Pomegranate Stories is now available as an eBook at Amazon.com for only 99 cents.  If you prefer, the paperback edition is also available for $9.99. This is a chapbook of eight stories constructed around the relationships between mothers and daughters.


From Annie Clarkson's review of Pomegranate for the short review:

Pomegranate Stories is a brief glimpse into Gay Degani’s short fiction, and I want to read more. Her writing in this collection is visceral, has punch and explores the lives of characters that are not experiencing the easiest lives or relationships. There is some beautiful imagery and description and a very insightful approach to dialogue. 

Here are some comments posted about the paperback edition of Pomegranate Stories at Amazon:

...by the end you wish there were twenty more stories to read. The stories are inspiring, thought provoking, emotional, and a pleasure to read. --John Towler

Gay Degani has a stunning voice, gripping and charged, and loaded with such authentic realism, that her literary stories borderline nonfiction horrors.  --Erin Cole

Gay is a wonder at laying bare a fictional life and reminding you so much of your heart is in that character. She is a master at cutting to the quick of emotions and then layering them with humanity.  --Kevin Shamel

The stories in 'Pomegranate' convince you Gay Degani's been in your shoes, thought your thoughts, felt your emotions. You realize that you are stronger than you thought you were, the ironies of life won't stop the rain from falling, and that we need to smile when the opportunities present themselves. Beautiful prose, beautiful stories, do yourself a favor and buy this book. --Jodi MacArthur

Alongside the growing number of short story collections published recently--some of them doing surprisingly well--comes this delicious little "sleeper" volume by Gay Degani, titled "Pomegranate Stories." 

There are only eight stories, and a few of those are short enough to qualify as Flash Fiction, but the content is so startling, so intense and provocative, so well written, that it feels like a much weightier volume. The stories are about mothers and daughters (and the men in their lives), but don't think `sentimental sweetness,' think `raw reality.'  --Jackie Houchin

Writers! A Quick Exercise Solution!

How long do you sit at your computer every day? You want to stay in flow, but it's not  good for your neck, your back, the "seat of the pants" that you want to keep in the seat of the chair.  Here's a possible solution: a work-out band that has the exercises printed on the band itself. Easy to jump up from your computer and do some "body work," allowing you to get back to work before you let go of the "flow."

My friend and exercise maven, Estelle Underwood, has come up with a useful and smart piece of equipment for exercise enthusiasts and those who aren't so enthusiastic, but find they need to do work those muscles anyway. Like me!!!  Sooooo, here's her press release and all the links for you to find out everything you want to know about The Body Works Band!

BODYWORKSBAND HITS THE MARKET PROVIDING AFFORDABLE FITNESS & HEALTH IN AN EXERCISE BAND THAT’S AKIN TO HAVING A “PERSONAL TRAINER IN YOUR POCKET.”

Long-time fitness expert creates “carry anywhere” lightweight “BodyWorksBand”—fitness equipment less than a few ounces—just in time to get in shape for the holidays.

The BodyWorksBand  (www.bodyworksband.com), a recession-proof fitness tool that addresses the fast-paced lifestyle of people constantly on the go, is now available online – just in time to get in shape for the holidays!

Affordably priced at an introductory rate of $14.95, this unique product is an almost weightless resistance band that exhibits illustrations of a full-body strength- training workout printed across the entire band.  By having the instructions printed on the band, it’s like having a personal trainer with you at all times, and users of the BodyWorksBand can be sure they are targeting muscles safely and efficiently.  In addition, the BodyWorksBand comes with a handy brochure that lists clear verbal instructions as to how to perform each exercise correctly, so an effective full-body workout is literally at your fingertips.

Founder and designer Estelle Underwood, a certified personal trainer with over 25 years of experience and co-creator of “BoneJuvenate”, an exercise DVD for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis, was inspired to create the BodyWorksBand for her clients. Throughout her career, Estelle witnessed how many of her clients led intensely busy lives. From busy single mothers to working professionals, it seemed everyone was seeking a way to keep up a fitness regime either at home or on the road. Estelle also recognized the demand for a product without a huge learning curve or big price tag - something that was accessible to those who couldn’t keep up full training sessions on a regular basis. The BodyWorksBand was her answer. By having the instructions printed on the band itself, Estelle has developed a product that simulates having a personal trainer with you at all times, and users of the BodyWorksBand can be sure they are targeting muscles safely and efficiently. 

