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Fiona Malone’s Fesh by Veronica Jorge

April 17, 2019 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley tagged as flash Fiction

Last month in the Facebook Group, The Charmed Connection, members of Charmed Writers posted some flash fiction short stories in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Charmed Connection members voted for their favorite stories. The top four stories will be published this month on A Slice of Orange.

First up is Veronica Jorge’s story “Fiona Malone’s Fesh.” Veronica blogs, here on A Slice of Orange on the 22nd of each month. Her column Write from the Heart features articles about writing and book reviews. You can also read another of her short stories in Charmed Writers Presents: Flash Fiction 2019, a free anthology ebook.

Fiona Malone’s Fesh

Veronica Jorge

Fiona Malone spit on a corner of her shawl and wiped at the murky mirror. “Well now, truth be told, the Malone fair looks bypassed me.” She picked up a small statue of St. Patrick. “And you’ll be saying it’s nothing to do with you, I’m sure.” She set it back on the dresser… upside down. “You’ll stay that way ‘till you make it your business and throw a wee blessing my way.” Fiona tugged at her dress, too tight at the hip and pulled her shawl tight about her. “At least I’ve been endowed in the right places.” She stuffed her wiry hair under her felt cap, latched the cabin door and set out.

Lugging her catch to sell at market, her wheelbarrow and her buttocks bounced across the wooden bridge. “Luck of the Irish. Whoever came up with that fairy story? I’d be happy with selling all my fish today. Ahh, and maybe a fine man to cook for. But who would want the likes of me?” A sound interrupted her soliloquy.

Thuh thump, thuh thump, thuh thump…

Fiona rushed a sign of the cross over herself. “Saint’s preserve us!”

She considered that the sound could only be that of Molly’s wheelbarrow. Yes. That Molly. The Molly Malone who died of a fever because no one could save her; Fiona’s great-grandmother. Thanks to that legacy, most of the townspeople shied away from her.

“The good book says there’s no communication twixt the living and the dead. Why would great granny be following me?” Fiona signed herself again for good measure, placed her hand over heart, and spun around. “Oh my goodness. ‘Tis only Mr. Pippin and his wooden leg.” She stamped out the perspiration on her face with her shawl and laughed at herself.

“Good day to ye, Mr. Pippin. How goes it?”

He answered not a word and thumped past her, muttering and cursing under his breath as was his custom.

“Poor dear. Lost his right leg to a mangy dog. Pain might be easier to bear if he had lost it to bravery for a nobler cause. Tsk. Tsk.”

Fiona’s barrow creaked over the cobblestones. Some sellers crowded her out afraid of the bad luck she might be carrying. Others made a wee bit of room, so she wouldn’t be offended and have a mind to toss the bad luck their way. Sometimes a compassionate customer bought from her. But alas, her fish fed mostly her and the stray cats.

“Fesh! Fesh!” cried Fiona. No one drew near today. “Fesh! Fresh fesh!”

“Is it now?” asked a stranger.

“Indeed it ‘tis. Caught by me own dear self.” Fiona squared her body, hands on her wide hips.

The man eyed her.

Fiona crossed her arms over her breast. “As fresh as your roving eyes. Now away with you. It’s only fish we’ll be selling here.”

“Forgive me, darlin’. But you’re a fine catch indeed.”

Fiona picked up a herring to hurl at him.

The stranger backed up. “No offense intended; I promise you.”

“Hmpf!”

“Will you give us a smile, so we’ll know we’re forgiven?” His eyes glistened with warmth and merriment.

Fiona smiled.

“You’re quite a beauty.”

“Go on with you now. Enough of your teasin’.”

“’Tis truth I’m speaking. Have you never been told you’re fair?”

Fiona blushed and fussed with the hair strand peeking out from under her cap.

“Now to business,” said the stranger. He pointed to the fish. “How much for the heap?”

“In earnest?”

“As sure as my name is James Hugh Callahan.”

The fish kept slipping out of Fiona’s hands. The paper wrapping alternately wrinkled and ripped. Mr. Callahan handed her the money.

Fiona kept her hands at her sides. “Place the money on the cart.”

“As you wish. I’ll look forward to buying fish from you again.” He tipped his hat and parted.

Fiona’s fingers fumbled picking up the coins. She folded them into a cloth, tucked them into her bosom, and patted her chest.

