I love to write short stories. Most of mine are under 10,000 words and give me an opportunity to tell a story that’s tugging at me but that I am not ready to develop into a full-length novel.

Ringo the Ghost Cat

This award-winning story was inspired by my great-niece, who loves to read but didn’t want to read about “dead bodies” so she was skipping my mysteries. She loves animals and asked me to write about my cats. I’d given it some thought, but it wasn’t until I lost one of my favorites in tragic fashion that I was able to write a story for her.

Ringo’s personality is infused in the Ghost Cat story. He was a very “cool cat” with a fan club. Every person who met him wanted to take him home.

Lindsey

My husband suffered terrible emotional abuse which I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t met the people who abused him. They weren’t horrible people, but life had warped them to the point where in their minds, they were being helpful when in reality, they were terribly abusive to everyone they came into contact with.

None of the specifics of Lindsey’s story actually happened in my husband’s life or anyone else’s, but the raw emotions she experiences echo what he went through. I’ve seen so many people, children and adults, who were bruised and scarred worse by the words of their parents than they would have been by fists, yet our system discounts this emotional abuse. I hope to someday re-visit Lindsey, who by the end of the story has taken the first step toward healing, and explore the path that healing takes.

Legacy of a Snowflake

Not available yet, this story was inspired by my grandmother and my mother. It tells the story of a widow and the everyday joy she finds in her children and grandchildren after the loss of her husband. It is a warm and inspirational story about how our legacy is not in the money we leave behind, but in the hearts and lives we touch while we’re here.

I Hate First Dates

I love coffee shops and I do a lot of writing hanging out, watching people. This story, also not yet available, tells the story of two people who are single again after many years of marriage and who meet for the first time on a blind date at a coffee shop. I plan to write a series of shorts, each focused on a different person or group of people coming to the same coffee shop on the same day, tied together by the woman who owns and manages the shop. This will someday be released as a full-length novel, provided my local shop doesn’t run out of coffee anytime soon!

What I’m Reading

I read Lia London’s “Her Imaginary Husband” quite some time ago and I enjoyed it so much I decided to read it again. It’s a light-hearted, clean romantic comedy. I hope someday she’ll write more of this style because she really did a knock-out job with this one.