In addition to being great for travel, the BodyWorksBand is 100 percent portable and convenient for use at home, work, hotel room, gym, or anywhere at all.  With this one exercise tool, you can delight in receiving a total body workout that builds strength, increases muscle tone, and improves bone density—all achieved in minutes with these consistent, easy to perform exercises.

The BodyWorksBand makes it easy to find time in your day to exercise.  It is the simple, inexpensive solution to fitness in today’s world.

About Bodyworks for Total Health

Bodyworks for Total Health is the private fitness studio of Estelle Underwood, located in South Pasadena, California.

For more info, visit www.bodyworksfortotalhealth.com

Bluster-F**k up at Pure Slush

I have a story up at Pure Slush this month.

Check it out : BLUSTER-FUCK

EXCERPT:

You don’t remember much about his wife because when Bluster-Fuck’s around, he opens his mouth and vacuums the room dry, pulling every last dust mote into his gut. Even the skin cells of your own face feel like they’re going to peel right off and zoom down his gullet.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE COMMENTS:

Douglas Campbell:

Wonderful, Gay. There are too many Bluster-Fucks running loose these days, and you nailed the type perfectly. Made me both laugh and shiver!

John "JAM" Arthur Miller:

I had NO idea what to expect with a title like that, but I'm glad I read it, lol! Great read, Gay!

Bev Elliott:

It has been my misfortune to know more than one Bluster-Fuck. Thank you for a story that allows us to poke fun at people who have problems getting social context clues.

Lucinda Kempe:

Bluster-Fuck. How divine. Wonder if the real bluster fucks of the world will recognize themselves? Ha! Neva. Brilliant job, Gay. You nailed him.

Every Day Fiction's August Calendar

August’s Table of Contents

Find Every Day Fiction here.
_____________________________
Aug 1 Jennifer Foster Know Thyself

Aug 2 Andrew Waters One Way To Save a Farm

Aug 3 Gregor McGavin Going Nowhere

Aug 4 Michael Peralta Candyeyes

Aug 5 Jessica George Hungry Water

Aug 6 Daniel Vineberg True Love and Lousy Smoke Rings

Aug 7 Simon Kewin A Good Drying Day

Aug 8 Miles C. Hellyer Running From Home

Aug 9 Suzanne Conboy-Hill No Arrests in 2039

Aug 10 Cate Gardner His Name Carved on Empty Space

Aug 11 JR Hume Curse of the East Wind

Aug 12 Mary Caffrey Knapke Tomato Plants, $1 Each

Aug 13 Shane M. Gavin Just a Day

Aug 14 Anna Moriarty Lev A Night in the Park

Aug 15 Paul A. Freeman An Elizabethan Tale

Aug 16 Debbie Bennett Moira

Aug 17 Laura Davy The Guardians

Aug 18 Kevin Mathews Melon Heads

Aug 19 Douglas Campbell Fleur de Lis

Aug 20 Maria Deira Laundry

Aug 21 John Impey Divine Wind, Kami-Kaze

Aug 22 Sarah Goodwin A Three Way Division

Aug 23 Folly Blaine Eau de Public Transit

Aug 24 Linda Simoni-Wastila Poison Pill

Aug 25 Ranica Arrowsmith American Neighbor

Aug 26 Dale Ivan Smith Not So Invincible Overlord

Aug 27 Von Rupert To Grandfather’s House We Go

Aug 28 Ruth Schiffmann Meet Me at Woman Hollering Creek

Aug 29 Juliet Boyd The Rescue Plan

Aug 30 Jennifer R. Fierro Flowers for Clockwork Street

Aug 31 Brian Dolton A Loyalty Divided

Monkeybicycle, The Short Review, and me!

This has been a surprising week for me with two stories coming out as well as a review of Pomegranate Stories over at The Short Review.

"Running the Fence" is up at Monkeybicycle today. I write fiction instead of  memoir because my memories are somewhat hazy, but the channel and sump mentioned in "Running the Fence" really did exist and a boy in my class at Calle Mayor School did drown in the sump.  His name was Ronnie Middlecoff and along with an assortment of kids on our block, we'd ride bikes, roller skate, play kick ball, girls taunting boys and boys teasing girls. Then the boys ripped wheels off of their skates and nailed them to pieces of cast off wood to make skateboards and life kept moving on.

