Music • Photography • Writing
Introduction • Novels • Short Stories • Plays • Haiku
Short Stories
I have always enjoyed the discipline of the short story medium, the challenge of creating a credible universe in just a few thousand words. I wrote most of my stories between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, and the subjects and settings often reflect the world of a decade ago. I've also included an anthology of passages from great literature.
Some stories, like "The Binder Tree," are suitable for general audiences. Others, like "Summer Of Love," contain mature themes and some graphic scenes. Use your own discretion. All the stories have a serious purpose, if not always a serious tone. To read a short blurb about a story, click on a title from the list below. If the story appeals to you, click on the title above the blurb to read the full manuscript. Although these stories are not published, I have copyrighted them. Please respect the usual intellectual property rights.
One of the shortest of my stories, Lilac Wood describes the turning point of a romance. After making love, Mark and Amy, basking in the scent of lilacs coming through the open window, disagree about why the lilacs have lasted long enough to grow trunks several inches thick. I based the lilacs on some very old bushes growing outside a former apartment of mine in Colorado Springs. The relationship. . .well, you be the judge. [1994; 1030 words]
I set this short story in my home town of Colorado Springs, trying to capture the feel of the small tourist haven I remember from my youth. (I even make a small cameo appearance in the story, as the tow-headed boy who drops a half-dollar into Dick’s top hat, fifty cents being the amount my folks would give me at that age to do all my Christmas shopping.) I incorporated the little neighborhood west of the Colorado Avenue bridge because at that time most of the businesses there were on a first name basis: Rex Tire, Dale’s Liquors, Bill’s Fruit Stand, and many others, to say nothing of Fannie May Duncan's notorious Cotton Club across the creek. The hobo Dick Baumgartner represents a bow to a similar character in one of O. Henry’s first short stories, “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking,” who, like my own hobo, is given a chance to “get his life back on track” but decides he prefers the freedom of riding the rails. [1988; 6150 words]
[This story was also adapted as a radio play. See Plays.]
Seattle stockbroker Rich Moore thinks his marriage is just about finished. Little does he know that soon his wild '80s lifestyle will come back to haunt him, that soon his wife Leslie, who craves a baby, will maneuver him into thinking her craving is really his craving. The war between the sexes heats up, and Rich finds that his dagger isn't as sharp as it used to be. Set in La Conner, Washington, and Manhattan, this story is for grown-ups. [1996; 8100 words]
Set in the little West Texas town of Muleshoe, this is actually five different short stories. Ronny Shank, a traveling solo act (where do I come up with these characters?) is so distracted by his brief fling with a beautiful young girl (now you know it's fiction) that he forgets his night-light. Over the next couple of weeks, the night-light touches the lives of the other lodgers in room 132. And a diverse group they are: Bob and Sue Prislow and their kids, waiting for the closing on their new house; Betty and Joy, a couple of single gals out for a good time; Della, a lonely, grieving, middle-aged woman whose dreams furnish the reader a troubling glimpse into her inner life; and Cliff, an aging rodeo rider, and his faithful wife Loretta, who worries that Cliff could pass away at any time. Between lodgers, Colleen and Maria clean up the room, Colleen pessimistically baffled that none of the lodgers swipes the night-light. Based on some of the characters I met while playing in that part of the country, this story explores the complex and delicate web that connects even strangers, and that must stay intact for the generations to continue. [1988; 18,000 words]
People sometimes tell me how much they envy me, playing music for a living. This story is my attempt to show that the blues are real and tough and not very glamourous. Based largely on my own experiences playing in Seattle and woven around the classic blues tune of the same title, this story shows how shabby Show Biz can look when seen from the inside. (I've never been that much of a blues player, but I sure know plenty about the blues.) Don't expect a happy ending. [1995; 3000 words]
I lived and performed in Seattle for 11 years and during that time I met some interesting local people and enjoyed the wide cultural diversity that the Emerald City has to offer. When Seattle Magazine ran a contest for a short story with a local theme, I decided to give it a try. One of the people I met had run a local recording studio during World War II and he told me about how they recorded the daily news broadcasts and then flew the record up to Alaska to be played via short wave radio to the fishing fleet in the Bering Sea. Drawing on the shabby treatment many local Japanese had endured during the war, I decided to write a story about the end of the war and the beginning of a reconciliation that continues to this day. Though the story wasn't a prize winner in the magazine's competition, it did garner some very nice words from the judges. [1994; 4000 words.]
While playing in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I visited a local logging museum. There I saw a photograph of two men sawing down what the photo described as "the world's largest white pine tree." That got me thinking about what the term "largest" means after the tree is gone. I set this story in Boise, Idaho, during the Depression, a generation after the heyday of the hand-saw lumberjack and a generation before the West's resources began to seem finite. I wrote this for readers of all ages, because the issue concerns every generation. [1994; 3130 words]
America went through a rapid cultural growth spurt in the late 1960s. For a brief time it looked as though the Baby Boomers might just buck the trend of previous generations and counter political cynicism, social unrest, and the violence of war with an idealistic pacifism instead of returning the negativity in kind. But all too soon, the real world returned in all its pessimistic glory.
In Summer Of Love, David Stearn, an English Lit professor at the University of Washington, has a woman student who is to die for. After he discovers that she's just as interested in him, though, he finds his past coming back to haunt him. By the time she reveals to him who she is and why she's sought him out, he discovers that she's someone to live for. Some of the themes of this story inspired my first novel, The Piñon Nuts. [1995; 7475 words]
A few years ago I took it upon myself to pick out and introduce passages from some of my favorite works and favorite writers. In short but (hopefully) pithy excerpts, I've tried to give the reader a taste of some great literature, and also to learn more about me as writer. From William Shakespeare to Ken Kesey, from James Thurber to Matsuo Basho, there is a wide and hopefully entertaining spectrum of material to choose from. Conveniently footnoted and bookmarked. [1996; 21,285 words, mostly someone else's]