The Kiss-Me-Quick I visited my friend and we talked about shoes instead of about dying. I wanted to talk about dying, but she’s the one who’s dying and she wanted to talk about shoes. We looked at the three shoe boxes lined up on the carpet next to the couch where she was. The boxes were open and I saw the tips of three new pairs of shoes. There was that faintly sour smell new shoes have that reminds me of going with my mother into a shoe store, with her holding … [Read more...]
Hug it out
Today I am happy to post "The Kiss-Me-Quick," a story by Rochelle Distelheim, which I first fell for when it appeared in the Visiting Hours anthology put out by Press 53. I'm happy to say that Rochelle and I are in the same writing group so I have had the privilege of reading her work for some years now. It's been enough years that I have read her novel Jerusalem As a Second Language, witnessed how it was crafted to win the 2012 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative … [Read more...]
Friends in the cards
I feel obligated to post since I haven't done so in a week. I don't have too much to report. Not a lot of writing news. Not a lot of Solace in So Many Words news. The week has escaped me and I haven't gotten a lot accomplished. What has me excited is a poker game (nickel, dime, quarter) today with my grade-school friends. Two of the players (they are twins), I have known for almost all my life since our older sisters played together and would bring us along. We went to a … [Read more...]