It’s an overcast, warm day this Sunday in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Marathon is today. No, I won’t be running in the marathon but I may go out and cheer the other runners on. Well, it’s been quite a week with the oil spill and the new immigration law in Arizona. Oh, I forgot Goldman Sachs. The head of Goldman Sachs was on Charlie Rose a couple of nights ago. I didn’t even want to hear what the man had to say. He keeps his millions while millions of Americans have their 401Ks and pensions wiped out because of what his company and other companies on Wall Street did in swindling investors out of their money. It was their own investors. There’s no way of getting around it no matter what sort of spin the Wall Street firms put on their business dealings…
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But we bloggers and writers of flash fiction have other things on our mind.
I don’t know how other writers create their characters but I get mine from real life. I’ve used my mother, father, brothers and sisters; brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law in my fiction. I’ve used my niece. I’ ve used old girlfriends and army buddies. I’ve used strangers I’ve met, classmates and people in crowds that I’ve seen in the city. And most of all I’ve used myself.
Now this doesn’t mean I don’t make things up. I write fiction. What it does mean is that I don’t make everything up.
It’s easier that way.
How do you create your characters?
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The University of Pittsburgh
I walked through the main campus of the University of Pittsburgh today for the first time in weeks. I live in Oakland, the neighborhood the main campus is in but I hadn’t actually walked through the campus for awhile.
I graduated with an MFA in fiction writing from Pitt in 2006 at the age of 59. Not bad for a Vietnam War veteran. As I walked through the campus I wondered if I would meet any faculty or staff that I knew or meet any classmates or students I had taught as a teaching assistant. The campus was empty. Summer vacation.
I got into the graduate program because of the flash fiction and very short stories I submitted for evaluation.
Here are five stories based on my time at Pitt.
Girls Gone Wild (A Short Story)
Money and the American Writer (A Short Story)
Woman, Wife and Lover (A Short Story)
The Modern American Woman (A Short Story)
Vietnam in the Mist (A Short Story)
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