The squeaky wheels from Fiona’s wheelbarrow sang all the way home. Stepping into the cottage, she ran to her dresser. She picked up the icon of St. Patrick and kissed it. Fiona stood him upright in his usual place pushing aside her hair brush and tweezers to give him extra room.

We hope you enjoyed Veronica’s story. Stop back tomorrow for Angela Pryce’s story, “The Last Serpent.”

Read Veronica Jorge’s short story, “The In-Between” in Charmed Writers Presents: Flash Fiction 2019

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Teacup Tales

April 15, 2019 by Rebecca Forster in category Writing tagged as Family, inspiration

Over the last many months I have been helping my mother prepare to relocate. We have spent hours choosing the furniture she will take and trying to determine how many dishes, glasses, and cookie sheets she’ll really need.

Dusty and dirty after spending the day cleaning the garage, we found ourselves in the dining room at the end of the day. I looked at the huge breakfront overflowing with crystal, silver, and china. I opened the glass door and took out a piece of bisque colored china.

“Do you want to take it with you?” I asked.

“That’s Limoges,” she said. “One of dad’s patients gave it to him after he delivered her baby.”

“And these?” I held up two tall crystal vases. Certainly one would do in a smaller place.

“Keep them both,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I like them,” she answered.

On we went sorting through soup tureens, more vases, statues of ballerinas, and teacups. It was the teacups that enthralled me and the work slowed as I set them on the dining room table, one after another. Some had fluted edges and others were like little pot-bellied stoves. My favorite cup was sleek and modern with a shallow bowl. It was made of porcelain so white and delicate that I could see through it. The sweep of the golden handle made the cup look like a swan. The cups were miss-matched because that was the style in another elegant era.

My mother and I touched the teacups, nudged their saucers, and ran our fingers over tiny raised paintings of roses and lilies. We looked for the china markings and grouped them: Wedgewood, Meissen, Limoges. There were stories about my grandparents, and of my mother growing up in Germany, and of guests coming for lunch.

When we were done, when she had chosen the teacups to take with her, we went to bed to rest up for the next day’s work. As I drifted off, I realized that in the course of getting ready to close the door on a house we had opened the door to memories that could inspire a hundred novels. I had heard tales of hardship, of gratitude, of uncertainty – even danger – but mostly I had heard tales of graciousness, hard work and above all love.

Someday I will write one of these stories. Until then, I will drink my tea from one of her cups and remind myself that the best stories are those that are rich in flavor and best served with style.

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Will Zeiling & Janet Elizabeth Lynn April Featured Authors

April 14, 2019 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as hard-boiled mysteries, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, The Skylar Drake Murder Mystery Series, Will Zeilinger

Published authors Will Zeilinger and Janet Lynn wrote individually until they got together and created the Skylar Drake Mystery Series. These hard-boiled tales are based in old Hollywood of 1956-57. Their world travels have sparked several ideas for murder and crime stories. This creative couple is married and live in Southern California.

The next Skylar Drake Mystery, fourth in the series, GAME TOWN is available now and yes … they are still married!

Biltmore Hotel

We started researching our book GAME TOWN, in Hollywood, on Hollywood Blvd. This time we were looking for a nice hotel for our PI and hopefully a future girlfriend to meet for lunch. We checked the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, it was called the Biltmore Hotel in 1957. We visited the historic hotel and were amazed at the fine craftsmanship in the lobby and hallways!

The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, originally named the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel is a luxury hotel located across the street from Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles. Opened in 1923, the Los Angeles Biltmore was the largest hotel in the U.S. west of Chicago, Illinois.

In 1969 the Biltmore Hotel was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument by the City of Los Angeles. The hotel has 70,000 square feet (6,500 m) of meeting and banquet space. Of its original 1500 guestrooms it now has 683, due to room expansion and reorganization.

Walking through the lobby we found a great place for a high priced but fabulous brunch or dinner for that special someone. Instead, we used the lobby for a clandestine meeting between the FBI and Skylar Drake and partner Casey Dolan.

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Out of Thin Air by Dianna Sinovic

April 13, 2019 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group tagged as Dianna Sinovic, imagination, Untethered, What ifs

This month we are please to have Dianna Sinovic as our BWG featured author.

Dianna is a contributing author in the recent Bethlehem Writers Group anthology, Untethered. A man buys a painting of a jungle scene that is so realistic it seems to change in “Point of View.” She has also contributed stories for the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable magazine, including “In the Delivery.”

