(Four printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) SOME MORNINGS, THE FOOD BAZAARS in many-quayed Soharis are a-bustle with moneyed and caffeinated customers; others substitute sustained novelty for their pitiful lack of custom.…
Tag: WIP
Works In Progress. The “typing” part of Writing — and the most challenging.
5 Thoughts: Lessons Learned by an Autodidactic Home Cook
1. THE SMALLER THE KITCHEN, THE greater the discipline. And the organization. 2. Thrift rules. In other words, there are no such things as “leftovers” — only the beginnings of future meals. (Thank you, Tamar Adler, for this bit of…
An Arrow Escape (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Four-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) THE LAW IN STONY-HEARTED Tirinbar mandated that all escaped slaves and their liberators were to be killed when located – but that could not deter…
Prosatio Silban and the Mapping Lesson
(Five printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy!) NIGHT, AND THE CLEAN SMELL of salt. Slap of waves and wind-flapped canvas. Creak of leaping timbers. An urgent overhead call, and a soft…
Prosatio Silban and the Sovereign Cure
(Five-and-a-half printed pages, inspired by our current situation. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy!) THEY SAY, SOMETIMES, THAT THE cure is worse than the disease. But to Prosatio Silban’s way of thinking, that…
Road Bound (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Three-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT the quaint and lumbering buopoths native to the Exilic Lands and other curious places – but to this day, little…
Minute Mitzvah: Play Nice
Today: Don’t shame anyone. Explanation: When you make someone feel painfully self-conscious, you destroy a little piece of the world — and not only for them. Your own soul / psyche / personality suffers as well. In today’s hyperpartisan social…
Prosatio Silban and the Anxious Drummer
(Two printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) NOT FOR NOTHING HAD PROSATIO Silban parked his galleywagon outside cosmopolitan Soharis’ main military barracks. Soldiers are a notoriously hungry lot, and use any…
Cook’s Honor (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Three-and-a-quarter printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) THE FIRST CLUE PROSATIO SILBAN had to the midnight intruder was the sound of someone rifling through his galleywagon pantry. The second was the paring-knife…
Prosatio Silban and the Last Meal
(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) ASIDE FROM BUOPOTHS, NO ONE knows exactly what a fatberry-cake tastes like. But measuring by how many the quaint lumbering beasts eat, the greasy maroon…
War Prints (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Six printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) THE BROKEN TIRE SOFTENED AND then hardened again under Prosatio Silban’s kneading fingers, but he soon realized that his repairs were little stronger than…
Prosatio Silban and the Leisurely Eggs
(If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) TO THOSE WITH LITERALIST SENSIBILITIES, the phrase “ridiculously beautiful” may suggest mere hyperbole and labored contrivance. But take dawn by the western bank of an iridescent river…