Here’s a little about the story “Call Me Pearl,” which originally appeared in Ballyhoo Stories back in 2005. First, it has a nugget of truth to it, from a second or third…
Tag: short stories
“Learning to Talk” by Hilary Mantel
Not having read Mantel’s memoir, “Giving Up the Ghost,” I was a little befuddled by some of these stories – they return again and again to similar settings and situations but with…
“The Haunting of Esther Cox” by William Meikle
After an attempted rape, a young woman is haunted and possessed by a malevolent poltergeist until she finds a way to free herself from it. This story is told in alternating diary…
“Crawlspace Oracle” by Richard Gavin
A woman has dinner with an old acquaintance who has gained a reputation for financial wizardry, hoping to get some advice for how to invest some money her husband has recently acquired….
“In This Twilight” by Simon Strantzas
A young woman meets an itinerant young man in a deserted bus station and tries to avoid conversation with him. When he gets on the same bus as her, and waxes rhapsodic…
“Napier’s Constant” by ArLynn Leiber Presser
This is a fun and lighthearted take on the theory of multiverses and the end of the universe, set at a wedding where a “virtuous but not sober uncle” has fallen asleep…
“Scold’s Bridle: A Cruelty” by Richard Gavin
Well, this is a grim little story to read with my morning coffee … A down-on-his-luck blacksmith is approached to create a medieval torture device; the requester is a teacher, who claims…