short stories – Page 4

Flashback fiction: ‘Lower Strata’

Revisiting a short story published a year ago today.

One year ago today, my short story “Lower Strata” was published by the literary magazine Spillwords.

This story was based on something I’d started about 25 years ago. It is influenced a bit by my years working in the restaurant business. Over the summer of 2024, I pulled it out of the dusty digital files and reworked it a few times before sending it to Spillwords.

My quest for coffee stories yields not a latte

On International Coffee Day, the scarcity of java-inspired stories continues to baffle me

Note: I consulted ChatGPT for assistance in researching literary references to coffee.

Like many of my fellow writers, my brain runs on coffee. It takes a couple of cups of flavorful, strongly brewed dark roast to prep me for the writing flow. I’m on my third cup of the morning as I sit down to write this, and will probably pause at some point to pour a fourth.

As popular as coffee is among Americans–it is, by far, our nation’s most popular drink, according to Coffeenatics–the magical elixir it does not seem to figure prominently in our literature.