This story was announced today as Highly Commended in the NZSA Northern Branch Short Story Competition. We had to write on the theme of Loss. The story actually constitutes just one part of a larger work (more to come on that), but was originally based on my experience of miscarriage. I press my hands deeper…
Mother and Child
Sometimes a twist at the end of a story can work, and other times it falls flat. Here's an example in one of my flash fiction stories. Do you think it works? Mother and Child Your cry annihilates a rare dream. Since you came I snatch at sleep like a starving refugee. I pad through…
The Girl Behind the Bar
Two weeks ago I got an email telling me my short story, 'The Girl Behind the Bar', was runner-up in the 2021 Radio New Zealand Nine to Noon Short Story Competition. The delay in letting me know was apparently due to COVID lockdowns and resultant recording studio delays, but now all systems were go, and…
Covet
I wrote this story ten years ago. It was runner-up in the Reader's Digest 100-word story competition 2013. It has exactly 100 words. Covet You stand in the corner, silent. Your legs, your arms, your back all curve luxuriously, stealing space. You are taunting me. Teasing me. Come. Closer. Caress. Covet. I circle you, regarding…
Dandelion Clocks
I'm delighted to announce that my short story "Dandelion Clocks" has won the 2021 NZSA Graeme Lay Short Story competition. In his announcement on Facebook today, Graeme said: Themes of childhood loss and the possibility of renewal make this beautifully observed and sensitively written story difficult to forget. Thank you, Graeme, and congratulations to the…
Throat Clearing
Today I want to suggest one way you can improve your short fiction. Stop clearing your throat. Throat clearing is what many writers do at the beginning of a short story. They set the scene. They ease us in. But as the name of the concept implies, much of it is an unnecessary and ineffectual prelude to the good…
Our Father
I wrote this story ten years ago, after my father-in-law (at the time) died. I wanted to somehow make sense of my profound feelings at having witnessed his death. It was published in Takahē magazine (a literary journal) in 2013. Today, on Father's Day, I remember Carl Bosselmann, and everyone who has lost a father.…
Heartbeat
I have one beautiful daughter, but making her wasn't simple. I lost two pregnancies before conceiving her, and three after her, while trying for a second. I started this story years ago and dug it out and finished it just today. It attempts to put into words my belief that our children will always be…
Flowers
This, for better or for worse, is the "crap but short" story I referred to in yesterday's post. I just sat down and wrote the first thing that came into my head. What emerged was an unintentional mini-meditation on the issues preoccupying me at the moment: love and sadness, regrets and hopes, the dream state,…
Descent
We stand together looking at the view. It is more impressive than a Monet, as shattered as a Picasso. I try to tell him this but he interrupts. I may know nothing about “art,” he says, using his fingers as quotation marks, but in my very humble opinion that tree is an eye, that sand…
Patricia Bell, Author 