I seldom actually played with Ronnie. I ate my cheese sandwiches on Debbie Stinson's porch, and there were plenty of girls around our age.  Our street was a half-moon called Theo Drive on one end and Mayor Drive on the other, both emptying out on Calle Mayor.  I lived on the island created between the smaller street with two names and the busy main boulevard behind us.  On the other side of our arc behind that row of houses, was the fenced water channel and the sump.  Later when they built South High School, they removed the sump.

Almost every house had kids, so occasionally we would play together, but not often.  Still I have carried the memory of Ronnie's death not because we were best friends, but because he was the first young person I ever knew who died.  I didn't really think we could die (kids I mean) before that.  It shocked me, unbelievable.

I'm glad I've finally written a story about this.  I've tried to do it for a long time, but I just couldn't figure out how to do it.  As I said, my memory isn't great, he and I weren't really friends, but ye,t he been there, in the middle of our street, playing tag, or maybe it was hide and seek and then he was gone. He was only 10.

As for Pomegranate Stories, I am thrilled with the generous review Annie Clarkson has given it at The Short Review.  You can read her write-up here:

the short review: Pomegranate Stories 

And you can read the interview here:

the short review: Interview with Gay Degani

ORANGES at Every Day Fiction

My short piece, "Oranges," is up at Every Day Fiction. It came out on Tuesday so if you want to read it, use this link:  Oranges. 

You can leave comments if you'd like.  You just need to scroll down past the ad and click on Comments.

Breaking BAD is SOOOOO Good

Just watched  the final episode of last season's Breaking Bad.  If any of you have read Robert McKee's book "Story" and struggle with his concept of "the negation of the negation," you really should see this series from the beginning. If there was ever a terrific example of characters who start out being one certain kind of person with certain ethical limits who then must become another kind of person in order to survive--the total opposite of kind of person to what that person is supposed to be--and then, yes, is forced to go BEYOND even that to "the negation of the negation!" this show is that example. Creating characters who go through hell is exactly what the creator and writers of this series do.  It is amazing to watch this story unfold.  Season 4 starts next week. Rent 1-3, Tivo it, Netflix it, stream it, rob someone's stash of DVDs, just SEE it.

July EDF Calendar is Here!

7/1	Townsend Walker	It’s About a Moose?
7/2	Moana Brantwood	The Unwanted Wish
7/3	Charlotte Nash	The Two Boys
7/4	Mary Ann Back	Subdivision Smack-Down
7/5	Ruth Schiffmann	Deep Water
7/6	Annie Tupek	Eve of Destruction
7/7	Virgie Townsend	Even When
7/8	Gale Haut	Tentacular
7/9	Sandra Crook	Ouma and the Wood Pigeon
7/10	Sophie Playle	Screaming Red Paint
7/11	Stephen Duffin	Maud
7/12	Sylvia Hiven	Not Enough Venus
7/13	Wayne Scheer	A Good Citizen
7/14	Samantha Memi	Bouffant
7/15	Carla Sarett	For Better or Worse
7/16	A.I. Wright	Heaven for Heroes
7/17	Dean Giles	Harold Smalls’ Big Adventure
7/18	Paul Salvette	A Daughter’s Inquiry
7/19	Jeff Samson	Let The Bastards See Your Teeth
7/20	Michael Peralta	Scholar’s Mate
7/21	Randall Brown	Shades
7/22	Jamie Feldman	Rubber Boots
7/23	Jonathan Ruland	The Sounds in the Woods
7/24	Mary J. Daley	Long Ago and Far Away
7/25	Christopher Allen	…and Counting
7/26	Gay Degani	Oranges
7/27	Isabella Boettcher	Eggs
7/28	JR Hume	The Woman in Blue
7/29	Henry Lara	My Death in Three Parts
7/30	Mark Oliver	Great-Grandma’s Hands
7/31	Douglas Campbell	Dead In Blue Heaven

Flash up at Melusine & EDF's June Calendar

Updates:

I have a short piece up at Melusine this month called "Abbreviated Glossary."  If you have time, check it out here.  Janelle has a lovely web journal up there.  Melusine or Woman in the 21st Century.


