Avri
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thread 1/10
I just started a reread of the anthology, released January 2023, which contains my first published fiction

I took a writing workshop with Lawrence Block in 2020, and in 2021 he asked me to submit a short story "in any genre or none" about a game

The writers with whom I share a cover are humbling
11:39 AM - Jul 16, 2023
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Avri
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thread 2/10
The first story (after Block's entertaining introduction) is "Seek and You Will Find" by Patricia Abbott

It's a tale which leans heavily into both charming and disturbing, with a woman of a certain age witnessing a game of hide and seek between father and daughter

Wonderfully ambiguous ending
12:37 PM - Aug 03, 2023
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Avri
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thread 3/10
Charles Ardai is one of the major reasons that Lawrence Block became my favorite writer, but that's another story to be told another time

His tale "Game Over" beautifully sketches 1980s NYC, exploring race and class assumptions, building to a stunning ending

One of my favorites in the collection
05:55 PM - Nov 09, 2023
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Avri
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thread 4/10
"King's Row" by S. A. Cosby was my introduction to this writer, and I've since bought and read every one of his sharp novels of race, crime, and justice

In this shortest of stories, two bank robbers meet in unusual circumstances over a checkers board, 15 years after a heist gone horribly wrong
08:41 PM - Nov 25, 2023
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Avri
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thread 5/10
Jeffrey Deaver's "The Babysitter" may be the twisty-turniest story in the collection

A teenage cheerleader playing Candy Land with her young charges is a familiar starting point, but nothing in this tale goes where you expect it to
01:43 PM - Dec 02, 2023
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Avri
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thread 6/10
Tod Goldberg's "Paladin" is a neatly sketched small town murder mystery which leaves the reader with as many questions as answers, and introduces a well-realized cast of characters against an 80s-era satanic panic background and the victim's D&D game
09:19 PM - Dec 04, 2023
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Avri
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thread 7/10
Jane Hamilton's "Psychiatrist" is an odd, haunting story about an odd, disturbing parlor game

A slice of life look-back with, as she writes, "a reek of privilege" this tale contains the wonderful phrase, "ineffable, poetic hoo-ha"
06:39 PM - Dec 22, 2023
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Avri
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thread 8/10
James D F Hannah's "Knock" has an old man suggesting that life is like a game of Gin Rummy

It takes an unexpected turn before concluding with redemption of a kind
10:54 PM - Jan 12, 2024
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Avri
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thread 9/10
Gar Anthony Haywood's "With the Right Bait" is a dark little tale revolving around the most entertaining game of Mouse Trap ever played

The most unbelievable part of the story is that the players get the contraption work
10:32 PM - Jan 19, 2024
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Avri
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thread 10/10
Perhaps the most unusual story is Elaine Kagan's "Two Norths, Two Souths, Two East, Two West, Two Reds, Two Whites, and Two Greens"

Just four old friends, LA dames playing mahjong on a summer afternoon talking the comfortable talk of decades of friendship

This story best centers it's game
08:12 PM - Mar 29, 2024
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Mister Midnight
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In response to Avri.
It's something to share space with people that you admire. My best friend managed that right before cancer stole him away, with a short story in Spells and Swashbucklers and the publication of his novel, the Final Nine. I bought several copies of each and have left them in hotels around the country.
10:29 PM - Apr 23, 2024
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Ramsey, Queen of Popcorn®
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In response to Avri.
Fricking Cool!!!!
🎉 🎊 🙌🏾 🔥
11:03 PM - Jan 12, 2024
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k Broquard
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In response to Avri.
Congrats
10:41 AM - Aug 18, 2023
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