Ned Hayes's Blog

I found a thread on Reddit that asked this question: “What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences?” I posted the best ones I found, as well as one more scary tale I created on my own. See if you can figure out which one is mine! With Halloween right around the corner, these two-sentence terrors fit the month perfectly!

Happy Halloween!

1. 

“My daughter won’t stop crying and screaming in the middle of the night. I visit her grave and ask her to stop, but it doesn’t help.”

Image Credit: Fivvr

2.

I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I thought it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again.

Image Credit: Vampyr Fangs

3.

I can’t move, breathe, speak or hear and it’s so dark all the time. If I knew it would be this lonely, I would have been cremated instead.

Image Credit: Public Domain

4.

After working a hard day, I came home to see my girlfriend cradling our child. I didn’t know which was more frightening, seeing my dead girlfriend and stillborn child, or knowing that someone broke into my apartment to place them there.

Image Credit: Dead Girl (film)

5.

My sister says that mommy killed her. Mommy says that I don’t have a sister.

Image Credit: Universal

6.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered, crawling into bed with me. I woke up cold, clutching the dress she was buried in.

Image Credit: Cemetery Guide

7.

I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.”

Image Credit: Flickr

8.

A girl heard her mom yell her name from downstairs, so she got up and started to head down. As she got to the stairs, her mom pulled her into her room and said, “Don’t go, honey — I heard that, too.”

Image Credit: Random Geekings

9.

Yesterday, my parents told me I was too old for an imaginary friend and I had to let her go. They found her body this morning.

Image Credit: DeviantArt

10.

In the early morning, I could feel the cat purring against my side, nestled up against me in bed, but the cat smelled of blood. I woke slowly remembering that I had tortured that cat to death last Sunday, and scattered the body parts across the construction site.

Image Credit: DeviantArt

11.

The last thing I saw was my alarm clock flashing 12:07 before she pushed her long rotting nails through my chest, her other hand muffling my screams. I sat bolt upright, relieved it was only a dream, but as I saw my alarm clock read 12:06, I heard my closet door creak open.

Image Credit: DeviantArt

12.

The doctors told the amputee he might experience a phantom limb from time to time. Nobody prepared him for the moments though, when he felt cold fingers brush across his phantom hand.

Image Credit: MNN  

(H/T Arts.Mic) (via Reddit)

HORROR WARNING:

Nicholas Hallum created a short and chilling  tale.

You can ORDER for Kindle here >>

Thank you for your reading and support!

Halloween: Twelve Terrifying Two Sentence Horror Stories was originally published on Ned Hayes

New review of The Eagle Tree from South African writer Donvé Lee.

When this tender complex story found me, I was steeped in pandemic misery, lamenting the suicidal trajectory humanity seems intent on following. The Eagle Tree, told in the voice of a fourteen-year-old autistic boy, restored my faith in the world.

Peter March Wong loves trees. He is in love with them. He wants to be a tree. He lives in the richly forested Pacific North West, and his head is filled with a massive archive of facts about trees – their names, growth patterns, sizes, shapes, textures and so much more. He climbs on average 5.6 trees a day. Trees calm him down. They make him feel safe. Despite the fact that he sometimes falls and lands up in hospital and the state wants to take him away from his mother if she can’t prevent him from getting hurt. His passion for trees is so great that he is prepared to risk his life to save the giant Eagle Tree, an ancient Ponderosa Pine that is about to be cut down by developers. What fascinated me most about this book was the way author Ned Hayes managed to invoke the reader’s empathy for this unlikely hero. I was moved to tears at times. How do you express emotion when writing in the voice of someone whose unique way of seeing the world prevents him from expressing, processing or even describing emotion? As it turns out, with enormous skill. With gorgeous sensuous descriptions. With the occasional dialogue between concerned family members and teachers. With equal amounts of simplicity and depth.

This book taught me so much about trees, too much really, and reminded me of the interconnectedness of all things – people, nature, family, community. But what I valued most was the insight I gained into the mind of someone who sees things from a totally different perspective to mine, who processes the world through facts not feelings yet remains deeply, exquisitely human. By the end of the book, I was totally in love with this brave young man, humbled and inspired by his unyielding determination to make a difference despite enormous odds. I was also struck by the fact that his particular ‘disabilities’ were in the end his strengths, not his liabilities. Lastly, I was reminded that stories have the power to change the world.

Perhaps the planet will survive after all.

