6-minute Stories

– I had a dream fueled by hope but mostly idealistic naïveté

With the firmly resounding hammer blow with my pickaxe came a thunderbolt moment of clarity born of every slight, every wound, I had until then ever known.

David Lusk is a retired, self-employed consulting arborist/psychologist/writer living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has previously written several articles for The Winston-Salem Journal and the trade publication, Tree Care Industry Magazine. He lives purposefully in a beech tree woodland with his wife Amy, their two adopted rescue shelter dogs, Jessie Girl, Captain Spaghetti Jack and Maple Tree the cat. He is currently attempting to create a Japanese garden while under the constant, playful supervision of Jessie and Jack. 

 — Oh, what the hell—go be one of the guys!

My panicky gut sent up red flares!

 Arlene Mandell is an artist living in Linville, North Carolina, proudly celebrating her 10th year at Carlton Gallery in Banner Elk. (carltongallery.com/arlene-mandell). A native New Yorker, relocating to the Blue Ridge Mountains with Captain Dan ignited a passion to write. Her “6-minute Stories” podcasts include: “Eye of the Dolphin,” “Artist Borne,” “Gobsmacked in the Gulfstream,” “Renegade Daughter,” “It Started with a Typo,” “Shopping for the Homeless,” “Thirteen Candles in the Dark,” “The Promise of Romance,” “At Five & Ninety-Five, Mother Was a Star,” “In the Heart of Trauma,” “The Jig Is Up,” and “Getting a Head Start.”

 – I became daring in the dark.

My grip froze. I gulped the moist night air and licked my lips.

Mary Clements Fisher celebrates her current mother/grandmother, sweetheart, student, and writer status in Cupertino, California. Two writers’ groups Taste Life Twice and Daughters through the Decades support her mad, muddled, and magical moments of writing.  She’s published in Quail Belle Magazine, Adanna Journal, Passager Journal, The Weekly Avocet, Prometheus Dreaming Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Capsule Stories, They Call Us Magazine, and gratefully in several Personal Story Publishing Project books. Join her @maryfisherwrites and https://maryfisherwrites.squarespace.com/

 – “Don’t panic. Keep your feet up.”

It bucks and dips, pitches and plunges while cold water slams you every few seconds.

A retired English professor, Kenneth Chamlee still enjoys teaching workshops on humor in poetry, writing in personae, and the remarkable connections between poetry and painting and photography. His poetic biography of 19th-century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, The Best Material for the Artist in the World (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023), won the Outstanding Poetry Book Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Ken is the author of If Not These Things (Kelsay Books, 2022), and his stories have appeared in several PSPP anthologies. Learn more at www.kennethchamlee.com .

 – “Don’t panic. Keep your feet up.”

It bucks and dips, pitches and plunges while cold water slams you every few seconds.

A retired English professor, Kenneth Chamlee still enjoys teaching workshops on humor in poetry, writing in personae, and the remarkable connections between poetry and painting and photography. His poetic biography of 19th-century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, The Best Material for the Artist in the World (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023), won the Outstanding Poetry Book Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Ken is the author of If Not These Things (Kelsay Books, 2022), and his stories have appeared in several PSPP anthologies. Learn more at www.kennethchamlee.com.

 – Should I tell my mother what I decided to do?

A 5-year-old, less than one meter tall, I slipped through the turnstile without being noticed.

Akira Odani lives in the ancient city of St. Augustine, Florida. He belongs to Taste Life Twice Writers and the Florida Writers Association. Born in Tokyo, he had written extensively for the Japanese media. Still, more recently, his interest has turned to writing in English and subjects related to his experiences interacting with the two cultures. Some of his work has appeared in the pages of FWA anthologies, The Weekly Avocet, PSPP, Twists and Turns, Lost & Found, Sooner or Later, and Now or Never. He stays active, meditating, swimming, and playing pickleball.

 – We were trying out young adulthood, but there were rules.

What I recall is moonlight through a picture window until we heard his door open, Marshall’s deep, slow Tennessee twang.

Caroline Kane Kenna lives in Huntersville, North Carolina. A newspaper reporter before the internet. Stay at home Mom to three boys, trailing spouse for a corporate husband. Her family moved to Huntersville in 2005. Her writing has placed in Charlotte Writers Club contests. Poems published in Above the Fold and various Kakalak anthologies. Essays in Reflections on the New River and The Love of Baseball (McFarland 2015 & 2017.) Past President of Charlotte Writers Club, When she’s not writing, she, her husband, and dog Guinness are RVing, or babysitting their first granddaughter.

– I had a layover in Elmira, New York—six hours long.

Warblers, whistlers, and trillers sang. Joe and Maybe Dave knew when not to talk, too, when beauty itself was the conversation.

Maureen Ryan Griffin has loved words and stories since her “Cat in the Hat” days and leads writing workshops and retreats (www.WordPlayNow.com). She’s published in numerous literary journals and will soon appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Miracles, Angels and Messages from Heaven. Her books include Ten Thousand Cicadas Can’t Be Wrong (poetry); Spinning Words into Gold (writing guide); How Do I Say Goodbye: A Companion in Grieving, Healing, and Gratitude, and a daily journal practice, TAG, I’M IT! She and her husband, Richard, live in Charlotte, NC.

 – I began to pass little crosses made of sticks and string.

It was fully dark outside now, a blackness unrelieved by any shaft of human-created light.

Suzanne Adams has been an actor, director, teacher, and archenemy of Mountain Pine Beetles in the Rockies. She didn’t take writing semi-seriously until moving to Charlotte, in this “writingest state.” Her stories have won a few prizes in literary contests and have been published in Litmosphere, Main Street Rag, Memoirs Ink, and Minerva Rising. She is an enthusiastic member of Charlotte Writers Club, Charlotte Lit and North Carolina Writers Network, and is delighted to be included in this anthology.

– We had our audience!

Fierce when necessary, and sometimes maybe just a little bit witchy

Fascinated with every big and little thing, Jamie Cheshire has long been an avid student of design and structure. Having worked together with giants, he has had the extreme good fortune to practice his craft for most of the last four decades and has seen his work appear nationally and in several countries on three continents. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his beloved feral, hippie-chick wife, their three dogs and two cats. Deeply committed to the ordinary, he is constantly searching for a way to describe it.