Fishing for Atonement

This is one of two award-winning short stories from the 2025 Next Generation Short Story Awards – Anthology of Winners. Fishing for Atonement is a chapter from a longer work of fiction that is still under construction – but stands on its own as a short story. Scroll down the home page to find Sandpiper Feet, the second story published in this anthology. The competition and book are supported by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the largest international awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. For those of you who prefer holding a book in your hands, you can find it at Headline Books (scroll down to “Next Generation”) or at Amazon here.

Like the day before, and the day before that, the hitchhiker started this day beneath a cottonwood grove draped in hanging robes of Spanish moss. This day was different however, because a rare breeze stirred the Mississippi air and brought a checkerboard smile to his face. Like the people in his life, most of his teeth had abandoned him years before. Friends and bicuspids were nothing but memories now. He closed his eyes and listened to the mesmerizing symphony of the cicada in the trees overhead. Their song rippled through the branches, gracefully rising and falling with the wind. The sound became the wind and its melody moved the silver moss into a soprano sonata that captivated the hitchhiker until the breeze descended once again into the trembling vibrato of the insect’s call.

Sandpiper Feet

This story was selected for publication in the 2025 Next Generation Short Story Awards Anthology of Winners. The inspiration for Sandpiper Feet came when someone close to me made a brave and difficult decision – the decision to come out. The story was a finalist in the LGBTQ+ genre, but won the award in the Wild Card category. I don’t know which means more to me. The competition and book are supported by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the largest international awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. If you prefer holding a book in your hands, you can find one at Headline Books or Amazon.

The warm light of dusk shone through the dragonfly’s filigreed wings, illuminating each tiny pane and casting rainbow shadows that Angel captured in her tiny palm. She followed the creature’s movement as it careened off invisible breezes in search of unseen midges. Its wings twitched robotically, sending it forward, backward, and sideways in neck-wrenching maneuvers above the boat’s deck. You are so strange and so beautiful, thought Angel. How can you be so lovely to some and so frightening to others? Angel’s papa sat behind her with his weathered riding boots perched on the port side railing. He lit his pipe and released a stream of white smoke that chased the no-see-ums away. The dragonfly paused midair in confusion and then pivoted leeward in pursuit of prey downwind.

An Extraordinary Life

Mijenko “Mike” Grgich, 1923 – 2023

I last saw Mijenko “Mike” Grgich at Marvin Shanken’s Wine Spectator Magnum Party in Napa Valley. All of Napa’s best winemakers were there, and all were toting a magnum (1.5 liter) of wine and a guest. For the last page of his autobiography, Mike chose a picture of himself taken at that party, followed by the words, “At 92, I was not the oldest vintner … but maybe I will be when I’m 100!”

Mike reached the century milestone on April 1st and passed away at his home in Calistoga on December 13th. And while the man may be gone, his legacy will live on as long as wine is produced in America. He led an extraordinary life and helped transform Napa Valley, once a fledgling wine region, into a prestigious player on the global wine stage.

The Wise-Ass Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

The Spring / Summer issue of the Tulip Tree Review has been released and once again Tulip Tree Publishing has selected one of my memoirs for inclusion in the book. This issue is dedicated to “Wild Women” and it just so happens that the wildest woman I ever met was my mother. Those of you who prefer the tactile feel of paper can find the book on Amazon at https://rb.gy/uiof0

My father was a reserved man but that didn’t affect me. In my faith I am considered a wise-ass because my mother was a wise-ass.

To meet my mother was to be instantly won over by her oversized personality and generous sense of humor. She was a product of the great state of Indiana and in the parlance of her Hoosier upbringing, my mother Tessie was a hoot. She waged war on the safe, the conventional, and the reserved. Laughter was her ammunition and she always left the chamber empty.

The Jersey Slide

The Tulip Tree Review “Humor” issue has been released and it includes The Jersey Slide.

This is a tale about how a logical midwestern driver learned to drive in the chaos of New Jersey. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever dared drive in the Garden State!

“Whoa! When did you become a Jersey driver?”

I hadn’t seen much of my brother Jeff since I’d moved to New Jersey and his remark caught me off guard.

