6-minute Stories

 – “Okay, Mr. Spark Plug. Out you come.”

I gave it another dose of penetrating oil, waited, and pulled a little harder.

Howard Pearre lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He attended UNC Charlotte and Appalachian State University and retired after a career as a counselor and manager with NC Vocational Rehabilitation and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. He served in the Army as a paratrooper and is a 5k runner. His essays and fiction have appeared in Flying South, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Proud To Be, and other publications.

 – I just wanted to say, “thank you.”

Such a hole in cyberspace has no bottom, of course, so I grabbed onto one protruding root—to overtax the Alice metaphor—and pulled myself over to the side.

Randell Jones is an award-winning writer about the pioneer and Revolutionary War eras and North Carolina history. During 25 years, he has written 150+ history-based guest columns for the Winston-Salem Journal. His newest release is the expanded 2nd edition of the 2005 biography and travel guide, In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone (2024) and the related video, Boone’s America: Boone Trace, 1775. In 2017, he created the Personal Story Publishing Project and in 2019, the companion podcast, “6-minute Stories” to encourage other writers. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Visit RandellJones.com and BecomingAmerica250.com.

 – “Let’s go backpacking.”

Undaunted, we scoffed at the potential to dive into oblivion down a Tennessee mountainside.

Award-winning author Bob Amason is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who was a college professor for 25 years. A Florida Writer’s 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 Writer’s Association’s prestigious Gold Royal Palm Literary Award. Bob’s writing has been published in six anthologies, academic journals, and books. Dr. Bob Amason lives in Florida with his overachieving wife, a research professor and author of a series of children’s books.

 –There’s almost no food that I don’t like.

It usually takes a long, long hour to get the proper freeze, so we took turns slowly turning the handle over and over.

Joe Brown is a retired building contractor. He lives on a small family farm in the Bethania area of Winston Salem NC. He now has time to do all those projects that a busy work schedule didn't allow. He enjoys his grandchildren and great grandchildren and as time allows likes to reflect on his life and write stories about his adventures. Several of those stories have been shared through The Personal Publishing Project. His prayer is that his family can appreciate the history he has lived.

 – After that, my confidence in strangers diminished.

The bicycle delivered me to-and-fro until the weather changed, and the snowy, windy, 6-month Lake Erie winter arrived.

Barbara Mueller is a retired IT project manager living in Asheville, North Carolina. Her initial volunteer experience in Asheville was as a docent at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, where she met many visitors interested in storytelling. She enjoys gardening, reading, dancing, and playing the mountain dulcimer. This is her first venture into creative non-fiction.

 – “We can’t let her know what we’re up to.”

We clambered up on the breakwater and made our way, in the dark, out to its very end.

S. G. (Sandy) Benson lives in Warne, North Carolina, where she is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network-West. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and she received awards from the Nebraska Press Women. She published her first book in 2021, My Mother’s Keeper: One Family’s Journey Through Dementia. Her second book, Dear Folks: Letters Home from World War II, 1943-1946 was released in 2024. She is working on a collection of autobiographic short stories, Girls Can’t Do That.
Details at https://www.sandygbenson.com/

 – because it was there—our Mt. Everest.

We never formally identified the squealer who called the police, but the local constabulary turned up in the form of Skippy Brown, a favorite local enforcer of the law.   

Annie McLeod Jenkins lives in Winston-Salem. Although she loves writing, she is frequently sidetracked by multiple other interests: choral singing, cooking, family genealogy, volunteer responsibilities, reading, fretting about the world, and trying to stay fit and healthy at age 76. She thanks the Personal Story Publishing Project for encouraging her to submit stories for this series. As usual, a good prompt stirred the pot and revealed a long-forgotten youthful escapade.

 — Buona fortuna.

The possibility of seeing Renaissance art and architecture in person intrigued me.

Jane Satchell McAllister's writings draw inspiration from the wide variety of people and places she encounters, from her home base in Davie County, North Carolina, to rich adventures across our country and abroad. She has co-authored two Images of America books through Arcadia Publishing and served for nine years as director of the county public library. Her current writing project is compiling stories based on decades of travel, both fiction and nonfiction, almost as much fun as the trips themselves. 

 – What have you got in a red?

We were two competent but naive travelers missing a Spanish-English dictionary.

Jeanne VanBuren lives in Winston Salem, North Carolina—by way of Chesapeake, Pittsburgh, Santa Cruz and Austin—where she is a member of North Carolina Writers Network and Triad Storytellers. Her many traveling adventures to share include those across 45 states, so far, with her large family, five sons, or friends. A few distant countries add to her exploits to be compiled when not busy with her multiple DIY crafting projects. Getting published has inspired more writing. She says, “Write your life. You never know when you might be someone's lighthouse.”

 – I just kept working every day, knowing I would adjust.

The wisdom of my decision to transfer schools certainly was now in question.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Marion Cohen spent three decades as a mathematics educator before turning to writing. Her three novels and two short story collections focus on characters whose strong connections reflect a variety of emotions such as love, admiration, and courage. Ms. Cohen’s essays have appeared in various online magazines and journals. Presently residing in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Ms. Cohen also enjoys working on exquisite needlepoint projects, such as displayed on the cover of her recent short story collection, Words While Resting on My Pillows.