Month: January 2011

Selected Shorts

On By shawnproctorIn Fiction to Hear1 Comment

Great writing deserves great performance. I’ve been a fan of Symphony Space‘s program Selected Shorts, broadcast on WHYY, for years. Though I read widely, the authors invariably are 50 percent of the time totally new to me, as are the performers.

There’s nothing like hearing a short story resonate in the attentive listeners, who laugh or gasp at the perfect moments. They have provided a perfect background when I drive to work, go for a run, or try to sleep in a weird art hotel in Berlin.

The quality is consistently good to great, and iTunes offers several of the most recent as free downloads.

I only hope that one of my stories ends up on the show someday. A boy can only dream…

*Also, they offer the Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Contest for entries 750 words or fewer. Be aware the entry fee is $25; winner receives $1000 and his/her story will appear on the program.

In the Works…

On By shawnproctorIn Uncategorized2 Comments

There are a couple projects I have going right now, including revising a new 500-word  short story and looking over a more finished one. After they’ve been sent to their respective contests, it’s back to work on the novel again.

NEWS: I also just found out my favorite book store will close in March. Wolfgang Books was much more than a place to buy books. It was where I wrote a large part of my novel’s first draft, where my kids bought their books.

In his email announcement, the owner Jason said e-readers (among other things)  played a role in sealing the store’s fate. What do you think? Like Netflix doomed the video store, will the rise of digital books wipe out most brick and mortar book stores?

Relaunch

On By shawnproctorIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Thanks for stopping by. The blog has been a bit neglected, true, but remember to stop back over the next few days. There will be links to old stories available on the web and new content added regularly from here on out, including information about a new anthology which will contain my short story “Ghost Fleet.”