“What are you talking about?” Okay, so maybe I did roll through a stop sign with only the slightest pretense of braking but in my defense, I replied, “I stopped like thirty yards back.”

“Sure.” he said, “but you didn’t stop when you got to the stop sign. You coasted right through it on the bumper of the car in front of you, which coincidentally, didn’t come to a stop when it was his turn either.”

“Look. It’s a stop sign. I stopped. End of discussion.” I shrugged and added, “Besides, if you stop at a stop sign in New Jersey you’ll get rear-ended by the guy behind you.”

Walk It Off

Walk It Off was recently included in Tulip Tree Publishing’s anthology; Stories That Need to be Told 2022.

This is a tale about a lifetime of missteps, mishaps, and misbehavior, and the cure for the broken bones that resulted.

My parents raised four boys, two girls, three dogs, two cats, six gerbils, a turtle and a bat. Ours was a household filled with love, companionship and mortal danger. If we survived the dog bites, snakebites and kid bites, we still had to contend with smallpox, measles, and mumps – all of which could kill you or seriously hamper your social life. By necessity my mother was adept at the mending of cuts, burns, bee stings, botulism, plague and constipation.

Smooth As Silk

Since this platform is called WineSnark, I should point out that, although this tale never actually mentions wine, I did drink several bottles while I was writing it. And the story begins with the protagonist suffering from a hangover that would probably kill a Kodiak bear so I think that qualifies as wine-blogworthy.

Smooth as Silk was recently included in Tulip Tree Publishing’s anthology; Stories That Need to be Told 2021 and received the book’s Merit Award for Humor.

With a year of high school yet to complete, I looked west from the interstate entrance ramp, stuck out my thumb and turned my back on New Jersey. Three days later I woke up in a Racine, Wisconsin hospital. My throat was raw from a stomach pump, my back ached from the impact of a hundred cars plowing into one another, and my head throbbed from the impact of several gallons of Milwaukee beer and a bottle of cheap scotch. I was happy to wake up alive but unfortunately a hundred thousand brain cells had perished during the night.

It was this chain of events that brought me to live with my older brother Doug and paved the way for the tremendous bond that was to develop over the next year. Yes, this is the story about the love between me and my first car.

WineSnark Gets Physical.

New Book Features WineSnark Memoir

I’m holding a book in my hands and I love the feel of it. My friend Robin Robinson, author of The Complete Whiskey Course: A Comprehensive Tasting School in Ten Classes¹ explained, “There’s something special about the tactile pleasure of holding your thoughts in your hands.”  Conscious ideas and experiences suddenly have paper and ink to smell, an evocative cover to see, and rustling pages to hear. But it’s the weight in my hands that makes me realize that when it comes to the five senses, nothing gets my heart thumping like the sense of touch. I can’t help myself, I’m a tactile kind of guy (no, no – not tactful – you regular readers know me better than that). What I mean is that when it comes to pure joy, no other sense has been more universally incorporated into my experiences than the sense of touch.

I Teach Therefore I Am! (Regrettably I Am In New Jersey)

Mark Twain reportedly once quipped, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” For regular readers of WineSnark I’d like to say that despite my long absence from these pages I am not dead, I’m just living in New Jersey.

And when the Grim Reaper finally does come calling , I hope to go out in a trance-like stupor, just like my readers.

Not long ago I told my wife that when my time finally does come, I want to go out like Willard Motley who famously said, “Die young, and leave a good-looking corpse.”

She said, “Too late.”

A Magical Christmas Revisited

“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there …”  

I’ve had my ups and downs this past year. First, there was the Lexus that sent me up in the air, and then there was a misstep that sent me down the stairs. That probably explains why I wasn’t buying into the whole “Jolly ol’ St. Nick” routine when the holidays arrived.

Come December I was a man complacently in touch with his inner Scrooge but then – in keeping with the destiny of Dicken’s transformative curmudgeon – something magical happened and I suddenly found that holly-jolly bounce back in my step. What unexpectedly had me caroling, caroling, caroling was a weird (but true) encounter with the Christmas spirit – and I’m not talking about the eggnog.