My short stories appear in various forms in various places, including blog posts. You can find the stories I’ve published as blog posts in the Short Stories section of this site. On this page, you’ll find my growing list of stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies. I add links to published pieces here as they appear in print, with the most recent at the top. You can find most of the anthologies containing my stories on my Amazon.com author page.
- Fall Practice enters the world of a woman watching her son practice football, and yearning to protect him from injury, when another bystander appears with a story of her own. Fall Practice was published in Talking Stick volume 33, Earth Signs, which was published in September, 2024 and won second place in the “Creative Twist” category. This is a challenge put on annually by the Jack Pine Writers Bloc publishers, which requires writers to incorporate specific words into the story.
- The River Bluffs delves into the relationship of siblings torn apart by divorce at a young age, and trying to weave their lives together again as young adults. Originally published in my short story collection, Somewhere in Minnesota, the story was selected for the debut edition of Scribbler magazine, published in June, 2024.
- Riptide tells the story of Lanie, also known online as SeaRain, who has gone to meet her online boyfriend, Sunsetter, at a town by the sea. With gulls wheeling, the salt air infiltrating her senses, she anticipates seeing him face-to-face at last. But what happens is wholly unexpected. The story was published in March, 2024 by Persimmon Tree.
- Happy Face is a fictionalized telling of the horrible acts of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer. Historical fiction meets true crime in this tale, which is part of Jane Nightshade’s Serial Encounters, an anthology of stories about imagined encounters with serial killers throughout history. Jesperson is serving a life sentence without parole. Today, with advances in genetic genealogy, the identities of some of his “Jane Doe” victims are being determined at last, 30 years after their senseless murders. The anthology was published in March, 2024.
- Dark Muse Lake takes us on a detour off a highway with Lark and her surly but brilliant husband to a legendary artists’ community. Lark is drawn inexorably to this place and its secrets as she struggles with the self confidence to write her novel and wonders if the town’s mythical muse can help. The story was published by Short Fiction Break in November 2023.
- Lost Charm tells the story of a peculiar day in a high school girl’s life. Normally on the bottom of the social totem pole, she finds a charm from a bracelet on the way to school one morning, and then discovers that she has switched roles with its owner, who (until that day) was one of the most popular girls at school. The story appears in an anthology titled Zinging Success Comforting Failure by Free Spirit Press, published in October 2023. The anthology is available at Barnes & Noble.com or in Kindle format on Amazon.com.
- Neighbors gives us a window into the world of Benny, a retiree whose life has been knocked off its axis by a boisterous family moving in across the street, all too soon after the passing of his best friend who lived there for many years. Benny has some adjustments to make. The story appeared in The Write Launch on August 1, 2023.
- Last Night in Fargo shares a moment in time, and a decision to be made. The narrator has been on a business trip, where she met someone. Can she meld back into her life with Carl when she returns? The story was published in The Talking Stick Volume 32: A Twist in the Road, published by the The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc, on July 6, 2023, and is available on Amazon.com.
- Happy Trails tells a story in 100 words of those last moments at a campsite when it’s time to move on. This drabble was published in A Story in 100 Words on July 5, 2023.
- Cast Off is a short story about a young woman’s return to her childhood home on the shores of Lake Superior and the events that unfold after she sees a large form lying very still down on the beach. The story was published on June 15, 2023, by Great Lakes Review.
- Wasting is a microfiction story about a young girl trying to make sense of warnings about food, until it becomes an obsession. The story was published on April 29, 2023 in Backwards Trajectory.
- All New tells the story of Raymond, a hapless worker in the shipping and receiving office of a business, who is fired for flirting with the boss’s daughter, then finds his life opening up to new possibilities and realizing that he is more than he seemed, even to himself. This story appears in the May 2022 anthology of Blue Collar themed short stories from Free Spirit Press. You can also find it on the Google Play store. and in Kindle format on Amazon.com.
- Reckless is a short story about a woman and her husband visiting an old college friend, who is as mysterious and seductive as he ever was. The story appears in the November 18, 2021 edition of Bright Flash Literary Review.
- Ripples is a flash fiction piece about a Minnesota family dealing with a near tragedy and its aftermath. The story appears in the April 2020 edition of Portage Magazine, a review of upper Midwestern writing, art, and culture.
- The Whimden Murders appears in Dead Silence a 2019 anthology by Steem Fiction that includes nine stories. Each author contributed a grisly tale of murder certain to delight and disturb. Is there something lurking in the silence, after all?
You can find more of my short story collection on my Short Stories page.