What She Might Think

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 13, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

"He wagged a finger and laughed and said,

'Gonna get you, baby'" [. . .]"

Perhaps the story for Day 13 should be

Little Red Riding Hood in order to set

the mood for what might have been

tomorrow's story, but instead, here's

what she would call a contemporary

retelling of that folktale by Joyce Carol Oates,

"Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?"

In Video: Joyce Carol Oates talks about

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

(2:02 runtime)

"Where Are You Going,

Where Have You Been?"

by Joyce Carol Oates
(1966)

(For those Joyce Carol Oates fans interested in seeing some of Oates's original manuscript pages for her other stories, please visit the virtual archive at University of San Francisco. Also, if you missed Oates's winning of the 1990 Rea award for short fiction, see the NYT article.)

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 12, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Faith kept me back a while,"

replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice,

caused by the sudden appearance of his companion,

although not wholly unexpected.

"Trees in the Fog" by Matthew Bietz,
Used under CC license

Yesterday's selection, "The Red Bow" by George Saunders, has always reminded me of one of my favorite stories. And so to celebrate the twelfth day of National Short Story Month, please enjoy

"Young Goodman Brown"

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1835)

Young Goodman Brown. Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exhange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown.

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Friday, May 11, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 11, The Red Bow by George Saunders

by Zayed Hassan,

Used under CC license

"NEXT NIGHT, walking out where

it happened, I found her little red bow.

I brought it in, threw it down on the

table, said: My God my God."

Day 11
National

Short Story

Month

Today's selection, by George Saunders, was originally published in Esquire, later anthologized in Not Normal, Illinois, a nominee for the Bram Stoker award, and winner of a National Magazine Award. The story appears in Saunders's story collection, In Persuasion Nation.

But the story is more interesting than all that.

"The Red Bow"

by George Saunders
(2009)

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 10, Mirrors by Carol Shields

Today's story selection

comes from a writer whose

line and work always

has a quiet patience to its

tone and content. One of

the master writers of the

20th century who is most

known for her novels such

as the Pulitzer-Prize winning

Stone Diaries, Carol Shields.

"Untitled" by Daniel Oines,
Used under CC license

"From June to August they choose to forget who they are, or at least what they look like, electing an annual season of non-reflectiveness in the same way other people put away their clocks for the summer or their computers or door keys or microwave ovens."

Please, enjoy

"Mirrors"
by Carol Shields
(1996)

(Shields was originally from Illinois

but later moved to Canada, so she's often

thought of as a Canadian writer, but

to this writer and also native of Illinois,

Shields's concerns have always

seemed Midwestern.)

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Box of Delights Anthology on Kindle

Aeon Press's Box of Delights, Cover
Winter 2011 - KINDLE VERSION

Box of Delights, edited by John Kenny and published out of Dublin, Ireland, is now available on the Kindle.

It may be National Short Story Month in the U.S., but if you want to make your celebration an international one, try Box of Delights, an anthology of contemporary horror fiction by 16 writers around the world. Her story, "The Lightning Tree", is one of those stories.

Box of Anthology writers

(links follow to the writer's webpage)

Don D’Ammassa

Taylor Grant

Erik T. Johnson

Sean MacRoibin

Eleanor Marney

Erin Pringle

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

CLICK!

a) here for the U.S. Kindle edition of Box of Delights

b) here for the U.K. Kindle edition

c) here for a print copy of Box of Delights

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 9, Concerning Ghosts by Michael Stewart

Black and white photograph of a wire fan

"Fan" by Mike Schmid,
Used under CC license

"My ghosts move as trees age."

National

Short

Story

Month

Day 9.

Selection.

"Concerning Ghosts" by

Michael Stewart

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Send Giants: Maurice Sendak Left Today

Photo by Michael M. Hughes,

Send Giants:

An Elegy in 2012

May 8, 2012

Dear Mr. Sendak:

Please tell the lion that you care (even if you don't), and it will maybe let you come back. Speak very loudly because it's dark in there, and according to the newspapers, its mouth is shut tight. And this lion never gets sick when it eats.

Or maybe we can send giants. They can shake you out.

Then the newspapers can print a correction tomorrow, like they do and nobody catches the correction because they're not looking or don't even get the paper the next day and so they keep thinking the wrong thing the reporter wrote. But I'll look for it.

Your Friend,

Erin, age 5 30

Picture from Pierre of lion sick in bed, having eaten Pierre, and now Pierre's parents are hitting the lion with a folding chair.

From Pierre by
Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928-May 8, 2012)

"I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready."

---Maurice Sendak

NPR interview with Terri Gross

(2011)

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 8, Roots by Chadwick Redden

Photograph in black-and-white of tree roots under cirrus sky

"Ghost Trees" by Rosino,
Used under a CC license

Welcome to Tuesday, the eighth day of National Short Story Month. Today's selection was recently published in the literary journal red lightbulbs, an increasingly exciting location for new and interesting poetry and fiction:

"We drove ninety miles south to watch the lunar eclipse. Light pollution and cloud cover all the way down. In a field your shoelaces forgot their knots . . ."

"Roots"

by Chadwick Redden
(2011)

Monday, May 7, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 7, All the Anne Franks by Erik Hoel

Photograph of child's bear looking out window in empty room

"Lone Russian Bear" by jzool,
Used under CC license

She found today's selection for National Short Story Month a few years ago when she decided to nominate a story for the annual Million Writers Award and ran across this story in Strange Horizons:

"When the aliens came and cut the sky up into golden ribbons Dan Milestone ran inside to get his daughter Margaret and put her up on his shoulders in the front yard and told her that this was history and she told him to put her down because he was embarrassing her."

"All the Anne Franks"

by Erik Hoel
(2009)

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 6, The Juniper Tree

by Paleontour,
Used under CC license

My Mama She Kil't Me

My Father He Ate Me

Oh, What a Good Boy Am I!

It's Day 6 of National Short Story month, and today's selection is the folk-story,

"The Juniper Tree"

A long while ago, perhaps as much as two thousand years, there was a rich man who had a wife of whom he was very fond; but they had no children. Now in the garden before the house where they lived, there stood a juniper tree; and one winter's day as the lady was standing under the juniper tree, paring an apple, she cut her finger, and the drops of blood trickled down upon the snow. "Ah!" said she, sighing deeply and looking down upon the blood, "how happy should I be if I had a little child as white as snow and as red as blood!" And as she was saying this, she grew quite cheerful, and was sure her wish would be fulfilled. And after a little time the snow went away, and soon afterwards the fields began to look green. Next the spring came, and the meadows were dressed with flowers; the trees put forth their green leaves; the young branches shed their blossoms upon the ground; and the little birds sung through the groves. And then came summer, and the sweet smelling flowers of the juniper tree began to unfold; and the lady's heart heaped within her, and she fell on her knees for joy. But when autumn drew near, the fruit was thick upon the trees. Then the lady plucked the red berries from the juniper tree, and looked sad and sorrowful; and she called her husband to her, and said, "If I die, bury me under the juniper trees." Not long after this a pretty little child was born; it was, as the lady wished, as red as blood, and as

The following version is from the 1875 collection, German Popular Stories, edited by Edgar Taylor.

Click to

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The Juniper Tree!

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