Tag: short stories
We Are the Stories
They named him Emir, after those powerful Arab rulers. He was an Ardennes draft horse, a roan gelding in a village in southwest Sweden. Why that name? His world was one of fog and snow, and summers so brief you hardly knew them, not one of palaces and sand dunes shimmering with heat. Barely a […]
Short Story: Artichokes
My mother loved artichokes. She trimmed the stems and steamed them in a shallow pan. When they were cool, she paired them with a vinaigrette sauce. One by one we gently peeled off the leaves and dipped the tender part in our individual glass bowls. Eventually we made our way down to the heart. This […]
Short Story: The Keepers
Short story about friendship between lighthouse keepers by Melissa Bailey, whose novel Beyond the Sea came out earlier this year. Ten miles from shore, perched on the low black rock, the lighthouse was a hazy smudge of white in the gloaming. Isolated, indistinct, hovering somewhere between sea and sky, an as-yet unlit beacon of hope […]
A Book Reviewer’s Tale
In 2003, I was a freelance book critic for the Sunday Herald (Scotland, UK). The paper’s literary editor, Alan Taylor, worked for part of the week at a long table in a rather gloomy office overlooking Edinburgh‘s handsome St Andrew’s Square, and every week I would go in and spend an hour or so looking […]
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