Category: Random Stuff I Dig

  • Seventy-Three Rejections Later

    Seventy-Three Rejections Later

    When you start a story or a novel or a script, you begin with a sense of hope. You hope that your story will touch hearts and minds. You hope you told the story in a graceful fashion. You hope people will read it, at the very least. And sometimes, you know you wrote a…

  • 1903 E Cache La Poudre

    1903 E Cache La Poudre

    AT RISE: Bare florescent light. Stage is mostly black with painted remnants of two or three previous shows painted on the floor and walls. Bare set. STEVE and JENNY are standing center stage, contemplating their surroundings.STEVE: (Indicates bare stage.) Where was your favorite moment performed?JENNY: My favorite moment that I performed?STEVE: Yeah.JENNY: (Walks to spot…

  • “The Jogger”

    “The Jogger”

    Exciting news! My short story “The Jogger” is now up at All Worlds Wayfarer. Many moons ago, Ray Bradbury wrote a story where he explored the idea that the looky-loos at all accidents were actually the same people every time. Well, you know how it always seems like joggers find the bodies? (As one friend…

  • Creepy, Beautiful Things

    Creepy, Beautiful Things

    By now, we’ve all seen the incredible spider web video footage and photography coming out of Australia. If you haven’t, you can look at it here and then come back. I’ll wait. Severe flooding drove millions of spiders inland. Perhaps you remember earlier this year when news footage of spiders fleeing up trees and poles…

  • The Joy of Books in Boxes

    The Joy of Books in Boxes

    When I was in middle school, my mother subscribed to a Harlequin Romance book club. Every month, four new mass market titles would arrive in a plain cardboard box. And, even though the books were for my mom, she graciously allowed me to open that box every month. I got to be the first person…

  • Interesting Things Found in My Neighborhood

    Interesting Things Found in My Neighborhood

  • The Yellow Manuscript by Jenny Maloney

    New American Legends just picked up my longer-than-100-word short story “The Yellow Manuscript.” You can check it out here.

  • Edith Wharton on Writing a War Story…or a Love Story…or a Comedic Story…or a Story Story

    In September 1919, Woman’s Home Companion published a lovely little nugget of story by Edith Wharton. “Writing a War Story” is the tale of Ivy Spang, a poetess-turned-short-story-writer. Working as a nurse in France during WWI, Miss Spang is commissioned by an editor at the magazine “The Man-at-Arms.” He tells her that he wishes her to…

  • Introducing: Writing Desk II

    A couple months ago, the new owners of the Damon Runyon Theatre in Pueblo gave us SET ensemble members an opportunity to dig through their stuff (and if you’ve ever been in a community theatre, you understand there’s always a TON of stuff) and take away whatever we wanted. So we went down to P-town…

  • Survey Says!: An Article of Awesomeness from The Paris Review

    I’m starting to love Twitter like no other. If you follow the right people, you find some really fascinating material, like this article by Sarah Funke Butler from The Paris Review. The rundown: A sixteen year old student wrote a ‘survey’ on symbolism and sent it out to 150 well-known authors (like our very own…