I interviewed Tara Laskowski for Short Story Month at Jackie Vicks' A Writer's Jumble. Read all about this Smokelong Quarterly senior editor.

Oh and here's me reading my story "Soggy Sandy" at Blackberry Books in Vancouver.  Not a great rendition, but I was nervous! Check it out:




Here's Every Day Fiction's June Calendar :

6/1	Leigh Kimmel	To Turn Back Time
6/2	Annie Tupek	Polar Explorations
6/3	A.G. Carpenter	Apology
6/4	Christopher Owen	Lessons Never Learned
6/5	Oonah V Joslin	Secular Rite
6/6	John Wiswell	Let Another One In
6/7	Michael Madden	Substance Q
6/8	Anna Purcell	Only Because You Could Always Return Them
6/9	Jason S. Ridler	Chasing Paper Dragons
6/10	Charlie Britten	Charity Girl
6/11	Eric Cline	That will Spoil his Day
6/12	Herb Shallcross	Java
6/13	Carmela Starace	Jody Ray Gets a Payday
6/14	Heather Holland Wheaton	Ruby Spell
6/15	Phil Oddy	The Dark
6/16	David Rees-Thomas	Far Past the Moon
6/17	Jeff Chapman	A Gift from over the Sea
6/18	Ruth Schiffmann	Daddy’s Girl
6/19	Howard Cincotta	Body Slam
6/20	David Macpherson	The Getaway
6/21	Terri Rochenski	Heart’s Wish
6/22	Todd R. Townsend	Lost Dancer in Memphis
6/23	Christie Isler	Hungry
6/24	Emily Spreng Lowery	A Life In Numbers
6/25	Lauren LeBano	The Infection
6/26	Jason Fischer	Two Kinds of Sleep
6/27	Elizabeth Creith	Fibonacci
6/28	Aaron Polson	What Julie’s Dad Doesn’t Know
6/29	John Eric Vona	Blood Oath
6/30	Sarah Evans	Mistaken

102 Story Links in Honor of Short Story Month 2011

Thanks to all of you who spent the time tracking down your favorite stories,  we’ve created a long list of “Readers’ Choices” online at  Flash Fiction Chronicles.  There are STILL many many many terrific stories out there not on this list so we will have to do this again.

Please take the time to scroll through the list and read some pieces you might not have read before.  Let the author know if you loved it.  Share with others.

Poor Neglected Blog...

Since the locusts and fire and quakes haven't gotten me yet and because there are a couple more dates on the apocalyptic calendar, I realize I should at the very least update here so that when the Eloi dig out the ruins of California (sometime after the great EQ when we've fallen into the Pacific and the drying up of the oceans, they will emerge from their hiding places), some archeological latter day Zahi Hawass will announce the discovery of The Lost World of  La-La Land.

At least if I do an occasional update, I'll know the record will be straight.

LAUNCH OF THE BEST OF EVERY DAY FICTION 3

So we went to Vancouver, Tim and I, so I could attend  EDF's official launch of its third "Best of" anthology.  We had one glorious day, weather-wise, and then a couple with the expected drizzle.  It was great to meet with some of the EDF staff and with authors K.C. Ball, J.C. Towler, and Peter Tupper. The signing was at Blackberry Books on Granville Island.  Thank you, Joseph. Pictures on Facebook.


Tim and I also visited the Museum of Anthropology and were overwhelmed by their fabulous collection not only of Canada's First Nations but of other cultures also.  The facility itself in beautifully designed and easy to get to out by the University of British Columbia and because we were exploring we found Jericho Beach and Park.  So amazing. Pictures are on Facebook.

We also managed to fit in the Aquarium in Stanley Park where we saw our first belugas in person.  More picture-taking.  I love digital cameras!


WORK ONLINE

I do have some writing updates for 2011.   I haven't been doing much writing these last five months, but some things have come out.

Advent at Sonora Review
Collateral Damage at Sonora Review
200 Nights at Corium Magazine
The Real War at Clapboard House
Standing Bellicose in Front of a Cracked Mirror in a Cold Detroit Alley at Sonora Review
Portent at Sonora Review
A Basic Truth about Some Girls at 50 to 1
The Nickel in print at Crimespree

I've been interviewed too.

