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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Jessica Francis Kane–“Family Weekend” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #22] (2022)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 22, 2022] “Family Weekend”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 22. Lori Hahnel, author of Vermin, has practiced her scales enough for one day.

This story was utterly relatable.

A woman has moved from her home town to New York City and now her daughter is going to college in her home town.  So when she visited her daughter for Family Weekend, she stays in her old house.  Her mother has passed away, so she is staying with her father.

Her father wears jeans now.  This is new.   He has a new phone–his first smartphone–and he doesn’t like it.  He deletes texts, doesn’t see the point of the threads. 

You borrow your father’s car to drive to campus, but your daughter is in class.  So you run an errand and miss everything.  (more…)

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Robert Louis Stevenson–“Markheim” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #21] (1887)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Robert Louis Stevenson, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 21, 2022] “Markheim”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 21. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, died in 1894 and would not return our emails.

Not many stories in this collection are actually Christmas stories, which is probably for the best.  Who knows how that would go if you tries to corral them into a theme.  But this one is. (more…)

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John Elizabeth Stintzi–“Moving Parts” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #20] (2021)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 20, 2022] “Moving Parts”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 20. John Elizabeth Stintzi, author of My Volcano, makes hay while the sun shines.

This was a crazy-on-the-surface story that had some lovely metaphorical reality underneath it.

When the narrator gets to college, her left pinky disappears.  At the college ice breaker she says that her second interesting fact is that “I lost my left pinky finger after I moved in.”  When her parents came to visit her father had made her a pinky out of wood to strap onto her hand.  It fit perfectly.

She went home for holidays abut every time she returned to college a new part was missing–her ear, her foot.  (more…)

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Cynan Jones–“Reindeer” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #19] (2022)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Cynan Jones, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 19, 2022] “Reindeer”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 17. Cynan Jones, author of Cove, hears those sleigh bells jingling.

This is the second story I’ve read by Cynan Jones and I seemed to have the same reaction. I didn’t expect to like it, but then really did and wanted it to be longer.

(more…)

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Senaa Ahmad–“The Skin of a Teenage Boy Is Not Alive” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #18] (2019)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Senaa Ahmad, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 18, 2022] “The Skin of a Teenage Boy Is Not Alive”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 18. Senaa Ahmad, a Canadian short-fiction writer, has never been that bored.

There was an earlier story in this collection about the Satanic panic of the 1980s.  This story about demonic possession in high school (metaphorical or not, I’m not entirely sure).  

Parveen is a good Indian girl.  There is one other Indian girl in their town, Aisha.  The resolutely ignore each other at first but eventually become best friends. (more…)

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Lori Hahnel–“Dearest Clara” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #17] (2022)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Clara Schumann, Dresden Germany, Hingston & Olsen, Lori Hahnel, Robert Schumann, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 17, 2022] “Dearest Clara”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 17. Lori Hahnel, author of Vermin, has practiced her scales enough for one day.

As Hahnel explains, “Dearest Clara” came out of the work I’ve been doing the past few years on a novel based on the life of Clara Schumann, the 19th-century German composer and pianist.

This is a few diary entries from Schumann (nee Clara Wieck). (more…)

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Erika Swyler–“Good Neighbors” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #16] (2022)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Erika Swyler, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 16, 2022] “Good Neighbors”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 16. Erika Swyler, author of Light from Other Stars, doesn’t like the sound of those hoofprints.

I loved the audacity of this story.  A couple is mourning the loss of their old neighborhood.  I loved this:

You bought a starter house, then a show house or a major renovation, then you retired to somewhere else, leaving an enormous home behind to mark where you’d been.

When Janie and Phil bought their house thirty years ago they were living in the woods part of suburbia.  But now they lived in the shadows of mansions.  The Hutchinson’s, like everyone else apparently, seemed to be moving to Boca. (more…)

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Rebecca Watson–“Punchline” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #15] (2022)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Rebecca Watson, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 15, 2022] “Punchline”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 15. Rebecca Watson, author of little scratch, is wondering if you’ve heard the one about two people who walk into a bar.

I really enjoyed this delightfully odd story of getting to know someone, sort of. 

The narrator, whose name is not Briony, met a man at a her friend Amy’s birthday party.  Their eyes didn’t meet across a crowed room. Rather they met in a mirror.

They didn’t introduce themselves, but they did wind up spending the night together.  The fact that they didn’t know each others’ names was part of the thrill.

The next morning he said he knew her name (were they really drunk enough not to ask each other last night?)  He said it was Bryony (It isn’t).  She replied that it was coincidence how similar their names are since his name was clearly Brian.  he said he would call her Brian, short for Bryony. (more…)

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Ander Monson–“I’ve Thought About Taking Up Another Life” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #14] (2017)

Posted in Ander Monson, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 14, 2022] “I’ve Thought About Taking Up Another Life”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 14. Ander Monson, author of The Gnome Stories, will get to the sports pages eventually.

This story had a very strange bookending component.  The narrator, as the title says, would like to start another life.

And so, he (I believe) cites the example of a couple, usually middle-aged, let’s call them Diana and Henry.  They have been married for a while and have two kids.  And then one of them suddenly disappears. (more…)

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Venita Blackburn–“Not a Donut” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #13] (2022)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 13, 2022] “Not a Donut”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 13. Venita Blackburn, author of How to Wrestle a Girl, never forgets to like and subscribe.

I enjoyed everything about this story until the end, when it got very real and broke the bubble that the story had created.

Dan Conway’s wife left him and his son Silus. Dan was ordinary but confident.  he was sixty and Silus was an adult as well.  But Silus was diagnosed with high needs on the autism spectrum.  So Dan rarely allowed Silus to be on his own.  Silus rarely spoke more than a few catchphrases (like “Not a Donut”) which Dan knew how to interpret.

Dan had started going to New Light Missionary Baptist church a few months earlier.  It had gotten three and a half stars which was Dan’s sweet spot (he didn’t trust four stars or above, figuring they must be fake, because who could ever perform that well at anything).

After one Sunday, Dan learned that he could leave Silus for the young adult session and the ladies would look after him. 

He seemed to really hit it off with Sis. Wilson.  There’s a wonderful moment where she startles him while he is watching Silus from behind a palm tree. 

“Jesus shit,” yelled Dan. 
Sis. Wilson slapped her thigh, laughing as he began to apologize for the language.  “Jesus wept,” she replied.  

There’s some background on Dan and Silus that really Fleshes out what a good man Dan is.  

There’s also a scene where Dan tries t o get Sis. Wilson to work out at the gym.  It’s during this session that she asks him why he didn’t go to a white church (I’m not sure from context clues if I was supposed to realized the racial implications in the story already).

Later on when Dan tries to scare Sis. Wilson the way she did to him earlier, it does not go well.   And that made me very sad.

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