She begins in the pond at the edge of Tom Hatcher’s cornfield, where the stalks drag needy fingers across a summer moon. She digs one toe, slender and clear as glass, into the murky bottom and begins to spin. Round and round. Faster and faster. Until sludge climbs up her body and binds to the […]
When the ship’s captain and the fat man who brought us all here stood together on the dock, talking low, I should have taken it as a sign. Their hands jabbed the night air in anger, and a murmur passed through me that my husband and I had made a mistake. The shuffling crowd propelled […]
The Gutters return! The Gutters are spaces between brag-worthy milestones and achievements, the space where we spend most of our lives. In this case, the short seventeen-year sojourn between first published short story (2000) and securing my first traditional book deal (2017) for The Brimstone Files (and pre-order HEX-RATED now! I need money for gas!). […]
Dates do not exist in the camp. Today is today; there is no yesterday, no tomorrow. If only 5168 would learn that. Spring has finally melted the months-deep snowdrifts, turning the ground to ankle-deep muck. Plants, long hidden, emerge from the soil. Flowers rush to bloom and die before Siberia’s winter returns. In Siberia, even […]
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” ~Neil Peart of the band Rush. Neil Peart is considered to be the best percussionist of all time. Here’s a link to one of Neil’s amazing percussion solos. We discovered a few years ago—much to our chagrin—that our youngest child is a percussionist. […]
The fires are small and out of season. Three in one week give the firefighters pause, make them shift in their heavy canvas suits and scratch their heads. No dry lightning, no kids with fireworks, and no damage except for the fences and some singed field grass. And the missing cows. I can see the […]