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Susan's Tags I love to share!

Dec 02

Susan Shiney

What Genre is the Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan?

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan is one of my favorite books because of its hard to place genre and literary mode. The beautiful prose and compelling story helps too. I also loved the atmosphere created with the reader experiencing Taiwan along with the main character.

This book opens a lot of doors bringing experimental fiction to the mainstream. It is a well received success with critics as well as readers. This is hard to do with a book that doesn't fit neatly into a traditional marketing category or genre.

Sep 23

Susan Shiney

Flash Fiction: Paisley and her Plethora of Peppermints

Paisley McKaley was so sweet. So sweet in fact, little peppermint candies fell from her at random moments through out the day. One might fall from her hair when she put it in a ponytail for P.E., or drop from her sleeve as she took notes in history, or escape from the bottom of her pants when she itched her calf in english. Russian literature tended to make her legs all tingly.

Jul 22

Susan Shiney

Flash Fiction: So, I'm a Gothic Cathedral that Moved to California

I had been wanting to move to California for half a century. The tourists roaming my aisles would always talk about the weather there. They had either just been or were planning to go there next. The cold of Northern France's winters would make my flying buttresses smart like nothing else. A mystical land of warmth all year round for my aging foundations. The Californians that visited me would oogle my age, saying where they came from nothing looked like me, I would be unique.

May 26

Susan Shiney

A Telecommuting Tale: How Cynthia Transformed into her Desk

Cynthia was happy to work from home... at first. So much freetime without having to commute back and forth to her job everyday. Lunches in the comfort of her recliner. Sleeping in to the last possible moment. Wearing sweats with a blouse for possible video conferencing meetings.

The first three weeks were a breeze. She stretched three times a day, did self-massage, and took coffee breaks with her co-workers online. She had never worked from home before. Sixty to zero. The rush of life followed by a slowing down that let her find her rhythm again, take stock of her life, breath.

Dec 31

Susan Shiney

Flash Fiction: Jellyfish Graveyard

Agave Lillyhogan spent the first seventy-five years of her life following the rules of society and the last seventy-five making her own. Her mauve-tinted hands placed the home-made candle on her plate and she lit it singing and dancing to herself and her purple poodle, "Happy Birthday to me, one-fifty I see, oh Violet, it's been an eternity." She blew out the candle and said, "I have been telling everyone for years, those store bought candles with their chemicals seeping into those processed cancer-filled cakes, but do they listen, nope, I'm the crazy one."