Fictional Short Story About Anorexia

The Heart Fails Without Warning is a beautifully written story about a family’s struggle with anorexia.  It starts like this: September: when she began to lose weight at first, her sister had said, I don’t mind; the less of her the better, she said. It was only when Morna grew hair – fine down on [...]

2 Pulitzer Prize Winning Books That Look Like They Don’t Suck

What may be surprising to many is that a pulitzer-prize-winning book isn’t necessarily a bestselling book.  What makes a book great to the general public isn’t necessarily what makes a book great within the smaller circle of the literary world. Add to that the fact that my tastes, as an average reader, tend to be rather [...]

Funny Short Story About What Happens to Displaced CEOs

The latest edition of the literary journal, Word Riot, is out, and it includes a short-story/flash-fiction piece called CEO by Billy Middleton.  I thought this was cleverly written… “I adopted a corporate CEO from the local shelter. He was let out on the street after his company folded, was picked up rooting through dumpsters, running [...]

Horror Flash Fiction – A Taste for Life

There’s a new flash fiction story by Patrick Freivald over at Flash Fiction Online that you should really check out, especially if you like it when your stories come with a healthy dose of creepiness.  It’s called A Taste for Life… “And how old were you when you died, Mister Beauchamp?” Joan Rothman asked, leaning [...]

Stephen King, Werewolves, and a Literary Meem

Grab the book closest to you.  Turn to page 31.  Count down to the eighth sentence.  Write down the next 5 lines (keep writing into the  next line, if needed, until you finish the last sentence).  “Later, no one will be able to say where the sound came from; it was everywhere and nowhere as the [...]

Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author, Lincoln Crisler, to Guest Blog

I’m very happy to announce that this coming week, horror/sci-fi/fantasy writer, Lincoln Crisler, will be guest blogging here at A Bunch of Wordz. He’s the author of Despairs & Delights, a collection of short stories that is currently available on amazon.com. He’s also an active United States Army Communications Specialist.  In other words, Lincoln Crisler spends his [...]

Once Free, Forever Free?

Yesterday I referred to a NYT essay by Stephen King on short fiction. Today, I’m cribbing from the Wall Street Journal, specifically a piece by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) . Adams used some of his past blog entries for a new book, which meant they had to be removed from the web. For that, [...]

Werewolf Story — Statistical Evidence

The flash fiction story, Statistical Evidence by Hugh Cook, begins: “‘Another bloody werewolf!’ said Doctor Blix. Where the hell were they all coming from? ‘Okay, give him the usual, and I’ll take a look at him tomorrow.’ This was worrying. So far, the only thing they had found which could control lycanthropy was Voodozlin-X, and their [...]

Is Bigger Really Better?

Hello! I’m Kelley Armstrong, and I’ll be your guest blogger for the next three days For more on me, check out the signature below my post… I was answering questions for an interview last week, and one was about short stories. I said I started with short stories, and love the opportunity to do shorter [...]

It Pays to Eat at McDonalds

I am a Justin Hyde fan.  He writes killer poetry and strange stories.  Here is an excerpt from one of the latter, called It Pays to Eat at McDonald’s: “They were standing in front of the pop dispenser. Shooting it into their cupped hands and slurping it up. Was it Coke? Dr. Pepper? I can’t [...]