Jenni Prange Boran Talks About Her Story ‘Stage Four’

We asked Jackie Cassella, founder of Creative Colloquy to recommend writers for Mud Flat Shorts (mostly fiction). She recommended three writers, all of whom graciously accepted our invitation and all of whom submitted stories that were just right for the anthology. There are two stories by Jenni Prange Boran. Here she talks about her story … Read more

Nineteen World Class Writers

“Emmolene’s Bones” by Jack Butler may well be the strangest love story ever written. “Hawk Gumbo,” also by Jack Butler, is the quintessential Southern Gothic or Grit Lit story. “Godsend” by Samuel Snoek-Brown is the story of a woman obsessed with the thought of murdering her neighbor because the neighbor has irritating habits and sings horrendously. Both … Read more

Teacher, teacher, what do I do? (book announcement)

Yesterday I finished what I think was the third (can’t keep count) complete rewrite, start to finish, of my new novel Teacher. With deep thanks to Brynn Garman, Rin Westcott, Steve Tarry, Cameron Combs, Bryan Willis, Mian Carvan, Margaret Culbertson, Brady Olson, SJ Boyle, Nancy Sigafoos, Diane Sawyer, Don Orr Martin, Megan Kruse, Bev Sykes, … Read more

Sniper, a Dog Story

by Ricker Winsor – In Bali, we adopted a village-dog puppy we named Nana. She and her sister found their way, at about seven weeks of age, to the workplace of our neighbor. The office security people there were about to throw them against a wall, the customary way to kill puppies. The dog situation … Read more

Newt Carter Comes to Town

Excerpt from Angels Sleep Alone by James Robert Peery With introduction by Alec Clayton Newt Carter was a “Holy Roller” preacher in North Mississippi in the 1930s and ’40s whose revival tent filled with worshipers was destroyed in a tornado in his novel God Rides a Gale (Harper and Brothers 1940). Peery died in 1954 … Read more

Women and Girls 1942-2020

Over the past week or so I have been typing into my computer, word-for-word, the manuscript of a novel written in the early 1950s. It is tedious work but worth the effort because it’s a damn fine novel. It is set in 1942, and the narrator and all the characters use language and express commonly … Read more