My story “Fresh Linen” will appear in the Summer 2007 issue of the Bent Pin Quarterly.

On a lighter note, the Spring issue of the Boston Literary Magazine is out. My story, “Body Armor,” is in the Drabble section. A drabble, by the way, is story written in exactly 100 words.

I am not getting much writing done right now. Let me describe my week so far. (I didn’t really proof this.)

Monday morning
I’m doing my usual routine. I’ve read the paper, fed the animals, rode my exercise bike, showered, and just sat down to write when I hear on the radio—the national top of the hour newscast on NPR—that there’s been a shooting in Blacksburg on the Virginia Tech campus. Now I live in Roanoke, which 40 miles east of Blacksburg, but I am from Blacksburg. I graduated from Virginia Tech. My father taught there for 30 some years. I even worked at Tech for 5 years, before moving to Florida.

And though I don’t have any family left in Blacksburg, I still know people there, including my very best friend, Susan, who is currently getting her degree in French. So I contact her (email, then phone) to see if she and her husband are okay. They were. Susan had gotten the email(s) from the administration about something going on and had opted to stay home. Her class was in McBryde Hall, next to where we later found out the majority of the shootings happened. If you see a photo of students standing in a glass doorway, that’s McBryde Hall, and that’s the entrance she uses. (And to make it worse, many times, including that morning, another friend of ours and her kids, 2 & 4, usually drop Susan off there.) By this time, the campus was on lock down. Susan had already talked to her classmate, who lives in an apartment near campus. She said the police had already gone through her neighborhood with a bullhorn and told everyone to stay on the floor.

While talking to Susan, I turn on the bedroom TV. At this time, the news is reporting only one dead. I talk to my aunt, who lives nearby, and my sister, which is a whole story unto itself. I email my brother, who is in Pristina, Kosovo, of all places, on assignment for the Justice Department for a year or so. By the time I get downstairs to turn on that TV, the death count has gone up to 20. A real punch in the gut, holy shit moment.

My brother calls and we share this holy shit moment over a meal, my lunch, his dinner, while watching CNN. He calls back later, too. This is exceptionally weird for him, living in a former war zone that is beginning see more and more unrest over its independence. Hand grenades and car bombs are becoming a little more commonplace there. However, no one has been hurt yet. He’d told me he was actually getting used to it. Now, he’s sitting there watching our sleepy, almost idyllic little hometown erupt in violence. Very surreal.

Needless to say, I watch a lot of news that evening. The local channels are all doing wall-to-wall coverage. And the national news, NBC and CBS at least, broadcast from the Tech campus. Brian Williams did his whole show standing outside some hokie-stoned building that I couldn’t quite place but you could see some of the beauty of the campus from where he was standing. (Katie Couric did her show from inside the Inn at Virginia Tech, I think.) By now, the death count is up to 33, and Virginia Tech / Blacksburg is officially the site of the worst shooting ever in the US.

Continue reading “Blacksburg 4-16-07”

The Spring issue of Mytholog is up.  This issue features my story, One for Sorrow, as well as stories by fellow flash workshoppers John Young and Bill West.