Sonora Review interview
A Writer's Jumble interview

And I've interviewed!

Tara Laskowski at A Writer's Jumble
Michael Cooper at Smokelong Quarterly
Ethel Rohan at Smokelong Quarterly
Submishmash co-founder Michael A. FitzGerald at Smokelong Quarterly

And for sheer weirdness, I'm Wordnik saying a few random things!?!

Also out any day is "Wounded Moon" in the Short Story America Anthology.

An excerpt:

           Mason took a slice of Spam out onto the cabin steps so he could bay at the moon.  His plaid pajamas were stiff around the armpits from sweat and where he’d spilled evaporated milk a couple of days before.  The flannel gave off a pungent smell, a strategic weapon against the incursion of pests, both the four- and two-legged kind.

These nightly summits between Mason and the moon were one-sided, the man in the night sky being taciturn by nature, but then nobody talked to Mason any more.  Nobody except for the kid.  And the kid was not one to chat. 

            Three months after he’d arrived at the cabin, with its pump over a primitive sink and an outhouse under the firs, Mason began to notice how night after night the moon constantly changed.  Slow.  Persistent.  New moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full.  It was full now, a deep yellowish-red, all the crests and valleys visible.  What month was it?  September?  October?  A hunter’s moon.  A blood moon. 

During the day Mason scribbled his lunar observations, doodling in the margins, his pen absently tracing craters and darkening seas within lopsided circles.  Writing had been Dr. Leggett’s idea, a journal of thoughts, daily affirmations, the subject matter irrelevant.  So Mason wrote, getting down everything he knew about the moon.  He liked where it led him.  The pages of text ate the hours.  The almost-poems shimmered in the slanted light through the small cabin window.  And his drawings, the curved cuticle of a crescent moon, the plump circle of the full.  Eventually he asked the kid to buy him a book, something along the lines of The Idiot’s Guide to the Moon.  All this interest in lunar activities seemed like a good sign to Mason, although he never let the word “recovery” take up permanent residence in his mind.

EDF's May Calendar of Stories

EVERY DAY FICTION’S MAY CALENDAR

5/1	MarissaSertich	LeaveMewithanArtichoke
5/2	P.J.Monroe	Rembrandt’sE-mail
5/3	RichMatrunick	ThePaleFarmer
5/4	StewartBaker	MemoryBook
5/5	JRHume	HisMother’sSon
5/6	CeciliaRyan	Mum
5/7	RuthSchiffmann	SilentWitness
5/8	BethCato	ADancetoEndOurFinalDay
5/9	AmandaCapper	AMessage
5/10	WandaMorrow-Clevenger	RiversideRedemption
5/11	SamanthaMemi	TemptingTheWicked
5/12	MadelineMora-Summonte	Evie
5/13	FrancesGonzalez	Spindles
5/14	VanessaWeiblerParis	TeawithTess
5/15	CharlesKirby	RBIs
5/16	RandyHenderson	MostEpiclyAwesomestStory!Ever!
5/17	KevinShamel	Riveted
5/18	LeannaTimanus	NightVisitors
5/19	NickLewandowski	ForeignExchangeLosses
5/20	AxieBarclay	Kahlua
5/21	A.I.Wright	TimeServed
5/22	L.A.Stein	TroutLake
5/23	JamesC.G.Shirk	AndThen,SheWroteMeaLetter
5/24	BarryFriesen	HatTrick
5/25	GaryPattinson	ProgrammingBugs
5/26	Kip	Margaret’sDaughter
5/27	DouglasCampbell	Leaf
5/28	L.E.Elder	FirstTime
5/29	WayneScheer	Butterfly
5/30	NykiBlatchley	TheSat-NavofDoom
5/31	AaronPolson	TheThingAboutaHaunting

A Like Mother, Like Daughter Haiku

My daughter's working on her teaching credential and a classmate did a "lesson" in one of her classes on poetry and haiku.  Everyone had to try it. Here's what Hillary came up with:

Breeze on the bayou
Water remains still as glass
Sharp white teeth emerge.

Okay.  You get it?  Someone is going to die!