Born and raised in the Midwest, Dianna has also lived in three other quadrants of the U.S. She writes short stories and poetry, and is working on a full-length novel about a young woman in search of her long-lost brother.

Out of Thin Air

I listened to an oldie album by CCR last week that included a favorite: Lookin’ Out My Back Door. If you don’t know the tune, songwriter John Fogerty describes a fantastical scene he imagines in his backyard—elephants, dinosaurs, a flying spoon. You might laugh about what John was imbibing at that moment, but the lyrics made me think about the concept of imagination.

It’s what we as fiction writers do every day we sit down at our keyboard or put a pen to a notepad. We imagine. We pose what ifs, and then we run with them. It’s the core of our craft. We write about things that never really happened while trying to persuade the reader that they really did.

Hats off to those who write fantasy, because they create worlds whole cloth, weaving in just enough detail that we accept those worlds and embrace them. Harry Potter, anyone? But even the most true-to-life fiction demands imagination in order to engage the reader. The precise description of a character that make him/her jump off the page and into our lives. The carefully scripted, rising tension that has us looking over our shoulder at that odd noise from downstairs…

I recently finished reading The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. In 1996, Russell imagined a future that’s pretty damn believable. (OK, the future is already here, with the second chapter set in February 2019, but I was slow to pick up this classic.) She dreamt up a crew that travels across the cosmos using an asteroid as their vehicle. Why didn’t I think of that?

And that’s the marvel of imagination: We each have our own mental stewpot where new ideas are always bubbling. I’ve participated in a number of writing-prompt sessions led by author Kathryn Craft, in her living room, and each time we share what we’ve written from exactly the same prompt, I am amazed, astonished by the breadth of variations on a theme.

Beyond fiction, it’s imagination that fuels new inventions and creative ways to rethink old problems in order to solve them. “Imagination is everything,” said Albert Einstein. “It is the preview for life’s coming attractions.”

Read Dianna’s short story “Point of View” in BWG’s latest anthology.

UNTETHERED: SWEET, FUNNY, AND STRANGE TALES OF THE PARANORMAL

The Deadline for Bethlehem Writers Roundtable 2019 Short Story Award IS April 15, 2019

Just two days to get your story polished and submitted.

The winner will receive $200 and may be offered publication in BWG’s upcoming anthology, Fur, Feather, & Scales: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Animal Tales. Here’s the LINK for more information or to enter.

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Writing Magazine Articles: Writing is writing, right?

April 12, 2019 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as publishing, writing, writing milestones

Magazine articles may not be a full novel but I have found the process in writing smaller articles to stretch me in ways I didn’t expect.

The Need to Write Something

As a writer, it’s one thing to write down your thoughts, ideas and inspirations. It’s another to hand it over to someone who is going to take it and print it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a full-length novel or smaller articles.

I’ve always loved writing, and had many experiences in the corporate world creating pieces for our customers to use with their customers. But these were always product related and the specifics were crafted by a team of people.

To have something that I wrote from the beginning to completion on my own, is a completely different experience.

You never know where opportunities are going to come from. Because I need to find a way to generate an income if I want to write full-time, I thought to look into other areas. Last spring I happened upon a booth for a regional magazine and inquired about writing articles for them. She gave me the contact for the editor, I reached out and submitted some writing samples. She offered me a choice of some articles and in the July/August 2018 issue, my first two magazine articles were printed. Little did I realize they would be cover stories!

Magazine cover articles written by Denise M. Colby for Westcoast Magazine July 2018

They even used a few of the pictures I submitted, which made it all very exciting!

Denise M. Colby receiving her white roses for writing magazine articles at the Orange County Council of Romance Writers of America September 2018

And then I received a precious rose!

See, in our Orange County Chapter of RWA, roses are awarded for publishing. Different color roses represent different types of works. Novels are Red, and so on. For articles they are white. I have been watching for YEARS, waiting for the day I would receive a rose, so it was so meaningful to receive roses for these two articles plus one more for the next issue.

Three white roses for three magazine articles - Denise M. Colby

Each time a new issue publishes, I’ve been asked to write for the next issue (picking from a list already decided upon by the editor). It’s been great writing experience writing different types of topics. I feel my writing is growing stronger. I’m gaining experience in working with an editor, meeting deadlines, submitting and the concept of letting go (which we all know is difficult to do).