Month: May 2021

  • Anniversaries on the edge

    My husband and I have an unusual tradition for celebrating our anniversary. We didn’t intend for this to be a metaphor, but it’s a little too on the nose.  We drive, surf, boat, cycle, hike in snow, rappel, or do some activity in which we’re moving forward, together. Sometimes we live a little on the…

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  • How NOT to do an Artist’s Date

    The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic”– think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration. Julia Cameron – The Artist’s Way blog –…

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  • The Cracked Rib Christmas

    2023 is the year I leveled up for ten months.Then I leveled way down. I wrote three books and a novella. With my siblings, I cleaned out and sold my dad’s house, in a very long sale process involving a squatter. After my dad’s passing, I paid his bills and taxes and closed out his…

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  • The Laughing Loaf Bacon Bread recipe

    Bacon bread is by far the most popular bread item from the original Laughing Loaf Bakery I operated. It’s made from a biga, a pre-ferment. Because biga is my go-to bread method, I named the pesky little dog in my cozy mystery series after it. The pre-ferment is much better behaved than the dog. 😄…

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  • Crazy love

    My dad, who passed away last fall, was often a difficult person to deal with. But I never doubted that he loved me. Fiercely. One thing I learned pretty early on: when another person expresses love for you, you’re receiving that love through a filter they’ve pieced together from their life experiences.

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  • A house named hope

    Four years ago today, on April 22, 2019, I sat in a Korean restaurant having a good, very spicy lunch with my friend Ann. I received a call on my cell phone that felt surreal, though I knew it had been coming for a long time.

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  • New year—new news!

    New years is not my favorite holiday. To me it seems arbitrary to have a big raging party for the beginning of a new year. Seriously, what really changes on January 1? And as we’re still stuck in pandemic times—which I hereby designate PT—even less has changed. We faced more of a retreat into our…

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  • Writing myself out of a corner

      It happened with my first book, and it’s happening with the second. I plunge into writing my book gleefully, without an outline. I love creating an interesting cast of characters and putting them into painful, impossible situations to see what they do. And what they think. I am a discovery writer to a certain…

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  • Goodbye, year that shall not be named

    Home Short Fiction Blog X This year’s been crappy.  Though it feels good to celebrate the end of a year that has constantly surprised us at how low it could go, I don’t think things are going to dramatically improve in 2021. But one thing I have seen this year: good things don’t just happen…

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  • “The Far Cabin” – a short story

    Home Short Fiction Blog X By Victoria Kazarian In the warmth of the resort office, PI Bee Bedrosian peeled off her damp, cold gloves and rubbed her hands together. She prayed for a cabin with good wifi and a working heater. A woman with leathery skin and a grey ponytail emerged from behind the small…

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  • How I got back to writing during quarantine

    Home Short Fiction Blog X Today is day 109. In the first few weeks of quarantine, I was one of those people who couldn’t get anything done. I did what I had to do for the classes I teach, then I turned on my comfort TV, The Great British Baking Show, and numbed out to…

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  • How this pantser became a plotter

    Home Short Fiction Blog X I’ve always been a seat-of-the-pants writer. Someone who enjoys discovering the book as I write it. A pantser. But a few months ago, I wrote myself into a cul-de-sac. I was stuck, so I avoided sitting down to write. And this is a book I love and have invested a…

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  • Running: my new writing buddy

    Home Short Fiction Blog X Sit as little as possible. – Friedrich Nietzsche I started running again recently, after a long stretch of being sedentary. I’m not saying it was an easy thing. I went through a few weeks of pushing my reluctant body out the door in the early morning, making sure I wasn’t…

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  • Sneak attacked by joy

    Home Short Fiction Blog X When I was growing up in Iowa, May Day was the best. You made up little baskets filled with candy and goodies, then sneaked them over to your friends’ houses. You left them on the porch or hung them on the door knob. Back then, in the Midwest, everyone did…

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  • What the Faux, Hemingway?

    When a literary quote doesn’t hold true.

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  • Writing like an animator

    Home Short Fiction Blog X Today I did something I’ve always wanted to do: I saw this year’s reel of Oscar-nominated shorts. I love animation. It brings out the kid in me, the one who used to get up way before my parents to watch Saturday morning cartoons like Scooby Doo, in pre-cable days. Animation…

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  • The storyteller’s storyteller

    Home Short Fiction Blog X What happened when I decided to read a book by my mother’s literary love My mother was the source of all stories for me. She told me stories. She read me books. When she got bored of reading me my favorites, she’d add silly details, mix the story up, and…

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  • Christmas Eve day, 10 am. Status: Still shopping.

    Home Short Fiction Blog X Christmas Eve day, 10 a.m. I have ventured into the mall to get “just one more thing.” Everyone seems to be here, cycling up and down the aisles in an endless search, Roomba vacuums narrowly avoiding hitting shelves or each other. I am grouchy. Lines are long. Cars move slowly…

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