What I Dreamed Last Night

It's hazy, really hazy, yet  strangely vivid too.  Rampaging horses, fear of death, packed belongings that turned out to not be the right belongings, searching and not finding friends, making new acquaintances who disappeared and reappeared for both good and evil.

Start with the maelstrom in my active mind while my body searched for the comfortable position, aching shoulder and neck, restless legs, sheets scrambled like eggs.  The ending of the dream as the whirling images lock in is clearer but I don't want to start there, because there was a trick, a twist, a frightening turn of events, as if my brain was a movie house showing an old Brian DePalma offering--things are not what they seem.

The first thing I remember is feeling a heightened state of fear.  Something was happening in the clutter around the "me" of the dream. Maybe I was on the deck of a boat--a ship-- crowded with noisy passengers surrounded by boxes and suitcases, shoving and pushing at each other. I am painting such a ship in Real Life from a story written by someone else.

Now I've dumped myself smack in the middle.  I wander through the throng, losing sight of my own belongings,  catching the face of someone I know who smiles in a friendly, but distracted sort of way, then she's gone and my sense of danger increases.  Something bad is happening.  And I wake up, relieved to find myself in my own bed.

Drifting back and I am on land but there is a crowd still, more roiling than before, with shouting, screaming, pushing, trampling too I think. There are  new strong powers-to-be here--I think Nazis-- Some one tells me to pack, we need to leave quickly.  So I pack the little antique washstand from my grandmother's house.  It's small and I can't get everything I want to bring with me into it.  I have to weigh the merits of each and decide.  At some point I find myself in a huge room standing next to the washstand which is overloaded, and despite the fact it has casters, I know I won't be able to push it on a long journey.  We're going on this journey.  Everyone in this dream and if we don't something awful with happen.

But then the dilemma of taking my life's treasures with me is no longer a factor.   Over a loudspeaker I hear that before we will be released we must go through a trial of stampeding horse, but someone reassures me it isn't as bad as it sounds.  There is a western grandstand built around us and if we can climb high enough on the wooden structure we should be able to avoid the worst.  I rummage through my washstand looking for small pieces of my life to jam into pockets, and find they've been stolen.  I want to search more methodically, but there's no time and I scramble up the bleachers seats to a high spot.

There are people all around, everyone changing their mind about the best place to be.  At the top I can look over to the outside of the arena and see herds of spotted horses galloping toward us.  The gates below open and the horses rush in and while the bleachers shake, I feel hopeful that nothing will collapse and yet people are still scrabbling around me and when I look at where they've been, I see that the bleacher seats are winding away from the structure, leaving gaping holes in the grandstand itself.  As more panicked people come toward the top, the wood edifice begins to sway and more horses thunder into the arena and more victims fall to the ground to be crushed.

I'm trying to recognize those who are in charge. They've seemed to morph into Nazi-Cowboys now and one old man in a stetson and an iron cross takes my hands and tells me not to worry.  He leads me up a middle aisle and as we ascend, all the rows of seats below fall away.   He pushes me down on a beach and leaves me there and the scene around me spirals into purples and reds and...

It was vivid, this dream.  More than I can convey here.  I think maybe I'll work on my emergency-disaster kit today.  The last time I attended to it was 1987.  You think that canned food is still okay?

At Crimespree, "The Nickel"

My fiction story "The Nickel" which is set on L.A's Fifth Street is in the current issue of Crimespree. It's the story I submitted to the Sisters-in-Crime L.A. anthology last year, rewritten, and tells the story of a young up-and-coming movie star who witnesses a murder and hides out on Skid Row.

 If you'd like to order a copy of the magazine, you can email Jon at the link below.

Crimespree Jon

Ask for issue #41.

Up at CORIUM

 “200 NIGHTS" is up at Corium this month if you get a chance to go over there and read it.  Also this issue includes short-short fiction from

Robert Lopez
Sabrina Stoessinger
Miguel Morales
Tina May Hall
Sean Lovelace
Sean Lovelace
Jessica Newman
Sara Crowley
Kevin Spaide
Andrea Kneeland
Andrea Kneeland
Ken Poyner
Sean Ulman

and short stories from

Judith Ossello
Brian Oliu
Michael Kimball
Donna D. Vitucci
Cat Ennis Sears
Faith Gardner

Check out the poetry too.

Thanks Lauren, Salvatore, and Heather.