All posts filed under: Short Stories

Ekostories in short fiction.

Crafting with Ursula: Writing Nature and Nature Writing

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I’m very excited to share a recent conversation I had with David Naimon, host of Between the Covers. A bit about the show: Between the Covers , a literary radio show and podcast hosted by David Naimon, is brought to you by Tin House. These long-form in-depth conversations have been singled out by the Guardian, Book Riot, the Financial Times, and BuzzFeed as one of the most notable book podcasts for writers and readers around.  I’ve been a big fan of David’s interviews for years, having come across his work through his three craft talks with Ursula K. Le Guin, which was later published as the book Conversations on Writing. (His own creative writing is also amazing.) So imagine my delight and surprise when he approached me to contribute to a new series called “Crafting with Ursula,” in particular around the subject of nature writing. Some of the stories we discussed, like “Direction of the Road” and the “Author of Acacia Seeds“, have been featured in the past here on Ekostories. Others, like “The Bones of the Earth” and “Vaster …

Flash Fiction Magazine, Last Light

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I have a new piece of flash fiction (stories that are less than 1,000 words) over at Flash Fiction Magazine. “Last Light” uses the concept of lightspeed as a means to convey the time and distance necessary for healing: It’s been a thousand days since the sun died. Our star. My heart. It takes last light eight minutes to kiss the brow of the hill and home where we once were. Where little feet of twins pattered above our heads. Where the pampas grass in the yard grew tall and nodded in the summer breeze. It takes the morning to pack your belongings into the rental sedan. I’ll call you when I settle in. On that final sunbeam you rode away. In the driveway I stood and watched the light go.” You can read the full story and many others, published daily at Flash Fiction Magazine. Read the Full Story Here Photo credit: Jeremy Bishop

Neutrino

Proxies, Orca: A Literary Journal

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Happy to have a new short story out in a special literary-speculative issue of Orca: A Literary Journal: “We champion language that is erudite, beautiful, and thought-provoking and stories that are engaging and rich in their depth. We are NOT interested in polemics or stories that tell a reader how he/she/they should think. Instead, we appreciate work that is high concept, imaginative, thoughtful, even speculative, and open to possibilities. The world is shades of gray and our written word should reflect that.” – An interview with Orca co-founder Zachary Kellian “Proxies” is a Donald Barthelme-inspired epistolary tale about someone who reluctantly agrees to go on a date with a neutrino, that most elusive and mysterious of elementary particles. An excerpt: “…I think it happened when she brought up Calvino. I had never met anyone who wanted to chat Calvino. I guess when you’re drifting through space and don’t have to worry about bumping into things you have time to mull over invisible cities and people living their entire lives in trees without ever coming down. …

Big Blue

Our Museum of the Future – Shenandoah

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Humbled and honoured to contribute a short story to the latest issue of Shenandoah Literary Magazine. I had the good fortune of working on “Our Museum of the Future” with editor Beth Staples, whose new vision for the venerable publication is one I find compelling: “…I consider it my job to privilege voices that don’t fit into that category, not just because it’s the right thing to do to counteract many years of established practice, but because reading is one of a very few ways we can jump into the mind of someone else.” The fundamental purpose of literature in Staples’ view is “to expand the reader’s sense of the world and their place in it. It should also be one of our goals for being alive: stepping into another person’s shoes and practicing radical empathy.” – Radical Rebirth, The Columns “Our Museum of the Future” grew out of the conceit that there exists a public space where words are showcased and curated in the same fashion as bones: “Welcome to a museum of words instead of bones. …

2047: Short Stories from Our Common Future

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I‘m honoured to have a piece included in 2047: Short Stories From Our Common Future, an international climate fiction anthology released last week. My interest was initially piqued when author Tanja Bisgaard approached me with the collection’s premise: 30 years have passed since the release of the Brundtland report, a landmark document from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development that introduced the idea of sustainable development as that “which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.” What will the world be like 30 years from now? With the perception that climate fiction (or cli-fi as it’s now called) tending to be weighty and depressing, I decided to inject some levity into my contribution. “NuVenture™ TEMPO-L QuickStart Guide” is satire through and through; the story takes the form of an instruction manual for the world’s best selling budget-model time machine, poking fun at capitalism’s worst impulses taken to their logical extremes. “So I gathered a group of authors and asked them to write their vision of …