Just $525 to Go!

My crowdfunding campaign has had a silent spring. My Mother (Elmer Smith’s daughter Marjorie)

 decided in January to take a small independent apartment in a nice senior community, so she could have more of a social life and not be hogtied by the weather. Six weeks after her decision – bam, she was moved in, perfectly organized and quite satisfied (after the usual hassles with Comcast and AT&T, naturally).

So, I am re-settled by myself in the condo, furniture moved and rooms rearranged … and ye gods, time has moved on!

I have just $525 left to raise to meet the $1,300 goal for my summer trip to Can Serrat, the artists’ residence estate outside of Barcelona, Spain, to work on the Papaw Project. I’ve extended the campaign to June 15 – and for anyone who wants to donate again, I have new story gifts for you!

A second donation of up to $10 means you’re a VALENTINE – and you get a .pdf of my award-winning short story, “The Valentine.” This story was published in the 2013 Bacopa Literary Review and was the Second-Place Winner in their annual fiction contest.

A second donation of $11- $50 means you’re IN MOONLIT BONG – and you get two short-short stories that were published in the online creative-life magazine Rebelle Society: “In Moonlit Bong” and “Not the Enemies You’re Looking For.”

A second donation of $51-100 means you are a SWEETIE – and you get a SNEAK PREVIEW of the Second Ross Lamos Mystery, still in progress! 

All my thanks and praise to those who have donated already. I hope you have enjoyed the stories of the Papaw Project! 

The story that will cap the collection is being enriched by my reading the wartime “ordinary soldier” accounts by Ernie Pyle: "Here Is Your War" and "Brave Men." I am also digging (ha!) into the history of the interstate highway system and methods of urban sanitation in the 1930s. Stay tuned!

Yeesh, has it really been SEVEN months since I last posted? Bad Me!

 

Well, it's Arctic Freeze Day here in Bloomington, IN, so I'm home taking care of bidness while wearing3 layers.

 

News from September 2013 that has had me grinning ever since: I am going to Can Serrat artists' retreat on a supported residency for a full month ... next July ... near BARCELONA!

 Will be working on my "Papaw" story collection and - yes! - the second Ross Lamos Mystery!

 

Plans for travel are shaping up -- I have a travel companion for the trip out, including some tourist time in Madrid and Barcelona that we hope will include literary cafes and open mics!

Among the Madrid plans are a meetup with the Rebelle Society co-founder Andrea Balt. I recommend a trip to www.rebellesociety.com, for inspiration and dream-enhancement.

If you prefer tangible dreamstuff, "The Best of Rebelle Society, Vol. 1" is now on sale at Amazon's Create Space.  I've got mine, and it's delicious.

I started and finished a new story in one evening this past week - a great beginning to a year of writing!

And how are you?

Live Reading, Friday 5/24/2013

I am the featured reader for LEMONSTONE, a program of the Writers' Guild at Bloomington, tomorrow night! Sweet Claire Bakery, on 3rd st. between Grant an Lincoln, in Bloomington, 7 - 8:30 pm. I will be reading 2 short stories from THE STRONGER, a story collection inspired by my grandfather's life and family tales.  

"The Last" - twenty-year-old Eli Swett is having a bad summer in 1879.  He thought he could make good money poisoning wolves on the Kansas prairie, but unexpected factors dog him, help him and defy explanation.

"Black Horse Fever" - A beautiful black horse and a rivalry between two country doctors turn a county upside down in 1902.

I hope you can be there!  I will have copies of YU: A ROSS LAMOS MYSTERY on sale at discount.

More Good News!

Just got word that "The Valentine" also won 2nd place in the Bacopa Literary Review's contest! *happy dancing*!

2013 Publication coming!

A short story of mine, "The Valentine," will appear in the print journal, Bacopa Literary Review, in spring 2013. 

In this tale, mismatched love blooms around a car crash in rural Southern Indiana.

Bacopa published my short story, "The Stronger," in 2011.

Further Rebellion

Rebelle Society has published another short-short piece from me, here.

As you might guess from the subject, I had had enough of Some People.

Serenely Not-Looking-For-It

I am open to the Blue, which great things fall out of.