Category: Writers

Coffee Shop Chronicles: Are You the Trusting Sort?

Corner Bakery Café Horsham, PA Billy Joel had it right: it’s always been a matter of trust. 3:43pm A strange little coffee shop that is, or was once, a restaurant. This place serves the typical coffees and latte espresso drinks, but it also offers a choice of real food, not just the token pastries. I …

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From One Extreme to Another

“Kalamazoo to Timbuktu.” That song, recorded in the ‘50s by Mitch Miller, linked two locations together because of their individually unique names. Michiganders, like me, recognize the name of one city and wonder about the other. Where in the world is Timbuktu? Does it really exist? Or is it just part of an expression that …

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Hot Blacktop Ch. 8 – Twisted Metal

Mature Content. Sienna’s hands shook. She was tired, but she needed to finish this necklace. The silver metal fired orange as Sienna soldered the second medallion to the first. She hadn’t slept well the whole week, and her mind still stuck on Saint’s words as she left him at the Speedway. Rotating her shoulders, she …

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Chutes and Ladders—Plotting for ages 3-100

Games teach the mechanics of plot. A player begins Chutes and Ladders on a path with some ladders up and some chutes down. The sequence of action and consequence is plot, pure and simple. Same Game Different Century The Milton Bradley game comes from an ancient Indian game called Snakes and Ladders. In Moksha Patam, …

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Story Starters, Part 3

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”–Graham Greene Have you ever found yourself with the wrong friends? A fur hunter in the 1800s was severely …

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