A Smorgasbord of Speculative Fiction: August 16, 2013, 8 pm, at the Wayward Coffeehouse

I’ve written two stories so far this week, but I think this is the one that will be the next Patreon story. Here’s how it begins.

The ghost had chosen the apartment because it was as good a place as any. His body had died in the hospital, but that place was odd and unsettling, seething with the ghosts of things other than human: bacteria and viruses and parasites. Those filled the corridors along with all the childrens’ ghosts, which he found most troubling of all.

He had spent five years altogether in the apartment, the longest he had ever lived anywhere other than his childhood home, which had been torn down decades ago. So he chose it, and furthermore chose the final week of each year, rather than enduring throughout the full 365 days.

There was something about that last week of the year, the stretch between Christmas day and New Year’s eve, that drew him. His wife lived in the apartment for a year after his death, and he stayed a great deal of time in the week, watching her write out overdue Christmas cards, her eyes red rimmed, her jaw set to avoid thinking about the thing that had devastated her.

He was sad for her in the way that ghosts are sad, an abstract and gray sympathy. Ghosts choose this state deliberately. Otherwise they can be torn apart by the grief of their loved ones. It is a choice that shames them, although all of them make it, and so he hid from her, even knowing that she could not see him.

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Flash fiction, short-short stories under 1000 words, present stories in microcosm, slices of life that illuminate and change us. In this writing class, students will use writing prompts and word games to create 3-4 pieces of flash fiction, as well as learning what magazines specialize in flash fiction and how to submit their efforts to them.

I’ll be drawing on the experience of a workshop I taught for Johns Hopkins Continuing Studies a while back. That class ran six sessions, if I’m remembering correctly, and we had an amazing time.

I’ll also be teaching the Blogging and Social Networking 101 class. It runs two classes, the first of which is used to talk about setting up a blog, establishing your online presence, personal branding and the second of which is devoted to social networks, Google Analytics, and other Internet tools.