Author Archives: Val

Flash Fiction: The Moocher by Phil Yeats

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt: “A cat always stares at something behind it’s owners back.” Today’s post comes from Phil Yeats. Last December, Phil (using his Alan Kemister pen name) published his most recent novel. Tilting at … Continue reading

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Flash fiction: “The Visitor” by Cathy MacKenzie

Welcome to The Spot Writers. This month’s prompt: a cat stares at something behind its owner’s back. What does it see? (You can write the story from the cat’s perspective, if you wish!) This week’s story comes from Cathy MacKenzie. … Continue reading

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Flash Fiction: “Promise” by Val Muller

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This week’s prompt is “a cat always stares at something behind its owner’s back. What does it see?” Today’s tale comes to us from Val Muller, author of The Girl Who Flew Away  and lots … Continue reading

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Fantastic Friday: Latent Heat of Fusion

Yes, I’m still an English teacher. I haven’t moved into physics or anything. But I was tutoring a student, who had to write an essay on Latent Heat of Fusion. My coursework in science is several years old and a … Continue reading

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Flash Fiction: Who’s that Girl? by Chiara De Giorgi

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt: “A story that involves someone, not a stranger, standing on the edge of a precipice.” This week’s story comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara dreams, reads, edits texts, translates, and occasionally writes … Continue reading

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Book Review: Lily Barlow (the Mystery of Jane Dough) by Carla Vergot

A while back, a group of my creative writing students reached out to me that they had found a local author at a book store. One thing led to another, and soon we had her scheduled for a visit during … Continue reading

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Storytelling for Kids

I’m excited to be teaching an online class next month called Storytelling for Kids. The class runs June 3-28, 2019, and you can sign up at https://pennwriters.org/storytelling-for-kids/. In this four-week course, students will examine techniques for writing stories for middle grade and … Continue reading

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Fantastic Friday: Connectivity

In a discussion with some students, I was made aware of the startling number of hours teenagers spend “on their phones.” When I asked what they did with all that time, they admitted that mostly their time was spent using … Continue reading

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Flash Fiction: Goodbye by Val Muller

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write a story about “Someone, not a stranger, standing on the edge of a precipice.” Today’s story comes to us from Val Muller, author of the Corgi Capers kidlit mystery … Continue reading

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Flash fiction: The Drought by Chiara De Giorgi

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s theme: awakening from a bad dream or, even worse, a nightmare. This week’s story comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara dreams, reads, edits texts, translates, and occasionally writes in two languages. She also … Continue reading

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