Feel the shake? Hear the roar? Horrorquake is here!

Get ready for Halloween!

Available for purchase today!

Click to watch the Horrorquake trailer

 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF ANOMALOUS WEATHER, SOMETHING PROWLS

Up north, a snowstorm of unprecedented ferocity descends upon Zukunft Falls, Montana, and the nearby Enchanted Point Ski Resort. Within the blinding whiteness created by the storm, something even more ferocious hunts the refugees as they seek shelter from the raging winds and plummeting temperatures.

UNDER THE RISING FLOODWATERS, SOMETHING LURKS

Meanwhile, down south, a storm system forms off the coast of Florida with a speed that defies nature. The Governor quickly rescinds her evacuation order and advises citizens to shelter in place and ride out the storm. But homes and businesses are disappearing, being deconstructed around the terrified residents until they are forced into the open to become potential prey to something from which even the state's most feared predators flee.

BENEATH THE ENDLESS DESERT SAND, SOMETHING HUNGERS

Deep in the Mojave wilderness of eastern California, an unlikely group of people—a vacationing family, a traveling coed, a truck driver, a cop and a convict, a preacher, and some bewildered locals—join together to survive the desolate desert as violent tremors increase in frequency and ferocity. Something stalks them from beneath the sand, threatening to swallow any one of them whole. Who will survive the terror of…

HORRORQUAKE

 A little teaser for the newest entry into the Tempests of Terror series. Coming soon!

Sunshine State Book Festival

 I had a great time last weekend at the Sunshine State Book Festival. It was my first time with a booth at an event like this. It was both a learning experience as a participant and an interesting time as an observer. For the first time since I started getting published, I felt like I was a part of the greater community of writers. There is a genuine camaraderie of fellow creatives that has its own kind of energy. Like a jolt of electricity, this first experience dipping my toe in the festival circuit has whetted my appetite for more. Armed with great advice and a little more insight into the process, I look forward to participating in another event!

The festival banner:

My booth:

Some books from fellow authors I picked up (and so should you!):

Horroricane review

 Always nice to get a great review!

Review of Horroricane

The Infinite Minute

Growing up, my mom, my sisters, and I would often dive into the same series of books. Various YA series were a staple in our rotation: the Twilight series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Artemis Fowl, and the incomparable Harry Potter series. Someone else was always around to share the joy and revelations of a particular series. I'm thrilled to have a book published that I think my sisters will enjoy and that Mom would've loved. Our book club isn't as big as it used to be with Mom gone, but somewhere out there in the Wider World, maybe she's picking up my book with the same excitement of something new to read. Something different. It's a world where time is broken into bits and fits back together in odd-shaped ways, where maybe up north, it's still home. Perhaps it's 2005, and the family book club still has our favorite member. Because the past is the present is the future. For ever.

 

 The Infinite Minute by Edward Newton

Horroricane trailer

 Fun little trailer for Horroricane to set the mood.

The Horroricane is here.

 

To celebrate the release of Horroricane, please enjoy a free short story as a forecast of what's to come...

"Blue" (a short story)

And then please pick up a copy of the novel Horroricane by Edward Newton

There's a Storm on the Horizon...

 Coming soon...

Get more information about Horroricane by Edward Newton

A Season for Horror...

Hello all! Happy Halloween! 

First a fun announcement! I've signed on to Grinning Skull Press to publish a sequel to my horror novel! Coming soon...Horroricane! 

Now I thought I'd post a few recommendations for some spooky reading if you're in the holiday mood.

Getting colder. Colder. Frightfully cold! Horrorfrost by Eddie Newton.

Fellow NSP author can a supernatural frightfest in The Vampire's Witch by Damian Serbu.

Just gotta love this awesome ominous cover for Immortal Things by Rick R. Reed.

Speaking of scary, summoning evil ought to be left to the professionals...like politicians. Check out what happens to the amateurs in J.P. Jackson's Summoned.

And if reading isn't your fright, then try an audiobook tonight! The Reunion by M.D. Neu.

What's Your Tribe?

I'd like to thank M.D. Neu for inviting me to make a top ten list! I was a sucker for American Top 40 back in the day.

I still have my list of all-time favorite movies. So any excuse to start ranking something and I'm in! 

 

Check it out here:

What's Your Tribe?

Truth to Light Prelude

 before i

 

She had to go back to Academy. The tragedy had given her an excuse for many these long months, but she couldn’t avoid school forever. Mounting pressure had forced her father to exert what little control he had left over his sixteen-year-old daughter, and here she was back in class. She wasn’t ready for this, but time kept moving forward despite her world standing still.

