“These were the most wonderful birds I had ever seen,” Miss Martha explained while she gave us coffee. “I had once thought of them as eccentric lawn ornaments of middle-aged women, ironic to say after you looked at my front lawn, but now they were in front of me. They waded in the pool and ...

  There is a dark chasm in the groundHere, on the wrong side of town Beyond the precarious edgeI cannot see a safe landing ledge The black abyss is bottomlessAnd fiendishly fathomless As I peer across the boundless crackI wonder about life’s widening trackWill I ever be able to find my way back?

Time to rouse the earth and get ready for Spring!

As expected, Miss Martha’s living room had pink décor, though it was subtler than I had thought. The cream-colored walls were lined with photos and paintings of birds. They ranged from common backyard birds and city dwellers like pigeons and cardinals, to exotic species such as toucans, macaw parrots, and flamingos. Some of those photos ...

Beyond the dark Where there is no light The days and nights Are frightfully stark  Where the mind is blind To the buried inner plights And void of any hindsight 

New story ideas are one of the best moments in a writer’s life. It’s a new adventure to take, new lessons to learn, and new characters to meet. You feel alive, like you can’t wait to see how the story will unfold. Where do you start? Here are a few places that are fun to ...

I continued to date Louis every weekend for over three months; we had dates in restaurants, parks, beaches, movie theaters, etc. Louis grew closer to me; he even bought a beautiful pink necklace for our twentieth date. I enjoyed our time together, but the reminder of Miss Billings’ assignment had kept me on edge. I ...

I stand within the Twilight ZoneBetween pitch black and home Here in no man’s landListening to the Last Post from the bandstand I am not scared, nor do I feel aloneThe deep grayness glows like black chrome Bathed in droplets of moon rainThe tapestry’s dampness melts into the fading plain As I wander above my ...

Please understand, I had desperate ambitions to be a journalist by then. It seemed like a worthy sacrifice. Most of the working staff were already cutthroats, so it looked natural from my fatigued view. Now Mackenzie Billings, though unscrupulous, still had the foresight to ensure every dubious interview and story had some truth. I manipulated ...

Life would be simple if every task was a straight line from A to B. The paths ahead are clear, with no forks or decisions to be made about the direction to follow. Alas, reality is more complex. More often, every problem involves multiple solutions and requires us to make complicated decisions. Success does not ...