READ THE BOOK: The Eagle Tree.com

Review: The Eagle Tree — Donvé Lee was originally published on Ned Hayes

Rosh Hashanah – Sept 6 – 8, 2021

new year.Ned Hayes

Rosh Hashanah comes
this year
on a day of cool wind,

a breathtaking
portent of winter

taking the world, rude lover
tossing[image error]
the sheets away.

in autumn
the sadness of all things

is greatest
for now
the world was created.

the new fruit, shot through
with decay:

birthed in the same
moment,
the racing seed and
the worm.

 
published in Twig, Seattle Washington

[image error]
[Read more Poetry Posts]

Poem: New Year (Rosh Hashanah) was originally published on Ned Hayes

Andrew Grace

After my father died
I should have gone to therapy.
I tried instead to solve my grief
with alcohol and poems.
Now I am almost 40
and all I can tell you about grief
is that when I found my father
on the floor of the machine shed
the radio was on and wind
pushed against corrugated metal.
Of course I still hear it.
I should have talked
to someone before now
and not you. Poetry is not talking.
This is just art
and therefore could never
cover my ears when I, suddenly,
am back in the shed
and I learn again that my father
has died every day
since he died.

Poem: Do You Consider Writing to be Therapeutic? was originally published on Ned Hayes

August
Mary Oliver ..When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spendall day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

...from the book Devotions by Mary Oliver

Poem: August, Mary Oliver was originally published on Ned Hayes

By Terrance Hayes

Audio:  Read by the author.

You can be a bother who dyes
his hair Dennis Rodman blue
in the face of the man kneeling in blue
in the face the music of his wrist-
watch your mouth is little more
than a door being knocked
out of the ring of fire around
the afternoon came evening’s bell
of the ball and chain around the neck
of the unarmed brother ground down
to gunpowder dirt can be inhaled
like a puff the magic bullet point
of transformation both kills and fires
the life of the party like it’s 1999 bottles
of beer on the wall street people
who sleep in the streets do not sleep
without counting yourself lucky
rabbit’s foot of the mountain
lion do not sleep without
making your bed of the river
boat gambling there will be
no stormy weather on the water
bored to death any means of killing
time is on your side of the bed
of the truck transporting Emmett
till the break of day Emmett till
the river runs dry your face
the music of the spheres
Emmett till the end of time

Published in the print edition of the June 22, 2020 of the @NewYorker

Poem: George Floyd — by Terrance Hayes was originally published on Ned Hayes

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THE EAGLE TREE  Kindle Edition – on sale for $0.99 all through April.

National bestseller, nominated for numerous awards, and listed as one of the Top 5 Books on the Autistic experience. Buy THE EAGLE TREE at indie bookstores,  Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_testimonial author=”Steve Silberman” job_title=”New York Times bestselling author of Neurotribes” background_layout=”light” quote_icon_color=”#1aa845″ quote_icon_background_color=”#dbdbdb” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ body_font=”||||||||” max_width=”85%” box_shadow_style=”preset1″ global_module=”2437″ saved_tabs=”all”]

“The Eagle Tree is a gorgeously written novel that features one of the most accurate, finely drawn and memorable autistic protagonists in literature. The hero of the book is like a 14-year-old Walt Whitman with autism. Credible, authentic, powerful.”

[/et_pb_testimonial][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image src=”https://nednote.com/wp-content/upload...” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|||” custom_margin=”0px|||” padding_top_1=”0px” padding_top_2=”0px” _builder_version=”3.0.89″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.89″]

Fourteen-year-old March Wong knows everything there is to know about trees. They are his passion and his obsession, even after his recent fall—and despite social services’ threat to take him away from his mother if she doesn’t keep him out of their branches.

But the young autistic boy just cannot resist the captivating pull of the Pacific Northwest’s lush forests just outside his backdoor.

One day, March is devastated to learn that the Eagle Tree—a monolithic Ponderosa pine near his home in Olympia—is slated to be cut down by developers. Now, he will do anything in his power to save this beloved tree, including enlisting unlikely support from relatives, classmates, and even his bitter neighbor. In taking a stand, March will come face-to-face with some frightening possibilities: Even if he manages to save the Eagle Tree, is he risking himself and his mother to do it?