Emilie Mondragon made it to lunchtime. She scurried away at the first opportunity and found a remote retreat away from the rest of the class. They’d spent the whole morning on a field trip along the Tigris River as Professor Deshpande reviewed the history of the earliest civilizations. The lesson had provided Emilie with none of the knowledge she needed to achieve her objective. She needed specific information to enact her revenge. Lollygagging along the Tigris was for children and teachers.

Emilie nibbled at the sandwich she’d made for herself. She’d had to learn how to do everything on her own the last few months. Her father wasn’t well enough to even make her a simple lunch. If supporting yourself and becoming independent at sixteen would’ve qualified for some Academy credits, Emilie would be ready to graduate. She’d suffered a lifetime of experiences over the last year. She could probably teach Professor Deshpande a thing or two.

“Well, look at this,” came a voice from behind Emilie. “It’s the spooky girl.”

Emilie had missed so much Academy the last many months that she hadn’t been able to rejoin her old class. She was essentially held back to the group a year behind her. The students were all strangers. Two of them somehow found her in this remote alcove along the wooded area downriver where Emilie had found a little respite.

“Leave me alone,” Emilie said.

They called her spooky because she had a hooded cloak that she never removed. Her face was hidden within the shadows and the dark robe concealed her true shape. She looked like a mage from some sword and sorcery movie. But Emilie was certainly no magician. She despised sorcery.

How fateful, then, that the boy taunting her now wore a black top hat and pristine matching tuxedo, a blue cummerbund as dark as an ominous thunderhead. He carried a wand made of metal, more tooth fairy than Harry Potter. It even had a tip at the end in the shape of a small star with a sharp edge on each of the five points. The wand was polished to a shining silver sheen.

“She wants us to leave her alone, Ich,” the Magi said, waving his wand like he was weaving a spell.

“It’s a free world, Pyrros,” the other student said. Ichika was the smartest girl in class. Her head was twice as big as Pyrros’s noggin. Her hair was wild, sticking out like a fluffy troll doll and as gray as Emilie’s grandfather’s had been before—

“It’s also a wide world,” Emilie grumbled. “Go find somewhere else to be free.”

“A new girl doesn’t get to dictate the rules, spooky,” Pyrros taunted. “Maybe we’ll follow you around all day.”

“I don’t think I can stand the stink of Magi much longer,” Emilie said.

The teenage boy glared at Emilie. He was blonde and pretty and the scowl only made him appear even more like some hero out of Greek myth. “How about you let me see what’s under that hood and I leave you alone for the rest of the day?”

“How about you leave me alone for the rest of the day and I don’t stick that wand right up your—”

“Hey,” Ichika interrupted. “You don’t talk to him that way!”

Emilie found the girl’s reaction interesting. Did Professor Deshpande know one of his students had a crush on another? Genius girl hearts Magi boy. Did they know how dangerous such affection could be? Emilie knew full well what happened when forbidden love goes awry. She had the scars to prove it.

Pyrros pointed his wand at Emilie. With a flick of his wrist, her hood magically flipped back and revealed her face. Both the other students stepped back and hissed at the sight of her. Emilie quickly grabbed the hem of her hood and yanked it back up. But it was too late. Both her tormentors had gotten a good look.

“Sheesh,” Ichiki said. “Were you in some kind of a fire or something?”

“Something,” Emilie answered.

“Did someone do that to you?” the Genius asked.

“I didn’t do it to myself,” Emilie snapped. “You ask foolish questions for someone who’s supposed to be so smart.”

Pyrros had recovered from the sight of Emilie’s face and stepped forward to defend Ichiki. “I know, I know. ‘You should see the other guy’, right?” 

The other guy had been a Magi.

Emilie pulled an item from under her heavy cloak. She wore a utility belt with a dozen pouches around her waist. They could perform all sorts of functions. The item pinched between her fingers was dander from a yeti mixed with a single unicorn tear. She put the smidgen of secret science against her lips and blew the dust toward the two unruly students.

Rainbow frost instantly chilled the two taunting teens. They both started shivering uncontrollably, the temperature plunging dangerously near frostbite in a manner of moments. Pyrros dropped his wand and rubbed his arms. Ichiki started rummaging through her rucksack for some technological device to counteract Emilie’s attack. She pulled out something resembling a curling iron and the tip started to glow a warm orange. They managed to defrost before hypothermia set in.

