Then there was Mani, the Mighty Good-For-Nothing. He towered above all the other boys of the class. He seldom brought any books to the class, and never bothered about homework. He came to the class, monopolized the last bench, ans slept bravely. No t...
And the vampires. You used to know where you stood with them – smelly, evil, undead – but now there are virtuous vampires and disreputable vampires, and sexy vampires and glittery vampires, and none of the old rules about them are true any more. ...
Bullies want to isolate you, so they can torment you & then make you feel bad about yourself when you want to tell someone. Don't listen to their head games. When you're sick you always tell someone. So if bullies make you feel bad and sick, tell som...
My father was a doctor,' she says, 'a very kind man. He died in the early '70s, relatively young.' She taps the cigarette packet on the table. 'Of lung cancer.' 'Oh.' 'But the thing about that is,' she says as she exhales, 'it doesn't take very long ...
The macabre who lived through the war have a story they loved to tell about the soldiers of the Foreign Legion giving a ball in the expanses around Verdun and dancing with the corpses. Alabama's continued brewing of the poisoned filter for a semicons...
To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true abo...
People talk about mainstream fiction and sf as though they were two quite different kinds of writing, and fantasy as well, as though it was quite different. But I think this a false distinction, that it is a labelling that helps librarians, and peopl...
Wizards don’t believe in gods. They didn’t deny their existence, of course. They just didn’t believe. It was nothing personal; they weren’t actually rude about it. Gods were a visible part of narrativium that made things work, that gave the w...
Do you remember anything about last night?" he asked. Her stomach churned as memories of the night before swam into mental view. Oh, she recalled a few things. How could she forget? She took a solid gulp of her coffee. "I remember vodka, an ax murder...
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. Even though you grew up and found you could never quite br...
She liked this. Liked the closeness. With lover’s she’d taken in the past, things had been short and sweet. She certainly hadn’t stuck about to snuggle in case they started to get ideas, not after the first time. Killing a guy you’d fucked wa...
I think my Mama and Savannah must be special people in the Lord's eyes, as they have gone about doing generous and loving things without even a second thought. For me, it seems like the only thing that comes natural is aggravation and hard word
Throughout my life people have constantly told me to 'be careful', to 'take care' and to 'mind how I go'. They may just be figures of speech, but they always seem such stupid things to say to someone. I feel like saying "Thanks for the timely reminde...
But from the start I had withheld from him any information about the giant redwoods. It seemed to me that a Long Island poodle who had made his devoirs to or might be set apart from other dogs--might even be like that Galahad who saw the Grail. The c...
This is what you should know about losing someone you love. They do not travel alone. You go with them.
Often, when a human suffers through major emotional traumas, a lack of well being follows if their feelings about the trauma are not completely expressed. When the trauma is severe and the suffering is continuous, their animal companion’s condition...
. I felt the sun graze my face as I sped further and further from it all. The only negative part about running was that at some point I knew I’d have to stop. I’d have to turn around and go back. And whatever troubles had haunted me when I left, ...
There are lots of superheroes with different superpowers, and some of them are big and flashy, like super strength and super speed, and molecular restructuring, and force fields. But these abilities are really not so different from the superpower stu...
When I think about the kind of guy I want to marry, I think I might prefer someone who knows where they are going. I mean a prince pretty much has his whole life planned out already, doesn't he? And this is important because I have no idea where I'm ...
Am I crazy?" she asked. "I feel like I am sometimes." "Maybe," he said, rubbing her forehead. "But don't worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the d...
has started you on this?" I asked. "We were talking about the holidays." "Los Angeles is not a safe place for a young woman alone. I feel it in my bones." "That's your arthritis, Aunt Sadie. Do you want me to get a gun? I'd probably shoot myself in t...