Intertwining themes of humanity and ecology, The Eagle Tree eloquently explores what it means to be a part of a family, a society, and the natural world that surrounds and connects us.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_testimonial _builder_version=”3.0.89″ author=”Rob Natiuk” job_title=”Amazon Top 500 Reviewer” url_new_window=”off” quote_icon=”on” use_background_color=”on” quote_icon_background_color=”#f5f5f5″ background_layout=”light”]

“I now better understand the autistic child–more sensitive to that child’s life–physical, mental, family, spiritual. That’s why for me this is a ‘wonder book!’ I felt myself resonating with this 14-year-old boy named ‘March.’ He seeks meaning and normalcy in what to him is an estranged world. As the book’s narrator, March knows trees intimately and shares inner feelings and straight facts with the reader – a gripping mixture! I grew to love March and rejoiced with his victories! ”

[/et_pb_testimonial][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_testimonial author=”Temple Grandin” job_title=”New York Times bestselling author of Emergence” background_layout=”light” quote_icon_color=”#189118″ quote_icon_background_color=”#ededed” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ body_font=”||||||||” box_shadow_style=”preset1″ global_module=”2438″ saved_tabs=”all”]

“Every human experience is unique, but The Eagle Tree provides insight into one distinctive and uniquely important perspective. The Eagle Tree seems very authentic to me.”

[/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial _builder_version=”3.0.89″ author=”Susan Senator” job_title=”New York Times featured author of Making Peace with Autism and Autism Adulthood” url_new_window=”off” quote_icon=”on” use_background_color=”on” quote_icon_background_color=”#f5f5f5″ background_layout=”light”]

“The Eagle Tree portrays a teenager that is believable and lovable. March, the main character, is a living, breathing person with significant challenges who is so realistic I feel I know him. I have not enjoyed an autistic novel as much since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. The Eagle Tree’s beautifully written narrator is a real joy—March Wong is an unexpected leader, who remains true to himself and prevails. The Eagle Tree will leave an indelible mark on your heart.”

[/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial _builder_version=”3.0.89″ author=”Francisco X. Stork” job_title=”author of Marcelo in the Real World” url_new_window=”off” quote_icon=”on” use_background_color=”on” quote_icon_background_color=”#f5f5f5″ background_layout=”light”]

“A wonderful read! To say that the narrator’s mind is unusual would not be correct. His mind is simply and marvelously unique like yours and mine. Or rather, like yours and mine couldbe if we lifted the eyes of our hope to the crowns of trees and listened to the voice of our neglected spirit. The Eagle Tree will remind of the beauty and truth you may have forgotten.”

[/et_pb_testimonial][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.89″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_testimonial _builder_version=”3.0.89″ author=”Carmen Johnson” job_title=”Editor, Little A” url_new_window=”off” quote_icon=”on” use_background_color=”on” quote_icon_background_color=”#f5f5f5″ background_layout=”light” border_width_all=”1px” box_shadow_style=”preset1″]

“To see the world through the eyes of someone else is one of reading’s greatest powers. The Eagle Tree carried me, with sensitivity and grace, into the mind of an autistic teenage boy—one who would rather climb tall trees than meet his mother’s gaze.

In this unconventional and uplifting story, the young narrator learns that a beloved ponderosa pine near his Olympia, Washington, home will be cut down. Panicked, he gathers an unlikely group of allies to save it from destruction. He must overcome numerous barriers to convince his mother, his uncle, a grumpy neighbor, and reluctant politicians to help him with his fight. I found myself moved by the boy’s determination and awed by his resourcefulness.

I can’t recall a story that pulled me so deeply into the inner workings of its protagonist’s extraordinary mind. But the novel does more than capture perfectly the unexpected and powerful voice of autism. The Eagle Tree also explores what it means to be part of a family and connected through our hearts and minds to the natural world that surrounds us.”

[/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.89″ background_layout=”light”]

Buy THE EAGLE TREE at indie bookstores,  Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

The Eagle Tree: Kindle April Sale was originally published on Ned Hayes

THE EAGLE TREE  Kindle Edition – on sale for $0.99 all through April.

National bestseller, nominated for numerous awards, and listed as one of the Top 5 Books on the Autistic experience. Buy THE EAGLE TREE at indie bookstores,  Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         

“The Eagle Tree is a gorgeously written novel that features one of the most accurate, finely drawn and memorable autistic protagonists in literature. The hero of the book is like a 14-year-old Walt Whitman with autism. Credible, authentic, powerful.”

Steve Silberman

New York Times bestselling author of Neurotribes

Fourteen-year-old March Wong knows everything there is to know about trees. They are his passion and his obsession, even after his recent fall—and despite social services’ threat to take him away from his mother if she doesn’t keep him out of their branches.

But the young autistic boy just cannot resist the captivating pull of the Pacific Northwest’s lush forests just outside his backdoor.

One day, March is devastated to learn that the Eagle Tree—a monolithic Ponderosa pine near his home in Olympia—is slated to be cut down by developers. Now, he will do anything in his power to save this beloved tree, including enlisting unlikely support from relatives, classmates, and even his bitter neighbor. In taking a stand, March will come face-to-face with some frightening possibilities: Even if he manages to save the Eagle Tree, is he risking himself and his mother to do it?