“Y-y-you just might get expelled f-f-for that!” Pyrros warned. 

“You’re right,” Emilie acknowledged as she bent down to pick up the Magi’s wand. “I can’t chance ‘might’.” 

Emilie stabbed him in the arm with the sharp point of his wand. Pyrros cried out loudly in pain. The injury was merely a flesh wound, but he was going to bleed a bit. Professor Deshpande would rush in here any moment. Emilie leaned forward close enough that Pyrros could see her face within the shadows of the hood.

“You asked about the other guy...,” Emilie hissed. “He looks blonde and pretty and unscathed right now. But just wait. Soon, he’ll wish he looked like me instead.”

Emilie was about to get expelled. That was okay. She’d wanted that all along. Her return to Academy had always been meant to be short-lived. Pyrros had given her the push. He’d given her a lesson she hadn’t expected to receive. She realized she was ready for the next step. Emilie was ready to move forward. To seek revenge.

She thought to herself: Time to call Sofía.

 

Truth to Light Amazon

Truth to Light NineStar

 

 

The Little Red Bookmobile

 The Bookmobile

 

Someday, maybe the library will go the way of rotary phones and VCRs… We already carry a virtual library in our pocket. A mobile library. Now add some wheels onto that library and paint it sweet cherry red…you’d have yourself a bookmobile!

Some guys might want a new mustang or a vintage Ford Fairlane, but as a kid I’d have traded either one for a chance to cruise around town in the Kidder County Bookmobile. The only ladies I might've impressed are Elizabeth Bennet or Scout Finch. Probably a muffler backfire rather than the rev of the engine. No pine tree would've been hanging off my rearview mirror—I'd have wanted the full effect of the pungent smell of all those musty pages.

I remember the ceremonial march to the little red truck full of boundless treasure. Come snow or sunshine, we’d go in small groups down the sidewalk from the school to the truck parked at the end. I’d ascend the steps into the mobile world of fantasy that could travel beyond the brick walls of the stationary school library. It was like visiting a foreign country where the settings were exotic and the language was just a little different and there were even more crazy characters than back home.

It was a different world back then. I was probably too young to be reading a Stephen King novel when I opened my first one. Mom hadn’t ever read It or she’d have never let me get to the end at the age I started exploring Derry, Maine. I still remember the delectable anticipation of picking the few books to borrow until the next time the ol’ mobile library came to town.

From time to time, I think back to that bookish boy in the bright red bookmobile, surrounded by books that could take me anywhere in a box van that could take me anywhere. The best of both worlds—I’ve traveled a lot since then, in both a van and in many more books.

I kept that younger me in mind when developing my new fantasy world that starts in Truth to Light. No curse words or tawdry scenes. No clowns in the sewer. No clowns at all. I think if Mom would’ve caught me reading this one, she’d have called dibs on being the next reader in line. I made it accessible enough for any kid who maybe isn’t quite ready for Pennywise while still opening eyes to a world beyond the boring old library on their phones.

Because a real library has wheels, baby.

Truth to Light

Journey and the Storyteller: The Second Tale

 Journey and the Storyteller

 The Second Tale

Journey and the Storyteller lived far away from anyone and everyone. The Storyteller was Journey’s teacher, mentor, friend. Everything Journey was could be attributed to the Storyteller.

Once upon a time, the Storyteller found Journey and asked if he wanted to learn the meaning of life. Journey felt a rush of pride that his mentor had thought his knowledge already so advanced they were skipping right to the biggest lesson of all.

“Of course,” Journey said. “The answer everyone is looking for.”

“Yes,” the Storyteller agreed. “Let us consult the greatest minds in all the realm.”

They travelled far away to the city of scholars and the Storyteller arranged to meet with the four wisest entities in all existence: a roach, an elephant, a fox, and a tree. 

The cockroach perched on a large boulder and gave Journey its answer: “I know the meaning of life as I’ve survived the ravages of war and the hardships of drought. The meaning of life is to surmount.”

Journey nodded.

The elephant stood with perfect posture and gazed upon Journey with imminent intelligence: “I know the meaning of life as I remember all that has passed. I have gained perspective by seeing how events interconnect. The meaning of life is community.”

Journey nodded.

The fox dismissed his two contemporaries and favored Journey a wise wink: “I know the meaning of life because I’m not fooled by academic claptrap. I’m clever enough to see the value of fun. The meaning of life is zest.”

Journey nodded.

