at] foldedword [dot] com
In the subject line, type “exPRESS”.
~
The original ‘Happy Holiday’ blog notes are here, with poll questions included.
Small discoveries are exciting…
A year ago, the Winter 2009 issue of The Battered Suitcase was published online. In it, a story I wrote called The Secret (he thinks) He Keeps. Today, I saw the issue available as an eBook ‘Kindle Edition’ at amazon.com
If your into eBooks, check it out.
The issue is filled with poetry, non/fiction, interviews and art that examine:
“life in all its lovely ambiguity, grittiness, glory and despair…relationships as a means for transformation and the complexity of the human psyche”.
Blog notes that accompanied last year’s publication–poll questions included–are here.
It’s so nice to revisit this work, and to see it available in a new form ~
Wonderful news …
The Curious Practice of Pet-Naming wins a 3Cheers Award!
The story appeared earlier this year in PicFic — a Folded Word Press Twitter-zine.
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The other winners?
Gregory Sherl and Ben Nardolilli
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The prize includes:
the video interpretation above ↑
the “blog bling” below ↓
and the honor, of course.
It’s so nice to hear someone else read my words …
A big thank-you goes out to voters and Folded Word’s California-based Managing Editor, J.S. Graustein.
I’ve written about secrets, and taken photos of paradox.
The challenge?
To combine these phenomena in a micro-story of 50 words exactly — no more, no less.
Not long ago, I observed a secret paradox close to home – it concerns business, humans, nonhuman animals, and eating habits.
The story appears in the weekly New Jersey-based e-zine 50 to 1. Editor, Glen Binger, “posts only 50 word stories and first line inspirational sentences that are meant to get the reader hooked ...”
Here’s the link → Secret Beef
Some puzzling labels for humans are as follows:
Some men are teddy bears, some women are cougars, some people are pigs (regardless of sex), while others are simply called animals. In Animal Planet—a postcard story—Rose Hunter provides more examples.
Nonhuman animals themselves are the recipients of perplexing naming practices.
I explore this phenomenon in a Twitter-length fiction—140 characters or less. It appears in PicFic—the Twitter fiction wing of Folded Word Press.
Above, as it appears on Twitter.
And here, as it appears on the PicFic website: The Curious Practice of Pet-Naming
Another curiosity:
What have you named your companion animal(s)?
He told me his name and the name of his cat.
Don’t remember either and forgot to ask:
Does the weight of the cat make your head hurt?
~
I’m curious since they take long walks around town … just like that.
‘Tis the season for shortbread and shopping malls, holiday stress and family tension.
I have visions of geographically dispersed families with members scattered around the globe, doing whatever they can to make it home for the holidays to spend time with relatives and friends.
I see travelers arriving on the doorsteps of (grand)parents and siblings. They bring mountains of gifts (or none at all), too much luggage, and odd habits not apparent during long-distance telephone calls. For several days–weeks even–they pile on top of one another in the tiniest of urban condominiums and compact homes.
Anticipating such an event, a friend of mine writes in a greeting card, overwhelmed: “We’re staying put for Christmas but everyone is coming here. Aaahhhh! Help!” Read the rest of this entry »
The Battered Suitcase is the flagship publication of Vagabondage Press. The magazine’s mission — to ”examines life in all its lovely ambiguity, grittiness, glory and despair. Chief Editor Fawn Neun and the editorial team express a particular interest in “the question of what it means to be human, the exploration of relationships as a means for transformation and the complexity of the human psyche.”
It’s a thrill to have a super-short fiction of mine appear in this issue:
Here’s the link → The Secret (he thinks) He Keeps
Working on the piece I thought of late Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman, his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and his notion of dramaturgy – the idea that we’re all actors, regardless of whether we do the job in a professional capacity or not. Read the rest of this entry »
