Evergreen Writers Group webpage

The Evergreen Writers Group, the writers I associate with in Halifax/Dartmouth Nova Scotia, has just made a giant leap into the modern age.  We have developed a website! 
We hope it will accomplish four things.  First, we wish to establish a greater presence so other writers in the Halifax/Dartmouth area who might be looking for a group can find us.  Second, we hope it will give a little extra visibility to the anthology of short stories we have written (Out of the Mist, see blog posts I made last summer for details of book and where it can be found).  Third, we wish to highlight novels, short stories and poems group members have published.  Finally, it will give everyone out there in cyberspace an opportunity to communicate with us.
We may find other interesting uses for the site but for the moment, those are our goals.  If you are interested in visiting the site here is the link: http://evergreenwriters.weebly.com/
 

Never Another Winter

"Never Another Winter" follows the last minutes of an old man's life as he remembers the good times and prepares to join his long departed wife in the hereafter.
I entered this short story in a contest sponsored by Quarter Castle Publishing, a small Nova Scotia publisher.  My story didn't win any prizes but was selected along with nine others as stories that 'captured the interest' of the judges.  The three prize winners plus the ten honourable mentions will appear in September in the first Quarter Castle Chronicles.
The thirteen stories in this anthology will include three written by members of the Evergreen Writers Group of Halifax.  The contest attracted entries from all across Canada (and perhaps beyond), so not bad going for our little writing group.

Haiku inspired by snow this winter 

Yesterday was opening day in the baseball season and the Jays beat the Yanks, but here in Nova Scotia we got more snow and it's still coming down this morning.  The snowfall over the past three months has been unreal and at a time when some NS golf courses are normally opening for the season, we still have snow banks more than a metre high.
Climate changes scientists say we should expect the weather to be more erratic.  It looks like they have a convincing illustration right outside my window.
Here is a little poem honouring the occasion:

Shovell'd all the snow
the gods dump'd it down again
shovelling once more.

Sorry couldn't resist.  Now I have to go out and shovel.

Another Silly Trees anthology with poem I wrote -  Aspirations

As usual I've neglected this blog.  A couple of months ago Silly Tree Anthologies produced another anthology, this one a book of poetry with the title 'The Way the Light Slants'.  It has six poems by two of my colleagues in the Halifax based Evergreen Writers Group and one of my own.  It is titled 'Aspirations'.
I never thought I would write a poem but tried it as a possible way to loosen up my sometimes stilted prose writing.  Some who heard it thought it showed promise, and low and behold Silly Tree offered to publish it.  Probably my first and last poem.
If anyone is interested the anthology is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1505292514
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Slants-Anthologies-Authors/dp/1505292514
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/497613

Murder Mystery in That Golden Summer

Another of my short stories has been accepted for publication.  It will be coming out in December in an anthology of very short Canadian short stories titled 'That Golden Summer' published by Polar Expressions Publishing.  My story is a 740 word murder mystery entitled 'Murder Mystery'.
The anthology is an annual compilation and I had a story published in last years edition.  I think it is a good venue for amateur writers like me; entering a story costs nothing, they offer cash prizes for the best entries, and publish about a third of the entries.
The only drawback is that the anthology is not widely distributed so stories don't get read by many people.  So, here for anyone who wants to read it, is the story I had published a year ago in 'The Sun Shall Rise'.

A Fateful Encounter

Alan Kemister

Amy waited in her wheelchair while the grossly overweight young man in front of her navigated the debit card reader.  The dishevelled-looking fellow needed a haircut and simultaneously disgusted and fascinated Amy.  She’d placed her items on the conveyer belt, and was searching for her Air Miles card when her grocery list slipped from her hand.  It settled at the fat man’s feet.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, pointing.  “Would you please retrieve that paper for me?”

He bent down, leaning heavily on the checkout counter to retrieve it.

He smiled as he passed it to her, and she realized he had an intelligent-looking face hiding behind the fat, and eyes that pierced right into her.  “Here you are,” he said.

