Ebert's Glossary of Movie Terms

"Ali MacGraw's Disease

Movie illness in which only symptom is that the sufferer grows more beautiful as death approaches."

http://academic.sun.ac.za/forlang/bergman/tech/glossary/ebert_glos.htm

Storify

"Storify is a way to tell stories using social media such as Tweets, photos and videos. You search multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into your story. You can re-order the elements and also add text to give context to your readers."

http://storify.com/

Example: http://storify.com/curious_scribe/arrest-of-fairfax-reporter-ben-grubb

Timid Pirate Publications - Call for Submissions - The Benevolent Apocalypse

"Timid Pirate Publications seeks short stories (1,000-6,000 words) set after the apocalypse. In the next cycle of expanding humanity, communities thrive in a post-industrial world. This is the reign of the makers, the doers, the community builders, the farmers and those who work with tangible objects, producing and creating. The collapse of money, the stock market and centralized government has led to smaller, more tightly-knit communities where adventures, mysteries and tales of the human abound. The chaos is over, and rebuilding is well underway. What characters and situations have arisen? You tell us."

http://timidpirate.com/submissions.html

Due Date is August 31st, 2011

Via  http://askwendy.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/call-for-short-stories-set-after-the-apocalypse/

The Ghostly Girl

"Chapter 1 ... The weird girl

Jack and Steve didn’t take much notice of the girl the first time they saw her. They were queuing for the West Hill cliff lift, and as they showed their season tickets at the entrance gate, a girl ducked down beside them and went to stand in the huddle of tourists waiting for the lift.

They might have taken more notice of her if her hair had been recently washed or if her clothes had been less muddy and old-fashioned. Her embroidered blouse looked old as well as old-fashioned, and she was holding onto the waist of her loose cotton trousers as if to keep them up. There were patches of mud on her trousers and on her sandalled feet, and her hair was greasy. There was dirt in her nails. [...]"

http://www.theghostlygirl.blogspot.com/

Writer's Digest Short Story Competition

"We're looking for fiction that's bold, brilliant...but brief. Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer.

But don't be too long about it—the deadline is November 15, 2011."
 

http://www.writersdigest.com/short/?et_mid=507744&rid=55068380

"The Outfielder" - Short Fiction, Serial Fiction, Essays,...

"an on-going collection of: Short Fiction, Serial Fiction, Essays, Sketches, History and Culture Articles, Film Analysis and Poetry. by Desmond Schumann. I post as soon as I have something to post"


http://desmondschumann.blogspot.com/

"The Stranger staggered up the sloping sand, with his arms held at his sides to brace his aching ribs. He gasped for air and choked trying to swallow it; white dots sprouted in the corners of his vision, then throbbed outward into tendrils of blindness that clutched greedily at his sight. The Stranger collapsed onto his hands and knees, dry-heaving hot, dusty air. The wind-blown patterns in the sand doubled inches in-front of his eyes. With each plume of his breath, a sand-devil blossomed on the desert-floor; these whipped grit at the Stranger's sweaty brow and blistered cheeks, and outlined a ghastly orange-skeleton ontop of his features. [...]"


http://desmondschumann.blogspot.com/2011/06/fiction.html

Follow Desmont at http://twitter.com/#!/im_a_scallywag

Three Secrets to Great Storytelling

"As a novelist and writing instructor, I’ve noticed that three of the most vital aspects of story craft are left out of many writing books and workshops. Even bestselling novelists stumble over them."

http://writersdigest.com/article/3-secrets-to-great-storytelling/

Tab - A Story

""Tab," Walter said, "put it on my tab."

"Can't do that," the bartender said, "you know that."

Walter reached in to his pocket and chucked some change, an empty packet of gum and a library card on to the bar. The bartender took the coins he wanted and placed them in the register. Walter scraped the remaining change, the gum packet and the library card back in to his palm and back into his pocket.

He took up the shot glass and ran his finger around the rim. He had the look of a starving man who had been given a fish instead of a net. He nursed the drink for a while before taking it down in one gulp.  ... "


http://unstable-orbit.blogspot.com/2010/07/dictionary-stories-2010-07-24.html

The Mabinogion audio collection

"The breadth and imagination of these stories is really quite amazing - How many other stories can boast such a heady collection of wizards, body-swapping, bitter curses, deep revenge lasting for generations, a giant, a cauldron of immortality, murder plots, princes, kings and even pig-embezzlement? "

http://cadwswn.posterous.com/the-mabinogion-audio-collection


http://www.themabinogion.com/

Two horses as one

"As you stand and watch these two horses, you’ll see that the horse with the bell is always checking on the blind horse. That the blind horse will listen for the bell and then slowly walk to where the other horse is, trusting that he will not be led astray.

When the horse with the bell returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, it stops occasionally and looks back, making sure that the blind friend isn’t too far behind to hear the bell."

http://www.carolynresnickblog.com/two-horses-as-one.html

Harrison Bergeron - by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)

"THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."


http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html

True Names - the novel by Vernor Vinge

"The story is a marvelous mixture of hard-science SF and sword-and-sorcery imagery. Vinge posits that in a direct neurocybernetic interface, the information would be analogized by the brain into symbols it is comfortable with. The "place" in which the Coven "meets," for example, is or seems to be a castle, guarded by a program which manifests itself as a firebreathing dragon, sitting in a magma moat, wearing an asbestos T-shirt. Fail to satisfy it, and it will "kill" you, dumping you back into the real world--a fate most Wizards seem to regard as very little better than death.

http://home.comcast.net/%7Ekngjon/truename/truename.html

The Last Question - by Isaac Asimov

This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written. After all, I undertook to tell several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won't tell you what that was lest l spoil the story for you. It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything -- and I'm satisfied that it should.

-- Isaac Asimov

http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

The Machine Stops- EM Forster

Anybody who uses the Internet should read E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops. It is a chilling, short story masterpiece about the role of technology in our lives. Written in 1909, it's as relevant today as the day it was published. Forster has several prescient notions including instant messages (email!) and cinematophotes (machines that project visual images).

http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html