I have to make an apology of sorts for touting my own work on the blog so much lately. It was not at all planned, and this will be the last such post for a good while, but July has been a wild month!

On the 15th I had two flash fiction pieces published, “Half of Love” in Minor Literature[s], and “Currawong” in Berfrois. With “The Open Air” in Numero Cinq, that makes three stories published in July. Add to that the flash piece I published last month in The Bohemyth and that’s four stories in two months’ time. Four is typically my output for a year or 18 months, so it’s really caught me off my guard, in a wonderful way naturally. And being pressed for time otherwise with work and parenting I haven’t been able to post anything else worthwhile in between — though I do have more interviews with book critics in the works.

With all that said I’m very pleased with how “Half of Love” turned out, and grateful to Fernando Sdrigotti, editor-in-chief at Minor Literature[s], for publishing it. It’s about loves lost and found, both real and imagined, as a man ponders the nature of attraction after a night out dancing in West Philadelphia.

“Currawong” is quite different, an experimental piece about hunting (and a bit of adultery), set in Australia, told in mostly reverse order. It’s also, I’d say, about 94% true. Many thanks to Russell Bennetts for believing in its charms, which include poor use of commas and a lack of character names.

(Image, above left: Men on the wall, © martin, Creative Commons.)