6-minute Stories

a foretaste of glory divine yet to come -

Artist, writer, and athlete Bill Gramley of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, recounts his discoveries of Southern cooking and describes the delectables offered up from the table set by his mother-in-law on a 1950s North Carolina farm.

Bill Gramley is a retired Moravian minister. In recent years he has written several Devotional Expressions and Prayers booklets through Centenary United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem. He writes in the Senior Games Literary Arts category each year and stays active competing in track and field, mostly as a shot put, discus, and hammer thrower, winning the Masters national discus championship in 2019 for men aged 80-84. He and his wife, Sandra, live in Lewisville, NC.

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– “Sweetheart, wake up! Santa’s here!”  

“But what I really want, Santa, is a flashlight.”

Annette L. Brown is a personal essayist and creative nonfiction writer who has pieces reflecting her love of nature, family, beauty, and humor in several publications including Flash Fiction Magazine, Every Day Fiction, Bad Day Book (Parenting), and several volumes of the Personal Story Publishing Project (Randell Jones). Annette is grateful for the support and friendship of her writing group, the Taste Life Twice Writers. 

“Do you like the gift ya got, girlfriend?”

Wanting to get rid of the proof, I tried to give the chocolates to my family for dessert.

Kym B. Whitecar lives in Indian Trail, North Carolina, where she is a member of the Charlotte Writers Club and Charlotte Lit. When she retired from education, she finally had the time to take a creative writing course, reigniting her passion for storytelling. Currently, she is harassing her friends, family, and critic group with more narrative nonfiction.

I should have developed emotional armor, but I’d gone the other way.

Stunned, I leaned hard on the doorjamb, knuckles white on suitcase handle, nerves frozen as they did when gut feelings proved true.

Eloise Currie lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has kept a journal for 30 years and uses it as source material for short stories and nonfiction. Since retiring, she has been a member of a number of writers groups. She has tutored high school and adult students in Language Arts. She has edited two books as well as short stories. She has had pieces published in the Personal Story Publishing Project as well as the Old Mountain Press anthology.

We all know our mothers have magical powers

In Mom’s day, if you were not bleeding and could walk, you were perfectly fine.

Award-winning author Bob Amason is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant colonel who was a college professor for 25 years. A Florida Writers Association member, Bob writes historical and modern suspense novels under his pen name, Frank A. Mason. His Journeyman Chronicles series on the American Revolutionary War won the 2023 Florida Writers Association Gold Royal Palm Literary Award, Florida’s most prestigious writing prize. His latest is The Sunlit Silence series on WWII in the Air. Bob’s writing has been published in six anthologies, prestigious academic journals, and books. He is president of the St Augustine, Florida, Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and is a National SAR Museum Board member. Dr. Bob Amason lives in Florida with his overachieving wife, a research professor who is the author of a series of children’s books.

The wind is the sculptor that shapes the shoreline.

Vince poked holes, and I scuttered along crab-like, planting sprigs one by one.

Phyllis Castelli is at home for a while on one of the northernmost beaches in Currituck County, North Carolina.  Beauty is everywhere, especially in the sky, the wild horses, and the ever-changing sea, a true invitation to create something magical. She and her husband, along with their Labradors, Cara and Oliver, are hoping for happily ever after.

Phyllis’s poems and essays have appeared in Quillkeepers Press, The Avocet, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Tar River Poets, among others. As a very young poet, she published Gentle, I Think, a book of poems with pen and ink illustrations.

Wires dangled from under the dash leaving only silence and an emptiness of spirit

It was a time of meaningful conversations. George rode with me every day offering words of encouragement.

David Lusk is a retired 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 in a beech tree woodland with his wife Amy, their three adopted, rescue-shelter dogs - Jessie Girl, Jack, Abbey and Maple Tree the cat. He often retreats to the Pamlico Sound with the idea of learning to sail but happy to paint or play guitar in view of a marina full of boats and the occasional sighting of a bald eagle he named Churchill.

I had "sent a message out into the universe" asking for help.

This unexpected path began bearing fruit and I was happy.

Arlene Mandell of Linville, North Carolina, is proudly celebrating her 13th year as a portrait artist at the Carlton Gallery in Banner Elk, NC. A native New Yorker, relocating to the Blue Ridge Mountains with Captain Dan inspired a love of writing. Arlene is a member of “Sue Spirit’s Writing Workshop” and the “Fab Five Writing Gals,” both in Boone, NC; and is a longtime contributor to “Gateways: A Creative Arts Journal,” and to the “Personal Story Publishing Project.” Her many memoirs can be heard on the “6-Minute Stories” podcast.

I did not want to be alone … so I looked for connections beyond the local.

Call it meant-to-be, fate, kismet, benign coincidence, or just plain good luck, I do not care.

Kenneth Chamlee’s work has appeared in eight Personal Story Publishing Project anthologies. His latest collection, The Best Material for the Artist in the World (Stephen F. Austin State University Press), a poetic biography of 19th-century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt, won the 2024 Outstanding Poetry Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Ken is the author of If Not These Things (Kelsay Books) and his poems have appeared in The North Carolina Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, Cold Mountain Review, and Kakalak, among others. Ken lives in Mills River, North Carolina. 

“What’s that at the end of the other bed?”

Sometimes we say to our adult selves, “Did this really happen? What did we see?

Annie McLeod Jenkins grew up in South Carolina around folks who were storytellers, so she became one too.  Because she realized that no one else was going to tell her story, and with the opportunity that came with a slower life and a quieter house, she began writing down these personal recollections.  She lives in Winston-Salem, NC, where she is a paying, but relatively inactive, member of Winston-Salem Writers. A few of her stories have appeared in earlier editions of the Personal Story Publishing Project.