Then the Storyteller presented the tree. The great oak just stood still and silent, as a tree could not talk. Journey and the Storyteller gave equal time to the tree and then departed, starting their long walk back home.

“Which of the wise entities was correct in their summation of the meaning of life, my boy?” 

“Was any one closer to truth than the other?” Journey asked.

“One is always closer to truth than another,” the Storyteller answered. “The tree was wisest.”

“But the tree didn’t give any answer,” Journey said.  

“Exactly. Because there isn’t an answer, my boy. It’s always better to remain silent than to guess foolishly.” 

Journey and the Storyteller: The First Tale

 Journey and the Storyteller

 The First Tale

Journey and the Storyteller lived far away from anyone and everyone. The Storyteller was Journey’s teacher, mentor, friend. Everything Journey was could be attributed to the Storyteller.

Once upon a time, the Storyteller found Journey and asked if he wanted to go fishing. Journey was always eager to learn new things and had never fished before. He eagerly tagged along. 

The Storyteller always had a lesson to go along with every event, so Journey asked, “What will we learn today?”

“Well,” said the Storyteller, “fishing for rabbits is very different from fishing for fish.”

“Rabbits?” Journey asked with a gulp.

“Certainly. It’s rabbit season, my boy.”

“I don’t know about fishing for rabbits,” Journey said.

“Fishing for fish is too mundane. Everyone fishes for fish. Very expected. Very droll. If I’ve taught you anything in all our time together, you should always endeavor to achieve the extraordinary. The idea of fishing for fish...” The Storyteller yawned for effect.

They arrived at a small pond surrounded by a lush green lawn. A grassy knoll overlooked the water. Journey and the Storyteller surveyed the little lake. Journey could see wet cottontails pop out of the surface here and there, a pair of soggy ears break the surface now and again, and even one or two small bunnies leap from the surface of the pond before diving back down. Journey pictured the cute little fluffy animals all over beneath the placid surface.

“This will be extraordinary,” the Storyteller exclaimed.

The Storyteller baited a big hook with a juicy carrot more orange than the ripest pumpkin. He cast the line out far into the middle of the pond. He handed Journey another vegetable and the boy did the same. Journey cast his line as well. Then they waited for a bite.

Journey imagined the hook catching between cute bunny buckteeth. Or the sharp edge poking on the puff of a cottontail. Or snagging one pink little nose. Or piercing a long rabbit ear. Journey shuddered.

Then the line grew taut. Something snatched the end of Journey’s line. He held tight, although he really wanted to let go. What horrors awaited him at the other end? He reeled his catch in. The submerged prey struggled beneath the surface. Journey imagined a cute fluffy critter with a hook lodged in its throat.

With a mighty yank, Journey pulled the catch from the pond. Dangling at the end of the line was a fish, flapping, scaly and slippery and perfectly plain. Just a fish. Only a fish.

The Storyteller grinned proudly. There had been a lesson in their activity after all. The Storyteller gave him the insight as they walked home with supper in their pail:

“Always expect the extraordinary—that way you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the mundane.”

Everyone has a Story

 

Everyone has a story. Just ask. They’ll gladly tell you.

Sometimes the problem with any tale is in the perspective. We live life in the first person. The internal thoughts and emotions of our own private tale dictates the drama as it unfolds in our everyday life. We see things from our point of view and it is unvaryingly the correct way to view events. We are always right in our own minds—the other guy cut me off in traffic, the sales clerk got my order wrong, the kids were ignoring me again, my wife didn’t remember to pay the water bill.

The perspective of the life is singular and unwavering. We are the hero of our own story. We might do wrong here and there, but we make excuses in our own internal narration. We justify every affront because we know in our heart it was a mistake or we are sorry or we can’t control it.

What if life was in the third person? How would some omniscient narrator tell your tale? 

Edward Newton left home today with a lot on his mind, forgetting his turn signal as he cut off the tan sedan in the Publix parking lot. He stopped for breakfast at the Dunkin drive-thru for a dark roast with heavy cream and ordered a latte without thinking. He got his latte and then complained to the manager that his order was wrong. Edward arrived home after a long day and told the kids to pick up their room while he checked emails and skimmed social media. Ten minutes later, he looked up from his phone and started yelling at the kids because their rooms were still a mess. One email was about the water bill being late, and Edward grumbled under his breath even though his wife had asked him to remind her a week ago.

Third person or first person? How different is your life if someone else was telling your tale?

