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Keep On Keepin’ On | tallandtruetales
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You Never Know | tallandtruetales
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The Name On the Front | tallandtruetales
There is a timeworn adage in team-sports that may be familiar to many of you: It’s the name on the front of the jersey that matters, not the name on the back. In other words, the objectives and achievements of the team must always take precedence over individual team-members’ accomplishments. ..
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Showing Up | tallandtruetales
Spring training is underway, the start of another magical baseball season. The boys of summer are assembling once again to ply their athletic gifts, and to amaze us with their exploits on the diamond. And every spring, their gathering reminds me of those happy days---more than just a couple of year..
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‘Til It’s Gone | tallandtruetales
Since the turn of the century, my wife and I have been blessed to spend six months a year in Florida. During that period, we’ve lived under four American presidents---George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. In that same timeframe in Canada, we’ve lived under four prime minis..
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Thinking About Leap Year | tallandtruetales
The prompt from my Florida writers' group was to write a short piece about Leap Year. This is what I came up with--- “Sometimes,” Gus says, “I think to myself this whole Leap Year thing is nothin’ but a boondoggle.” “That’s redundant,” I say absently. “What?” Gus says. “I said what you said is ..
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Ciao For Now | tallandtruetales
A recent prompt from my Florida writers' group asked us to make up a story about a person whose time is running out. This is my make-believe offering--- In all the years I knew him, I never heard my father use the word goodbye. Not to anyone, not ever. At every point of farewell, he’d offer&h..
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The Cannabis Murders | tallandtruetales
I'm excited to announce that The Cannabis Murders, my eleventh novel in the Maggie Keiller/Derek Sloan crime series, will be released early in February! The riveting story unfolding in this book is set against a backdrop of rising public concern over the extent of covert Chinese interference in..
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Brown Paper Bag | tallandtruetales
This poem was written in response to a prompt from my Florida writers' group. It can be best enjoyed by reading it to the tune of the old, Irish ballad, 'Black Velvet Band'. His hair hung down to his shoulders,His shirt was a tattered old rag.Faded chevrons adorned both his worn, torn..
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A Better Story | tallandtruetales
Can bad decisions lead to better stories? Let us suppose for the purpose of crafting an entertaining story that your lead character’s dotty, old Aunt Hilda---whom he hasn’t seen in forty years, and who recently died at the impossibly-old age of 103---left him, her only heir, the sum of twenty-five m..
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My Whiffenpoof | tallandtruetales
The weekly prompt from my Florida writers' group was to write a piece incorporating a song lyric, even a misunderstood one. I chose to use a complete song, but with its meaning and setting skewed from its real attribution for purposes of fiction. The young lad’s voice was pleasant enough, if a ..
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And Off We Go | tallandtruetales
The weekly prompt from my Florida writers’ group was to write a piece containing the phrase, “shall we go…”. This fictitious tale is my response. “Shall we go?” The sepulchral voice is solemn, portentous, and it reverberates ominously in my ears. Not yet…not yet! I’m not ready. I h..
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On Thinking | tallandtruetales
The French philosopher, Rene Descartes, is remembered among other things for his thesis: I think, therefore I am. The notion is most commonly expressed, not in French or English, but in Latin: Cogito, ergo sum. His premise was not, as is widely believed, that he exists because he can think; ra..
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Nature Will Prevail | tallandtruetales
Many years ago, my wife and I followed after the outgoing tide in the Bay of Fundy, along with our two young daughters, marvelling at the wonders we spied on the surface of the seabed. We laughed as our footprints gradually disappeared behind us in the spongy, soaked sand, and we strayed unmin..
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Who Counts? | tallandtruetales
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No Longer There | tallandtruetales
The weekly prompt from my Florida writers’ group was: tell a story from the point of view of an inanimate object. This is my offering--- I first espied your home millennia ago, long before your primitive, bi-pedal predecessors first walked upon your insignificant rock and thought to look up at..
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I Believed ‘Em All! | tallandtruetales
Step on a crack, break your mother’s back! Tell a big lie, your father will die! I remember chanting this doggerel over and over as I pranced along the sidewalk as a young boy. I have no idea where I first heard it, but I wasn’t the only one whose sing-song voice could be heard…
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Ready For The Fall | tallandtruetales
The prompt from my Florida writers' group this week was to write a piece about fall. Here is what I came up with, and I hope it will conjure memories for you, too--- A middle-aged woman I didn’t know smiled as she entered the elevator with me one day last week. “Are you ready for…
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No! | tallandtruetales
The weekly prompt from my Florida writers' group was to write a piece where one of the characters in the story is 'forced to say No'. This is my offering, and I hope it will bring back fond memories for those of you were parents--- “No!” he declares vehemently. “I will not say N..
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A Crowd of Stars | tallandtruetales
The youngest of my brothers-in-law died recently, following a long period of worsening, physical incapacity and illness. He was the second of my generation to go, my younger brother having passed three years ago, and I suspect his death brought the spectre of the end-times somewhat closer to u..
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The Gun | tallandtruetales
The August prompt from my Florida writers’ group is to use a “hook” within the first few lines to draw readers/listeners in to the story. This is my offering--- I discovered the gun in the drawer of my husband’s bedside table this morning. I’d been looking for the bottle of Xanax he’d bo..
Delayed Penalty | tallandtruetales
I'm excited to let you know that my brand-new novel has just been released---Delayed Penalty. It joins nine previous novels, along with eight collections of tales, in my published portfolio. The gripping story unfolding in Delayed Penalty, the tenth book in my acclaimed Maggie Keiller/Derek Slo..
But He Didn’t! | tallandtruetales
The Gulf Coast Writers Association in southwest Florida recently announced the winners of their 2023 writing contest. I'm pleased to say I won First Place in the fiction section with this piece, But He Didn't! The GCWA provides a forum for fellowship, education, and information for writers..
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Another New Book! | tallandtruetales
I'm really excited to announce the publication of my eighth anthology of tales---My Relentless Muse: Tales of a Vagabond Storyteller---a collection of more than fifty essays I've written as a member of the Pelican Pens writers' group in southwest Florida. I have long regarded myself a..
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I Have Never | tallandtruetales
I am a straight, white, elderly, married man. In all my years, I have never had a friend who is anti-Semitic. I have never had a friend who is racist or homophobic. Nor have I ever had a friend who is misogynistic or xenophobic. In all my life, I have never had a friend who…
Don’t believe everything you think.
