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.

A Trillion Silent Witnesses

A Trillion Silent Witnesses was my first attempt at Flash Fiction. It garnered an “Honorable Mention” in New Millenium’s writing contest for the LVII Anthology.

Agent Caufield drove his crimson Corvette into the Delta darkness with the top down and the radio up. This wasn’t the famous Mississippi River Delta that spread like a bird’s foot into the Gulf of Mexico. This delta was a vast cotton-growing flood plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers that appeared to be exempt from the passage of time. Piggly Wiggly stores may have replaced roadside farm stands and the churches now had drum sets, but no amount of external progress or northern intervention could completely sever the Mississippi Delta from its history with Jim Crow.

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.