Story Gallery
Multiple-episode Stories
Night Rider to Truckee
Featured story: December 2020
It is a miserably hot day in August, and Bicycle Guy gets off the train, telling everyone he intends to ride all night up to Truckee to play a gig with the rock legend, Crooked Leg Anderson.
So the mystery begins. . .
Two chapters and a song, “Cold Winds Across the Plains” by Ethan James.
On Commuter Bus # 73-A
Featured story: August 2020
Many contemporary hi-tech employees ride express commuter buses daily to and from their work sites. Larry Connors is just one of the many. He is a numbers guy, a veritable filing cabinet for numbers, whose speciality is making fiscal projections, doing benefit analyses, and generating cost-to-price determinations.
Unfortunately, Larry is also a “quasi social isolate” who stares at his own shoes to avoid eye contact with others. As the story begins, Larry’s personal life has been reduced to doing his laundry, playing with his dog, and watching old movies on television.
One morning, when he boards his usual commuter bus, everything changes. He is no longer who he is. He is now living another’s life and he is a stranger in his own body.
Revised: 5/2022
Thirteen chapters
Regarding a Murder
Murder investigation
A private investigator revisits an old murder, one that impacted him directly.
“It was November 18, 1947. I had just turned eight and was in the Third Grade at Wayside Elementary School in the southern edge of Bakersfield.
Every day, my younger brother and I walked the three-quarters of a mile from our house in the Southgate area to the school. To avoid walking along the busy Casa Loma Highway, we crossed the irrigation canal on a narrow cement bridge, a hundred yards south of the Highway. It was near there that the grisly event occurred.
A kindergartener, a five-year-old girl was murdered the night before, battered innumerable times, the radio said, with a hammer.”
Two chapters
Souvenirs I Still Cherish --- Helen Stanberry’s Story
Feature story: September 2020
The young couple had just arrived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina from California to teach at the University. They sought property with “character” and with land. They were still amazed by a place with so many trees. They fell in love with the large frame house with its towering trees and historic barn. In the barn, they found a collection of old souvenirs and a box of historic postcards. One of the postcards had a message — “mailed package of my souvenirs, hope they arrive safely, Love Helen.” As the young wife looked through the postcards and soubenirs, she wondered, “Who was Helen?”
Five chapters
Rubber Stamps
Featured story: January 2021
Jody Cairns Hart has recently retired as the Chief Technology Officer for a state agency. In this personal story, she tells how three (now older) technologies directly impacted her own mother’s life. As she tells her personal story, she shares insights into what she calls a “philosophy of technology” exploring the meaning and direction of technological change.
Two chapters
Dry Wheat Stubble
From the SWIRLS Collection
Featured story: April 2021
Beckie Blake was the kind of woman who married for life. Her strong religious faith only solidified her determination. She was married for life with three wonderful sons, and the most perfect husband. Then, one phone call changed everything.
“Mrs. Beckie Blake, I am Lisa Paternino and I am in love with your stud husband. He loves me too. So, we’re going to get married. He’s going to divorce you, so he can be all mine. He has such a great body. So warm. So sexy. I just love it when he touches me . . . .”
Six Chapters
Martin, A Work of Philosophical Fiction
From the Swirls Collection
Featured story: August 2021
This fictionalized love story is based, in large part, on the romantic relationship between the political theorist and devoted Zionist Hannah Arendt and her university professor, the noted German philosopher (and avowed Nazi) Martin Heidegger.
Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism remains a major work of 20th Century political thought.
Heidegger’s seminal work, Being and Time, is often credited as the origin for modern existentialism.
Arendt met Heidegger when she was seventeen and he was thirty-five.
Two chapters
Single Episode Audio Stories
Concerning Evil
Focus Series
Jonas Chartogaro is a senior government polygraph examiner with over 25 years of experience. He was also a former New York police officer. He interviews historical figures looking for the truth and uncovering lies.
Queen of Lies, Queen of Spies —
Miss Elizabeth Bentley
Dead Defector —
KGB General Walter Krivitsky
Magnetic Woman
Juliet Stuart Poyntz
Interview with Leopld Trepper
Psychiatrist
Shoe-Makers and Raincoats
Interview with Leopold Trepper
Focus Series
Stories from Nell Trustmon’s western magazine, Broken Tree Tales
Alligator
He Done Her Wrong
Lying for Fun and Profit
Call Her Amanda
Chruch-going Horses
Gambler’s Boots
Miss Julia
Nell Trustmon’s Biography
Focus Series
City of 4,000 Spies
Beast
I am JooN-ie
Information is Expensive
The Mineral of Information
The Trip Home
Big Chief
Coming soon.