This is a new section from a YA novel in progress, a black comedy about a school shooter. The Fundraiser table currently holds a Christmas-tree sale put on by the Rojans all-girl student service club. "Eyedropper" is the name Aurora is called--there's a story, but you don't have to know it for this excerpt. ( Read more... )

There’s a box ( Read more... )

As a freelance editor, I frequently hear from authors who are worried that if they join a writing group, show their manuscript to an editor, or submit it to an agent, their words will be stolen ( Read more... )

He tapdanced on a flattened cardboard box, that's what I remember. A skinny black man in a Santa hat, on the sidewalk of the Magnificent Mile. His boom box played carols with an electric beat and the crowd, too, was electric--expensive shopping bags in their hands, smiling for Christmas. A light snow was falling, and the big flakes and the lights ( Read more... )

“Either Filipinos have the greatest service culture in the world, or they’re secretly plotting to take over,” I tell my mom on our weekly call. “Every retail worker here is Pinoy, they greet me with smiles, they remember me-I mean, the Dubai Mall gets twenty thousand patrons on a busy day, Dean & DeLuca probably sees three thousand upscale-grocery ( Read more... )

“Are you an almond milk person or soy ( Read more... )

This is an intersection for LJIdol with kathrynrose, whose companion story may be read here.__________________________________________________ ( Read more... )

What nobody tells you as an artist is that every project starts at the beginning. Not just the blank page, the empty stage, but that you have to re-establish your credentials and your quality every time. You can coast on reputation a little, but it doesn’t last long if you don’t deliver ( Read more... )

To: h.prentiss@ancientaliens.thc.com
From: m.salmone@ancientaliens.thc.com
Re: Copier JamHey Hankster ( Read more... )

(after W. B. Yeats)

This is the blood you’ll remember
The blood and the thump
Of the squirrel under the wheel
That you will never forget
Not ten years later
When you are no longer seated in the passenger side
When you have (at last!) taken off the ring

Scroll through the contacts list
And find her, AnnaThe graceful sweep of her arm ( Read more... )