K. Marvin Bruce

  Maybe it happens to you too, struggling writers.   Just when you get on a roll for fiction, nonfiction comes knocking.   In the past few months I’ve been invited to contribute to three non-fiction books and I’ve secured a nonfiction book contract.   I was just getting back into fiction. Last year I had four stories accepted for publication.   The last one came out just this past week.   “Christmas Wish” is a funny werewolf story.   You can find it in Calliope 174 (Winter 2021/22).   If you don’t read Calliope you should.   They’ve got lots of worthwhile stuff there. What’s so fun about a werewolf, did I hear you ask?   Well, if you try to make one your pet you’ll find out. The Christmas theme actually came from a story challenge I saw.   They were looking for Christmas stories and this one was set around that time of year.   Add a few words making it explicit and then you have a story. Given the time of year, the story is set in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a place I’ve never been.   I

  “It’s Wednesday!   It must be!” Lindsey was levitating. “No,” Calum calmed.   “There have been saints who levitate too.   This is for your benefit.” “But it’s against the laws of physics!” “Are scientific laws called laws because they can’t be broken or are they simply made up by human beings to describe what they see?” “Then why haven’t scientists described this?” “There have been many, many documented cases.   One guess how scientism responds.” “Ridicule reaction?” “Yes, you’re beginning to understand.   Lindsey is a focal agent in a way that we’ve never seen.” Terah watched her hover two feet above the table.   Her eyes were closed.   She seemed perfectly relaxed, but not asleep.   Hovering might not have been the right word.   She didn’t bob and undulate on the air.   It was more like a David Copperfield magic trick, as if she sat on a flat surface.   Embarrassed at doing so, he looked to see if her jean bottoms were flattened at all, as if sitting on an invisible surface.   Unli

  The eerie feeling of that night in Boston for the American Academy of Religion meeting settled over the library.   The mystery of possibility hung like an invisible fog in the room.   Parker Yaffle had been one of the most respected Harvard scholars ever, right up there with William James.   This uncredentialed, independently wealthy man had a private academic arrangement with Yaffle, earning the equivalent of a doctorate from him.   Terah had often spied Yaffle at a distance at the Academy conference.   He was always surrounded by the big names in the field and it was impossible to get close enough to introduce yourself.   Terah had been snubbed by lesser academics who thought highly of themselves, and once, when the meeting was held in a rainy Chicago, he was standing outside the McCormick center for a moment when Yaffle had come out without a gaggle of followers.   He’d held out a hand to introduce himself, but the academic lackeys quickly appeared and hustled Yaffle into a cab to