Monthly Archives: July 2013

This was another modified excerpt from my as-yet-unpublished novel My Life with Michael: A Story of Sex and Beer for the Middle-Aged. It made a good short story, I thought. Chock full of frustration and foiled desire. I originally created the excerpt for a Free Flash Fiction contest on the theme of Unrequited Love. It didn’t place, but it wasn’t quite on theme either. Is there such a thing as half-requited love?

In any case, this longer version definitely worked better as a story. It’s strange, though; I seem to have a penchant for main characters who perpetually make asses of themselves. I am absolutely certain that there is nothing in the least bit autobiographical about that.

Separate Worlds Publication: Squirrel Revolution

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http://www.speculativefictionstories.com/product/SPEC0001

I actually had the idea that sparked this story a number of years ago. I don’t recall how I came up with it exactly, but one day I started thinking about the evolutionary process and how it relates to the impact of man on the environment. There’s no doubt that humans are greatly, if not solely, responsible for the extinction of a large number of species, hunting and habitat destruction being two of the primary means by which animal and plant life have gravely diminished in a world in which humans have become predominant. However, if there’s one thing that evolutionary theory teaches us, it’s that life is incredibly adaptable. Remember learning in school about the changes that took place in the moth population during the Industrial Revolution in England? Within a very short space of time the predominantly white moth population became a predominantly black one – because moths had a greater chance of survival when they were better able to blend in with their new, sootier environment. And they reproduce quickly enough to put those physical adaptations in place in the blink of a human eye.

So it seems reasonable to suppose that similar changes would occur in other species whose environments have been severely impacted by human activities. Indeed, it may be those species that are best able to adapt to a human-dominated landscape which will continue to thrive into the next century. The ant. The cockroach. The pigeon. The squirrel.

I actually think it would make for an interesting scientific study, if anyone were sufficiently motivated to do it, to monitor the world’s population of squirrels and track whether they’ve adopted physical or cognitive adaptations in response to alterations in their environment. We think we know how squirrels behave. We see them running halfway across the street and then suddenly scurrying back when they see a car coming, which is how they get hit half the time. But what about the ones we don’t see, the ones who are too smart or too nimble to get caught in traffic? What if there really is something else going on behind the scenes…? Look out! It’s a Squirrel Revolution!

Erotic Review Magazine Publication: Me and Fat Marge (Adult)

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My erotic short story “Me and Fat Marge” has been published in Erotic Review Magazine:

http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/fiction/2273/

Ah, my first published foray into true erotica! It was a big step and one that, frankly, for a long time I wasn’t sure I was ready to make. I don’t want to see myself getting pigeon-holed into only one kind of writing and erotica, ironically enough, can be a turnoff for some people. Besides, there’s an internal cringing factor to erotic writing that I don’t think you get with sci-fi or historical fiction or other genres. For example, while I was writing my first novel, My Life with Michael: A Story of Sex and Beer for the Middle-Aged, I frequently found myself becoming embarrassed in composing the raunchier scenes. I mean, embarrassed sitting all by myself in front of my computer, without anyone even reading it. And those were fairly standard sex scenes – nothing particularly kinky. But like anything else, I guess you get used to it after a while. My second book, Just the Three of Us: An Erotic Romantic Comedy for the Commitment-Challenged, being a threesome story, is about a hundred times dirtier – what, in the Romance industry, they would term a Heat Level of 4+ – and that didn’t even faze me.

Anyway, in between novel chapters I took to dabbling in some short-story erotica, and “Me and Fat Marge” was one of the first products of that effort. What I like most about it is the fact that it’s funny, which I think is somewhat of a rarity in the genre. Odd, isn’t it? Sex and humor seem as if they ought to go together hand in… well, you assemble the metaphor! ;)

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You can also read “Me and Fat Marge” in my recently released collection of erotic short short stories To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known: Romantic and Erotic Shorts by Lori Schafer, only $0.99 in digital formats on Amazon (Universal Link), Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, ITunes, and Lulu. Large print paperback is only $5.99!