Tag: Spring Break

TBT^2: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “Witch’s Money”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s SPRING BREAK, baby!  Finally, at long last, yours portly has eleven glorious days (counting weekends) to recuperate from a rather brutal semester, before slogging through one more round of it.

I typically experience severe burnout about twice a year, and it has hit hard lately.  I’m sleeping poorly, working constantly, and eating excessively.  My overall health has suffered, and I need to shut down for a few days.

Shut down—and read short stories!  Every year I offer up my Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, which will start up next week.  But here is a little preview of a past story recommendation.

With that, here is 6 April 2023’s “TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: ‘Witch’s Money’“:

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Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2023: “Barn Burning”

The Portly Politico5 Comments

In lieu of the typical Monday Morning Movie Review today, I’m dedicating most posts this week to reviews of short stories (and possibly one short novella).

Spring Break has sprung, which means it’s time for my annual Spring Break Short Story Recommendations.  Spring Break is one of the few times each year where I find myself with the leisure time necessary to read literary (and non-literary) short stories, and to celebrate this wonderful format.

It seems that in our age of hyper-connectivity and bite- (and byte-) sized content, we’re either reading massive amounts of digital fast food (like this blog), or settling in over the course of many evenings with long-form novels.  My perception could be completely slanted towards my own experience—quite likely—but I get the sense that the noble short story has suffered somewhat.

(A quick aside:  for the best bite-sized writing I’ve yet to find on the Internet, check out Stacey C. Johnson‘s blog Breadcrumbs; her writing is so inviting and mysterious, and probes at the interesting corners of life.  Check out her piece “Survey of Poetry“; it’s excellent, and it’s about a mischievous [and real!] octopus.)

Even if I’m wrong about that assessment, I am right about this one:  the short story is a form worth preserving.  I have long harbored, though not acted upon, ambitions to write a collection of short stories; perhaps I’ll one day put cursor to digital paper and get the thing done.  My own incalcitrance, however, is no reason for you not to read (or write!) short stories.

All philosophical ramblings aside, let’s get to today’s short story:  William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning“:

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TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “Witch’s Money”

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It’s SPRING BREAK!  One of my multiple cushy, extended breaks—the primary perk of dedicating one’s life to the molding of young minds—has now commenced, which means next week I’ll be inundating you with reviews of short stories, as is this blog’s Spring Break tradition.

One story I read last year was John Collier‘s “Witch’s Money.”  It’s the tale of a haughty artist who succumbs to the ignorance and greed of peasants who think that checks are a magic source of money. I read it when I was quite young—to young to appreciate its nuances at the time—and it made an impression on me.  Don’t write a check your butt can’t cash… or, at the very least, don’t write checks in lands where people don’t understand the basics of modern banking.

With that, here is 20 April 2022’s “Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: ‘Witch’s Money’“:

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Lazy Sunday CLXII: Spring Break Short Story Recommendations Recap 2022

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Another Spring Break is in the books, and as I look wearily ahead to the final weeks of the school year, let’s look back at the good times—and good stories—of this past week:

Happy Reading!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2021, Part I: “Black Tancrède”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Going through last year’s Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, I came across the first one of 2021, a delicious little tale of Caribbean horror, Henry S. Whitehead‘s “Black Tancrède.”

It’s a weird little story, but a fun one.  I won’t prattle on too long—here’s me one year ago in “Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2021, Part I: ‘Black Tancrède’“:

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Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “Witch’s Money”

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Today’s Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022 comes from a very old, very tattered collection of short stories I purchased probably twenty or more years ago.  I think I picked it up on a trip with my grandparents when I was somewhere between the ages of ten and thirteen, the amorphous “tween” years.

The collection is called, simply, Short Story Masterpieces, and boasts Robert Penn Warren as one of its editors (the other being Albert Erskine).  I have a vague recollection of attempting to read some of the stories in our hotel room the night that I bought it, and realized that these stories were way over my head at that time.  I could read the words, but I could not comprehend them, at least not fully.

Short Story Masterpieces

However, one story that always stuck out to me was John Collier‘s “Witch’s Money.”  I probably flipped to that story because it had “witch” in the title, and even back then ghost stories and the like fascinated me.  The story—which was published in The New Yorker in 1939—has little to do with hags and haunts, but instead explores a fatal misunderstanding about the nature of “cheques” (or “checks” to my fellow American readers).

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Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “The Machine Stops”

The Portly Politico38 Comments

As is my custom, I dedicate a few days each Spring Break to recommending and reviewing various short stories.  Typically, I read through an anthology of short stories over break and highlight three or four of the best stories from them.

However, I neglected to take an anthology with me when I left town for Easter weekend, and I didn’t have the time to pluck one from my parents’ substantial library.  So, I’m doing a one-off today (and possibly for other Spring Break Shorty Story Recommendation 2022 installments this week), although I am sure this story has appeared in many anthologies.

The story is E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” which I wrote about in brief in another post in April 2020, during the early days of The Age of The Virus.  The Z Man wrote about it in one of his posts from the time, which intrigued me enough to read the story.

It is, I believe, one of the great works of prophetic science fiction.  There’s a great deal of that from the mid-twentieth century; Forster was predicting things like FaceTime and social media in 1909.

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Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2021, Part II: “The Personality Cult”

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Today’s short story selection, Michael Noonan‘s “The Personality Cult,” comes from Terror House Magazine, an alternative online literary journal that publishes some excellent works from newer authors (although, it should be cautioned, they publish anything, including pieces that are borderline smut; browse with care).  Indeed, two of my Inspector Gerard stories will appear there later this month.  I’ve been reading Terror House Magazine for a couple of years now, and have been impressed with the gems they publish.  “The Personality Cult” is one such precious stone.

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Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2021, Part I: “Black Tancrède”

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It’s another glorious Spring Break for yours portly, which means it’s time to whip out some classic tales of ghostly spookiness.  This week I’m working my way through Chilling Ghost Stories, edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, published in March 2020.  It’s a collection that was clearly compiled for the bargain section at Barnes & Nobles, with a list price of just $10 for 471 pages of medium-sized print chills (I picked it up for $8 plus tax thanks to my handy Educator’s Discount card).  The stories were written from 1893 to 1929, with today’s selection, Henry S. Whitehead‘s “Black Tancrède,” being the latest.

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