April 10, 2024

Michael Larrain’s “The Life of A Private Eye”

Michael Larrain’s “The Life of A Private Eye”

As we continue to celebrate National Poetry Month, Here is Part 3 of Michal Larrain’s epic poem. Thanks to those who have shared Comments – the author and your editors would love to hear what you think! This new episode, in our opinion, is a real doozy – and so is Katherine Willmore’s exclusive, exemplary artistic rendering. Watch for it! The Life of A Private Eye A Noirvelette in Verse By Michael Larrain Part 3: The Spider Pool She had trained enormous Amazonian butterflies, each the size of a man’s hand, to land upon her person in a pattern either random or preordained, and stay there for a space of hours, forming a living evening gown, their wings slowly fanning, black and green bands of breathing velvet. Speculation was running rampant as to her technique….

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May 26, 2020

“Bleeding Hearts,” A Short Story by Mary Daurio

“Bleeding Hearts,” A Short Story by Mary Daurio

Sarah left early, taking her stepson Jacob to see his mother for perhaps the last time. * Upon awakening, John found his wife and son already gone, too late to rescind his permission from the night before. He was upset, not at her, but at himself. John knew how exaggerated his reaction to casual contact with Anne was, yet he remained afraid of his ex-wife’s illness. He prepared for work, swearing as he cut himself shaving in haste. The front door slammed behind him and the windows vibrated, but there was no one to witness his wrath, save the blackbirds flying off in raucous chorus. John wanted to scream but felt afraid he wouldn’t stop. He turned the corner to the newsstand. Force of habit. A byline about Liz Taylor’s celebrity fundraiser for AIDS caught…

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January 30, 2018

Debut Novelist Whitney Scharer’s Million-Dollar Book Deal

Debut Novelist Whitney Scharer’s Million-Dollar Book Deal

Barista Rachael Allen meets the novelist everyone will be talking about. Whitney Scharer and her fierce protagonist are set to take the literary world by storm! At this time next year, Whitney Scharer’s debut novel, The Age of Light, will stare up at you from your nightstand. The book will not stare at you so much as, potentially, display a woman staring into the distance, anonymously cropped at the neck, with scenic Paris blurred behind her. As much as she hopes for something different, Scharer says wryly, audiences are familiar with this kind of book jacket (think Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife). And, following its million-dollar deal widely covered in the media, the book is banking on this commercial success. Perhaps a dreamy woman will attract an audience, but the book—and its personable, expressive author—aims…

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December 17, 2017

“Etiquette,” A Short Story by William Masters

“Etiquette,” A Short Story by William Masters

I RIDE ELEVATORS. To reach my office in downtown San Francisco I take the escalator from the ground floor to the mezzanine. From the mezzanine I ride an elevator from elevator bank A to the 21st floor. From the 21st floor I switch to elevator bank B and ride to the 33rd floor on which my office is located. If I arrive in the building between 8:30 and 9:00AM, multiple stops at various floors extend my ride by six to ten minutes. I rely on gearless traction electrical thrust to deliver me to work. In order to arrive on time I must also add elevator travel time to my bus commute. Eighteen minutes plus twelve minutes equal thirty minutes. Of course, I still add an additional six to ten minute wait for the bus which,…

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September 10, 2015

Flashterpiece Mystery!

Flashterpiece Mystery!

Editor’s Note: Good evening and welcome to Flashterpiece Mystery! I’m Mike Mavilia. Tonight, we have a very special night of fiction. In just a moment, you’re going to see the first of three hand-picked stories – truly one in a hundred – culled from the flash fiction anthology titled, Baby Shoes. For hundreds and even thousands of years, very short fictional stories have been told to captivated audiences around the world. And yet, today more than ever, the form of the brief story holds an important place for both reader and writer alike. In a world where Twitter stories exist and technology calls for smaller circuitry in computer chips, the writing on the wall is clear: people want things small, yet powerful: concise. Enter flash fiction. We begin with a little tale called “Consummation,” about a…

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July 7, 2014

Innisfree Bookshop is the First to Stock "Madrone"

    Meredith, New Hampshire, July 7th, 2014: Madrone, Jack B. Rochester’s second novel about Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers, joined Wild Blue Yonder on the shelves at Innisfree Bookshop today. Pictured beside Jack, Fictional Cafe’s Head Barista, is Kyla Goulet, an Innisfree bookseller and aspiring author in her own right. “There is no feeling to compare with seeing a book you wrote on the shelves in a bookstore,” said Jack. “I can’t wait to see mine there, too,” Kyla said, grinning. “You’re a gifted writer,” Jack replied, “and I’m certain that will happen.” All this quipping while Innisfree manager Beverly Newton snapped photos. “We can’t wait to have you do a reading,” she said. Wild Blue Yonder, published in 2012, is the first installment in the story of Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers, a 1960s college dropout who joins the…

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