RULES for ALL STORYTELLERS by Deborah Elliott-Upton Playing on the Internet is often rewarding, sometimes great fun, and sometimes, a waste of time. I can’t imagine going back to a time where we didn’t have the World Wide Web as a playground and information highway. While hitting some Internet backroads, I stumbled on a poster […]

MAGIC POTIONS by Deborah Elliott-Upton For me, getting motivated to do anything when the temperatures soar into the triple digits is difficult. Sometimes even putting on a swimsuit or raising a cold drink to the lips is an effort. I know that I’m in big trouble when I don’t even want to read a short […]

A READER’S BUCKET LIST by Deborah Elliott-Upton In everyone’s life there are many stories we’re told. We may call them anecdotes1, wishful thinking or out-and-out falsehoods. Sometimes we hear them at family gatherings during the holidays, sometimes read about them in diaries and sometimes they only come to light at funerals. The ultimate short story […]

SUMMER READING by Deborah Elliott-Upton The temperature gauge where I live proves even more than the calendar pages that summer has officially arrived. My family is enjoying a little downtime following the wedding. For the newlyweds, this meant a trip to Costa Rica. For my husband, it meant a weekend with the Cowboy Action Shooters […]

Personal note: I missed you guys! Many thanks to the wonderful writers who filled in the Thursday time slot while I was away: alisa dollar, Travis Erwin, Sunny Frazier, Lissa Merriman and James Lincoln Warren – I love you all for sharing your talents so generously. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE by Deborah Elliott-Upton If […]

Deborah’s stand-in this week is the inimitable Sunny Frazier, specializing in mysteries with an astrological bent, and a fellow contributor along with our own John M. Floyd and Deborah Elliott-Upton to the flash anthology, Seven by Seven. She writes of herself: “Sunny Frazier’s short mystery fiction has won over 30 awards and trophies, as well […]

Today’s substitute teacher for Mrs. Elliott-Upton’s class says of herself: Lissa Merriman is a published writer of humorous greeting cards and horror short stories. Her work has appeared in cards for Dayspring and Oatmeal Studios, in New Romance magazine and in the online ezine “From the Asylum”. She has also written numerous local newspaper columns […]