I wrote a story about a cousin of mine who died way too young. His two sisters own the only physical copy of the small press publication where the story was published, and I consider the story theirs.

​     I no longer possess a single copy of any of the thirty+ issues of ​Age of Super-Heroes I published back in the nineties. So far as I know, only one person has copies of every issue. He's one of my Facebook friends. Whether he's still in possession of them, I have no idea.

     I spent the 18 months of the pandemic writing, then rewriting, one sentence with each rewrite, a short story that I consider my best. (Although not my favorite. A very personal story about my niece holds that place.) I'd had the piece in my head for decades as one I would "someday do", but the inspiration to actually write it came while enjoying the work of an artist friend of mine. I originally envisioned "Cleocatia" as, not a short story so much, but as the text half of a story/picture book, ala Griffin and Sabine, with the artwork as important to making the story work as the narrative. I broached the subject of creating such a book with the artist herself, but, for the time being. her life path seems to have veered in another direction. I love "Cleocatia", I think it's well worth the buck I sell it for on Smashwords, but I also think of it as unfinished, as only half of what it was meant to be.   

     For a couple of years during the nineties, I participated, with a group of other artists and writers, producing a sort of an APA small press publication where each of us would contribute a couple hundred copies of our own material to be collated with everyone else's. My contributions were a novella, a series of one page dream pieces, and, I think, maybe three short stories. One of these stories was and is an extremely personal piece about an ex-girlfriend of mine. Although, again, this being the 21st Century and all, we're Facebook friends, I have not seen this woman in well over thirty years, and she does not know this story even exists. Still, I consider the story hers. 

​     And then there's a story of mine I don't want anyone to see under any circumstances

CONTINUE.