Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
A Poem For Spring
Since Sunday is the first day of Spring, I’m republishing my poem My Rite of Spring, from my book Some Poems About Life, available through this website and Amazon.com. My Rite of Spring I consider myself a peaceable soul.I value all manner of livable things.Insects and mice, spiders and voles.Just about anything Mom Nature brings. But I do
Some Books for Women’s History Month
For those of you celebrating Women’s History Month, the website Book Riot has published “15 Books About Lesser-Known Women Who Made History” by Senjuti Patra. These non-fiction selections cover a broad range of time, from ancient Egypt to the modern era. Some of the titles that jumped out at me — The Woman Who Would
The Intimate Side of the Civil War
Considering your own marriage or relationship, how much influence does your spouse/significant other have over your professional life? With that in mind, have you ever wondered how much impact a wife has had on a famous historic figure? Occasionally, such an example comes to light. It’s been established that Woodrow Wilson’s second wife Edith played
The Daring Escape of Ellen Craft
History has recorded many daring escapes of slaves from the pre-Civil War South. But none was more daring than that of Ellen Craft and her husband William. Born in 1826 in Clinton, Georgia, Ellen’s father was actually her first enslaver, Col. James Smith. Ellen was so light-skinned she was frequently mistaken for one of his
The Stories in Baby Teeth
The closest we’ve ever come to a real tooth fairy is probably Erin Dunn, a psychiatric epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dunn calls herself “the science tooth fairy” to encourage kids to donate their baby teeth for science. She gives the teeth to Felicitas Bidlack, a specialist in tooth development at the Forsyth Institute, an oral
Final Thoughts — Literally
Have you ever heard someone who has had a near-death experience say “My whole life flashed before my eyes?” That person may have been right. In 2016, researchers were giving an 87-year-old Canadian man who had epilepsy an electroencephalogram (EEG) — a test that detects abnormalities in the brain’s electrical activity — to study his seizures.
The Joy in Forgotten Objects
This is one of my favorite short stories. It was originally published at BewilderingStories.com in Issue 612, and was an Editors’ Choice in the 2015 First Quarterly Review. It’s also included in my book Stories Short and Strange, available on this website and Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle versions (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%22stories+short+and+strange%22&i=stripbooks&crid=3NM0S4R47KU87&sprefix=stories+short+and+strange+%2Cstripbooks%2C145&ref=nb_sb_noss). By the way, one of these segments actually
What’s In a Name?
Have you ever been traveling, or reading a map, and found a place name that really stands out? Like Dead Injun Creek in Oregon or the Wetback Tank reservoir in New Mexico? There are some weird place names in this country, and as times change, they can be considered embarrassing or downright offensive to contemporary
Protecting the Antarctic
World travel can be life-changing. I’ve visited Hiroshima, Japan; China’s Great Wall; and Kenya’s savanna with its abundant wildlife. All have made a huge impression om me in their own special way. Now I’ve seen Antarctica and its unique and fragile ecosystem, and again, I’ve come away impressed. To a one-time tourist like me, all