by kyle | Mar 21, 2015 | Fiction
A fiction excerpt Bold shafts of morning sun nudged open Emily’s eyelids, still sandy and dry from her late night. She shut them quickly with a groan, and rolled face down into the feather pillow. Yet the warmth of the day’s beginning urged her upright and teased her eyes back open. She slid down from the bed and approached the window, drawing in a full breath of balmy breeze. The previous day’s voyage faded to a murky half-memory that seemed unreal. Unreal, that is, except for the bruise on...
by kyle | Mar 7, 2015 | Inspiration
Starbucks in Paris. A tourist’s haven from heat and culture stress, as well as a Saturday meeting place for Parisian students. The typical population—well-to-do teens, traveling families, twenty-somethings in summer fashions— filled the comfortable chairs drinking lattes, espressos, and frappucinos. A woman “of a certain age”, as the French would say, entered an alcove by the window. In one hand, nails encrusted with black, she held a steaming beverage. In the other, she clutched two pastries...
by kyle | Mar 3, 2015 | Journey
A couple of years ago I created this web site because as an aspiring fiction-writer, I knew I needed this thing everyone is talking about…an online presence. Editors and agents wanted to know that if a book was published, there was already a space on the web to nail it up for people to see, and folks potentially interested. That seemed like a pretty good idea, except for one chronic question, what do I put on a fiction writing web site if I haven’t published anything yet? That question...
by kyle | Feb 3, 2015 | Encouragement
There’s this awkward situation. You know the one I mean. We’ve all been there. You go to a restaurant with a group of people, or to a party, and almost everyone else knows one another. You’re the new kid. You introduce yourself and everyone announces their name. And that’s often as far as it goes. They then turn to the person they already know sitting next to them. Understandably, it’s safer ground with known signposts. They aren’t put on the spot thinking up inane questions to ask in order to...
by kyle | Feb 3, 2015 | Inspiration
My very first experience on French soil occurred in 1989. I spent two weeks in southern France helping with English programs in a church there. I’d studied a bit of French, oh, about nine years earlier. Not too much left in those archives. I recalled a smattering, though. That is why I was so perplexed when I kept seeing a billboard with these words: “Je positive”. That means “I positive”. That’s right, no verb. I knew enough French to know that it made no sense at all. Years later I...