Intertwining themes of humanity and ecology, The Eagle Tree eloquently explores what it means to be a part of a family, a society, and the natural world that surrounds and connects us.

“I now better understand the autistic child–more sensitive to that child’s life–physical, mental, family, spiritual. That’s why for me this is a ‘wonder book!’ I felt myself resonating with this 14-year-old boy named ‘March.’ He seeks meaning and normalcy in what to him is an estranged world. As the book’s narrator, March knows trees intimately and shares inner feelings and straight facts with the reader – a gripping mixture! I grew to love March and rejoiced with his victories! ”

Rob Natiuk

Amazon Top 500 Reviewer

“Every human experience is unique, but The Eagle Tree provides insight into one distinctive and uniquely important perspective. The Eagle Tree seems very authentic to me.”

Temple Grandin

New York Times bestselling author of Emergence

“The Eagle Tree portrays a teenager that is believable and lovable. March, the main character, is a living, breathing person with significant challenges who is so realistic I feel I know him. I have not enjoyed an autistic novel as much since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. The Eagle Tree’s beautifully written narrator is a real joy—March Wong is an unexpected leader, who remains true to himself and prevails. The Eagle Tree will leave an indelible mark on your heart.”

Susan Senator

New York Times featured author of Making Peace with Autism and Autism Adulthood

“A wonderful read! To say that the narrator’s mind is unusual would not be correct. His mind is simply and marvelously unique like yours and mine. Or rather, like yours and mine couldbe if we lifted the eyes of our hope to the crowns of trees and listened to the voice of our neglected spirit. The Eagle Tree will remind of the beauty and truth you may have forgotten.”

Francisco X. Stork

author of Marcelo in the Real World

“To see the world through the eyes of someone else is one of reading’s greatest powers. The Eagle Tree carried me, with sensitivity and grace, into the mind of an autistic teenage boy—one who would rather climb tall trees than meet his mother’s gaze.

In this unconventional and uplifting story, the young narrator learns that a beloved ponderosa pine near his Olympia, Washington, home will be cut down. Panicked, he gathers an unlikely group of allies to save it from destruction. He must overcome numerous barriers to convince his mother, his uncle, a grumpy neighbor, and reluctant politicians to help him with his fight. I found myself moved by the boy’s determination and awed by his resourcefulness.

I can’t recall a story that pulled me so deeply into the inner workings of its protagonist’s extraordinary mind. But the novel does more than capture perfectly the unexpected and powerful voice of autism. The Eagle Tree also explores what it means to be part of a family and connected through our hearts and minds to the natural world that surrounds us.”

Carmen Johnson

Editor, Little A

Buy THE EAGLE TREE at indie bookstores,  Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         

The Eagle Tree: April Sale was originally published on Ned Hayes

Orca Books in Olympia just listed The Eagle Tree audiobook as one of their picks for a new Pacific Northwest audiobook “play list” called Orca Books Whale Songs

An Orca-themed mix for your Pacific Northwest dreams.

Enjoy the Orca BooksAudiobook Play List here.

The Eagle TreeA Novel

By Ned Hayes

Narrated by: Will Ropp

Length: 7 hours 11 minutesFourteen-year-old March Wong knows everything there is to know about trees. They are his passion and his obsession, even after his recent falls—and despite the state’s threat to take him away from his mother if she can’t keep him from getting hurt. But the young autistic boy cannot resist the captivating pull of the Pacific Northwest’s lush… Read more »

Audiobook details

Playlist Tags: Orca Books Booksellerreccomended

Whale Songs: Eagle Tree as Featured Audiobook was originally published on Ned Hayes

Amanda Gorman

Read at the Presidential Inauguration, January 2021

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea.
We must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.
And the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that it isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and the time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.

To compose a country, committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else say, this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade the hill we climb.
If only we dare it’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded, but while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated in this truth.
In this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it in its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised.
But whole benevolence, but bold, fierce, and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens, but one thing is certain.
If we merged mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath, my bronze pounded chest.

For there was always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it.

We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold limbed hills of the West.
We will rise from the wind swept to Northeast where our forefathers first realized the revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the middle Western States.
We will arise from the sun baked South.
We will rebuild, reconciled and recover and every known nook over our nation.
And every corner called our country.
Our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid, the new dawn balloons, as we free it.
For there was always light.
If only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Poem: The Hill We Climb, Amanda Gorman was originally published on Ned Hayes