Amy started daydreaming as Penny, the checkout clerk, and her overweight customer struggled with his transaction.  She imagined herself standing naked on the white sand beach at some tropical resort.  A tall, handsome, and equally naked stranger stood in front of her, holding her list saying ‘here you are,’ and smiling.  His voice and the features of his face were just like those of the man in the checkout queue, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.  The list morphed into a cocktail glass, and he announced, “To us,” as they clinked their glasses together.

“Do you have your Air Miles card?” Penny asked, bringing Amy back to reality just in time to see the real-life version of her stranger on the beach pick up his four plastic bags of groceries, nod in her direction, smiling once again, and walk away.  Her few groceries had been checked through while she daydreamed and she only had to pay before Penny loaded them into the basket at the back of her chair.  She hurried, trying to catch up to the man, but the store was crowded and she couldn’t make haste.

Outside, she wheeled across the parking lot and onto the upward sloping sidewalk only to see him heading across the next intersection onto a much steeper section of road.  She stopped to catch her breath and watched him disappear.  He walked quickly with a jaunty sort of bouncing gait; the heat of the mid-summer day, and the bags of groceries, not slowing him at all.  He was obviously much fitter than he looked, and Amy proceeded home wondering about her enigmatic stranger.

That night, Amy dreamt about him.  Once again, she chased him up the street, but this time he was naked, and his jaunty gait caused all the fat to bounce and jiggle as he walked.  She called out, and he turned back toward her.  He now looked emasculated with his longish hair, breast-like protuberances from the fat on his chest, and genitals hidden behind the rolls of fat sagging from his stomach.  As he approached her, the grocery bags transformed into coils of rope.  She was terrified and unable to turn her wheelchair as he came up to her, his eyes like laser beams burning holes in her skull.

She woke in a panic and collapsed on the pillow gasping for air.

When her heart stopped pounding, she was hot and sweating.  It was a few minutes after six and the sun had just risen above the horizon.  Seven hours earlier, it was even hotter and she’d gone to bed wearing only an oversized T-shirt.  She’d stripped all the covers off the bed and left the windows wide open.  When she woke from the dream, the temperature had only dropped a few degrees and she no longer wore the T-shirt.  It was across the room, neatly folded over the arm of a chair.

Her reaction to the stranger generated many questions.  Why did she dream about that hippopotamus of a man?  Why was one or other of them always naked?  What did he intend to do with the rope?  And how did her T-shirt become folded over the arm of a chair ten feet from her bed?

Someone had sent a message and it didn’t take her long to decipher it.  It was time to shake off the lethargy caused by the freak infection that had taken her ability to walk, and stolen her interest in almost anything.  The man on the beach represented the challenge and the potential reward; and the one with the rope…the consequences of failure.  But what did the T-shirt signify?

Out of the Mist now published

Our Out of the Mist anthology of Atlantic Canadian Ghost stories that I mentioned in my previous post is now up on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Createspace.com.  Links are as follows:http://www.amazon.com/Out-Mist-Atlantic.../dp/0993833802
http://www.amazon.ca/Out-Mist-Atlantic.../dp/0993833802
and http://www.createspace.com/4800090

I have two stories in this anthology.  The first concerns a real neighbourhood cat but with an ending that involves the ghost of said cat.  The second concerns a man who is asked to tell a ghost story by his granddaughter and her little friends.  He makes up a story, but learns later that there are eerie parallels to a real story from years ago that he knew nothing about and some actual events that were occurring at the time he was telling the story.   Could these have been coincidental or was some other force influencing the development of his story?

Ten colleagues in a local writing group produced the other stories.  Many of them are more traditional 'ghost stories' with haunted houses and skeletons in graveyards.

Cover for anthology of ghost stories

My photo on cover of 'Out of the Mist', anthology of short stories by Evergreen Writers Group

I've been a member of the Evergreen Writers Group in the Halifax area for a couple of years.  The group has been working on an anthology of ghost stories for more than a year.  The stories have been finished for some time and over the past few months several of us have spent a lot of time getting the volume finalized.  One of my contributions has been the photo for the cover, and input to the cover design.

Book should be available for sale as an ebook on Smashwords and Amazon shortly and the paper version at Amazon and Createspace.  We will be trying to sell copies of the paperback in the Halifax area.  Information will be posted on a facebook page.  https://www.facebook.com/EvergreenWritersGhostAnthology