Buddy & Kathy’s Front Yard
I have another short story out in the wild today. “Hope, Unrequested and Freely Given” is live at Zooscape. There was no rapid turn-around on this story. I wrote it in 2019 and subbed it a few times before sending to Zooscape in May 2020. They accepted it a few weeks later, and it’s out now in the December 2020 issue. This is a fairly typical timeline for many stories that reach publication. Alas, they cannot all be written in a weekend, sold a few days later, and published within a week.
It’s a story written with Missouri on my mind. Baroch and Valerie’s porch has the same view as my in-laws’ porch. The mood was inspired by the Chris Stapleton song “Scarecrow in the Garden.” Sort of a quiet hopelessness, but it didn’t feel right to end the story on the same emotional note as the song, so it goes a different direction.