Tag: short stories

The Silence of Choices: A few lessons from Tillie Olsen

Silence is a real fear for writers. Not silence as in the absence of sound, rather silence as an inability to hear what the imagination wants to bring into the world. For whatever reason, writers are egoists and need to leave imprints of thoughts and stories for people to find. Somehow there’s an instinctive sense for most of us that at least a smidgeon of what we are trying to provide readers is unique, at least partially interesting, and would never have come into the world had we not forced the issue.

Imaginations are funny things. When they work properly life has meaning and literally everything and anything is possible. It’s a great feeling to be in flow with words and filled with the life force one feels being creative with versions of new meaning. But when imaginations are spent, or for whatever reason the gears of thought can’t turn, it only takes a few days of silence and a sense of emptiness before we either feel pointless and inconsequential or, worse, forget that wonderful feeling of surprise and connectedness that is the creative mind at work.

Continue reading “The Silence of Choices: A few lessons from Tillie Olsen” →
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“Air Conditions” and “Wherever Below Her Might Actually Be” at Bull Magazine

In the midst of this wonderful pandemic vacation — which is definitely not very vacationy for any writer anywhere in the world, although not very different than the work days we all stumbled through back there in the good old days — it was a nice surprise this morning to find out that Bull Magazine had posted two my flash stories at their website. They are each worth the read. One is about Death and the other is about Love.

Two Stories by Dog Cavanaugh

They’re flash stories so you can rip through them in less than five minutes. Hopefully they are worthy of your time. I worked on them for over a year. Kind of weird to continually re-write a two or so page story endlessly.

Wanna put in a plug for Bull as well. One of the best things about the 21st century is that fiction about being male has finally got more depth and meaning. Most of us guys here and now are pathetically complicated emotionally and strive hard to be good fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, friends, and co-workers. The fun of stories about us is that we often fuck up in that striving. You can definitely read about all of that at Bull. I would like to close this quick note by stating emphatically that I’m not so sure it was the case that you could read about the actually complexities of being male back in the last century. From James Joyce to Raymond Carver, dudes were trying to open up, but for the most part they failed to truly get to the bottom of things. It’s not enough to write about sex and booze and love. What is it that Joyce says in Ulysses?

“Love loves to love love.”

Good golly, there’s got to be more to love than love … Read Bull for more.

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My story “Litter Entries” made the cut in the Margarite McGlinn fiction contest

I’m quite happy to report that my short story, “Litter Entries,” has been posted online at the literary publication Philadelphia Stories website. It did not win in the Margarite McGlinn Fiction Contest, but did indeed make the final cut as an Honorary Mention.

“Litter Entries” operates on a lot of levels. It takes place in a fictionalized version of LOVE Park in Philadelphia. I began to write this piece in 2012 before the park got completely remodeled. For awhile I figured I needed to add all that change to the story. The new LOVE Park is nothing like the old one. However, I realized as I wrote and re-wrote that Continue reading “My story “Litter Entries” made the cut in the Margarite McGlinn fiction contest” →

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