Sunday

July 19, 2026 – 8:44 am

Wildfire smoke clearing. Temps to hover around 70. I made eggs, bacon, coffee, and toast for breakfast. Brooke and I sat across from each other eating. A giant vase of flowers between us. They’re Jovi’s. Her 17th birthday raked in the blooms. People think flowers when they think of that girl. I know I do. First thing Tuesday morning I was in Meijer getting balloons, two candles—a 1 and a 7—and flowers. They are in that big mix on the table.

We ate, talked, bantered. Now, I’m here. Spindle sat next to me for five minutes, staring. My bacon smell gave her false hope. Once I started writing—trying to work on that Carter’s Cave story that started in my brain over 20 years ago—I forgot she was there. Didn’t have any bacon anyway. She’s curled up on the chair now in pouty sleep.

I keep coming back to that story and others—old ones—and I know they need finishing, but I’m waiting for the characters to lead the way. I’m not forcing them off cliffs, or drowning them, or doing anything to them until they are ready. Good stories aren’t made—they happen—and they are recorded by guys like me. Watching, listening, hearing too much. Stealing sights and sounds, conversations, even experiences, and distilling them so people can feel it. Whatever it is for them.

At dinner last night, Brooke—a voracious reader—got on me about not reading. It’s baffling, she says, that I’m a writer that doesn’t read. But I do read and have read—plenty. I tell her that I treated reading like my job in college. I wasn’t scanning paragraphs and farting out True and False or A, B, C, or D. I was digging into the letters and layers. Structure and meaning. Ultimately, reading all the people I’d never be as good as, just so I’d have something to shoot for. So maybe I don’t read much these days. When I do it’s short spurts. I read the newspaper. I enjoyed Strange Weather by Becky Hagenston not long ago. Reread More Trouble With the Obvious last week and have been doing my best to get through a Frieda McFadden, but quickly realizing that hers are meant to be read fast. Still, my wife likes to remind me that I took a year to read Wintering by Peter Geye. But I think Pete might think that’s all right. I know I’d rather someone take their time with my words than rip through them. That’s why I write the way I do. Even though the stories are short—like catching a glimpse of two naked people dancing in their living room you drive past quickly at night—they’re not meant for quick reads. A person CAN read them quickly, but I don’t suggest it.

On that note, some have been reading my work. I appreciate it. American Short Fiction read my story A Holy Night. They rejected it, but nicely, and they let me know that even though it wasn’t good enough to win their contest, it made the list of the contest semifinalists. Not a win. Not a loss. Just part of the process. I turned it around and sent it to another publication. It’ll get published sooner or later.

Speaking of getting published—my story Killdeer will be published in Volume 41.3 of The MacGuffin. Inheritance—a poem—will be in jmww in October, and Glow appeared in Fiction Attic Press on June 7. If you’re looking to follow me on Instagram, I’m at @writerkjs.

Okay, enough of the self-promotion. There are better things to do—like get out there and enjoy this Michigan summer day.

~ KJ