Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette

Yes, I do have a new short story for your reading pleasure; but before we get to it I thought I’d do a little blogging first…

My niece Brianna Frost, who is a webcam stripper, is now a reality television star on an MTV show called The Girls Of Hedsor Hall.  I wonder how far her career will go.  Her career started with her making videos of herself dancing around naked in her apartment and then posting the videos on the Internet.  I’m not making this up.  Does anyone even watch MTV anymore?  And you wonder where I get my ideas from for my flash fiction…

After I post this on the Gazette I’m going for a walk to Bloomfield, Pittsburgh’s “Little Italy” (the sun is trying to come out) to pick up a few items from the supermarket and maybe to have a couple of beers at Del’s Italian Restaurant.  Many businesses in Bloomfield still have black bunting up outside to honor the three Pittsburgh police officers killed by Richard Poplawski…

All right, now for the story “Money and the American Writer.”  I was a TA (Teaching Assistant) at the University of Pittsburgh from 2004-2006 while I worked on my MFA in fiction writing.  Chuck Kinder, the head of the writing program, had awarded me a K. LeRoy Irvis fellowship which paid for my entire graduate school education for three years and gave me a nice stipend to live off of.  He liked my flash fiction.  Part of the contract I signed to get the fellowship was to teach a class for two years while I worked on the MFA. 

I had my own little cubicle–no door–where I had to put in so many scheduled office hours a week in case one of my students needed attention; they would know where to find me.  Never in a million years, especially at the age of 58, did I ever envision myself teaching undergraduates.

The following story is based on that teaching experience at the University of Pittsburgh.  Just click on the following link:  www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/Money-and-the-American-Writer.661683