Read ‘Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?’
My short story “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?” was just published in Issue 4 of The Orange Rose Literary Magazine. I hope you’ll give it a read.
You’d do it for Randolph Scott (video), wouldn’t you?
This is the second story of mine to appear in Orange Rose. The first one, “Shah Mat,” appeared in Issue 2. I’m grateful to editor-in-chief Amber Budd for including my work in both issues.
There are so many great short stories being published these days that it’s hard to keep track of them all. So many deserve to be read and savored. Maybe you’ve read some of the five below that I’ve selected as my favorites of 2025. If not, I hope you’ll give each of them a read. And if you’ve read any of them, maybe give them another read.
All of these stories were published during the 2025 calendar year in online literary magazines and are publicly accessible at the time of this writing. I present them here unranked and in no particular order.
Continue reading “Friday Five: favorite short fiction of 2025”How do we define a style that many see as elitist, pretentious, and irrelevant?
What does the term “literary fiction” mean? What makes a story or essay or novel literary instead of … something else?
That’s a question I’ve been pondering for some time now. Lately, a series of pieces appearing online have attempted to get at an answer.
Continue reading “What makes fiction literary?”My micro fiction story “Spindled” is in the latest issue of Painted Pebble Lit Mag, a publication devoted to short-form writing. I would be honored if you took a few minutes of your day to read it. (You can also listen to me reading it if you prefer.)
Dad was a computer programmer. While other kids’ dads brought home stacks of clean white office paper for them to draw on, ours came home with stacks of manila-colored, rectangular cards with tiny rectangular holes punched through them. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate, warned the fine print of the cards.
From “Spindled,” by Andrew Careaga
A recent New York Times op-ed raises some concerns.
An opinion piece in The New York Times over the weekend — titled “The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone” (gift link) — has me thinking about the role of gender and, dare I say, diversity in the field of literature today.
The author, David J. Morris, who teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, writes that “literary fiction has become a largely female pursuit.”
Continue reading “Is the literary man an endangered species?”
