Read my latest on Splice Today, a response to Alex Perez's piece on the not-so-lost art of "dirty realism": https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/dirty-realist-protests-too-much
Category: Creative Writing
Dominance and Submissions
Let's say you've labored long in the fields of creative writing and the People Who Know (or maybe just the people who've noticed) have appreciated your talent. Some have appreciated it loudly and publicly, some quietly to friends in ways that eventually come back to you, some through amazing feats of jealousy, and others through… Continue reading Dominance and Submissions
Writing Exercise: A Noir Opening Scene in Close Third
Twenty years ago, she might have lit a cigarette. That would have been better. Twenty years and people still didn’t know what to do with their hands. Now they looked at each other and waited. “I love him. Is that what you want to hear?” “I don’t really care about that, Mrs. Sorrel. Not what… Continue reading Writing Exercise: A Noir Opening Scene in Close Third
On Forgetting One’s Humanity
Professional writers and artists sometimes forget that they are human beings. In the immense pressure to monetize their work, develop personal commercial brands, and get recognized as professionals (because without such things, capitalist culture regards an artist as a hobbyist at best), they can forget that their art is only one part of who they… Continue reading On Forgetting One’s Humanity
A Good Thing Going: an Exercise in Idiosyncratic Voice
There are a number of things Victoria won’t do. And the trouble with that is I’m paying her to get up off her skinny ass every fifteen minutes and look down at the street. And that’s exactly one of the things she won’t do. She won’t do it because I want her to. She won’t… Continue reading A Good Thing Going: an Exercise in Idiosyncratic Voice
The Ashes of the Trumpocene
A new story published in The Nonconformist Magazine. Read it here: https://nonconformist-mag.com/the-ashes-of-the-trumpocene/
538 Words About Dreams and a Lighthouse
(Part of a long story in progress.) It was around this time that the dreams began. Looking back, it seems remarkable that they hadn’t begun sooner in all of us. But, even if they had, we probably wouldn’t have known. We wouldn’t have talked about it. Tyler would have belched and blamed the beer or… Continue reading 538 Words About Dreams and a Lighthouse
Living the Dream
News this good doesn't arrive every day. My third collection of stories, Living the Dream, just got accepted by Terror House for publication in 2021. I will be updating my websites when I have more information. Thanks to everyone for following my writing. It matters. Michael
One Cat at a Time
A story about volunteers. Of all the things I’d hoped to accomplish that fall, digging a six-foot-deep moat around the family house wasn’t one of them. But the governor decided to end all Covid restrictions in the middle of the pandemic, causing the state’s heavily armed population to take it as a sign and go… Continue reading One Cat at a Time
Two Women
A new story in Terror House Magazine. Click here and read it on their site: https://terrorhousemag.com/two-women/
The Writing Expedition 