The Story in Pictures

 As I’ve covered in my blogs, I think that fiction and facts are separated only by BELIEF.   We choose the science that we want to use to justify our opinions—we choose the numbers to support our arguments—we choose what side of history upon which to dwell.  Never has that been more apparent than when we change between CNN fables and FoxNews fairytales. 

So when I look back at my youth, I think about where I learned the most lasting truths that I still believe in.  I give thanks to my Mom, for teaching me to read before I even went to school.  I give thanks to Ms. Alfson for Shakespeare (who conveys more truth than any pile of encyclopedias).  

I give thanks to Grandma, who gave me a stack of comics to take home every so often.

Those comics were my first true love.  Full of life and imagination and excitement and insights.  Characters and comedy and drama.  Science and geography and literature.  And so the newsprint pages and glossy covers stoked my imagination—my love for adventure—my appreciation for a world that isn’t black and white.  

Comics showed me a new way to see a reality beyond the very limited experience out there on the farm where I grew up.  The X-Men were a diverse group of individuals that made up a family.  Spider-Man was just a nerdy kid who wanted to make the world a safer place.  The Flash was a young hero who made mistakes and then tried to do better the next time. 

These heroes used science, traveled the world, and skipped through history.  As often as not when I recited some knowledge that was beyond my years and someone asked me, “Where did you learn that?”, the answer had come from that stack of comics.  As an English major, Watchman changed my idea of what literature could be.  As a kid, it was Batman and Wonder Woman who showed me what the whole world could be.  

The world was full of color.

And so the adventure continues.  From outer space escapades with the Green Lanterns to underwater exploration with Aquaman and every Justice League sojourn into the imagination, I learned about the real world, too.  I found that there isn’t much difference between what you learn in Metropolis and you do in any American metropolis.  

I learned that there were very different ways to see the world, but maybe we all didn’t see the world so differently.  Everyone believes in something.  And believing is what we all have in common.

It was a gift that shaped my everything.  And I don’t even think she realized it when she sent that bespectacled boy home with a fresh, colorful stack.

Thanks, Grandma.

The Story Never Changes

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  Shakespeare was talking about “life” in Macbeth, but that’s because he didn’t have social media in the seventeenth century.

The election is over (or is it?).  As always, it depends on the telling.

Social media has become a vomitous stream of nothingness.  Opinions fly this way and that like bothersome gnats that are swatted and promptly ignored.  Sometimes one comment or post might bite and itch for a while, but you scratch a couple of times and it fades.  But nothing changes.  Society screams out into the void and the void ignores.  Not even an echo.

For the last four years (maybe longer, but the last four years seems like a reality unto its own), I have watched Trump supporters attack the left and Trump-haters belittle the right.  Names were called.  Insults were hurled.  Arguments were made.  By the billions.  And not one mind was changed during the course of that avalanche of babbling and bickering. 

Not.  One.  Mind.

Yet it goes on.  Drones on.  “I’m always right and you’re always wrong.”  “I’m always smart and you’re always dumb.”  “I always know and you’ll never learn.”  Half the world thinks those on the Red side are a bunch of idiots.  The other side thinks those on the Blue half of America are a bunch of idiots.

I think they’re both right.

So take some time to read a post on social media and reserve comment.  The author is regurgitating misinformation and outright fallacy.  They don’t know what they’re talking about.  It’s just a story, full of fiction and drama and fantasy.  The person writing the tale is an idiot.  But before you reply with certain wit and scathing “facts”, remember, so are you.

We all tell our tales.

And that, friends and foes alike, is my tale, full of sound and fury.  

And nothing.

The Story of Science

When I was young, I was as interested in hard science as I was literature.  That was when I used to believe there was a difference between concrete information and interpretative narration.  As I grow older, I wonder if Physics and Chemistry are just tales told without characters, a series of information without a protagonist to give context.  

Freytag’s model details drama as breaking down into Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and the Denouement.  Consider the science of Medicine and a visit to a doctor’s office.  The Doc enters.  “How are you feeling?” acts as the Exposition.  The symptoms, the next worse than the one before, are the Rising Action.  The Climax comes from the dire diagnosis: something terrible is killing you.  The Falling Action might involve tears or a solemn phone call to your loved ones.  The Denouement is whatever course of treatment is prescribed.  The doctor told you a story and created a catastrophe. 

Doctors give you list of information and come to a conclusion.  But the story is sometimes wrong.  The scientists and experts just guess based on whatever information is at hand.  Or whatever agenda leads to the desired conclusion.  They tell the story they want to tell.  Data may be spun into a fantastic yarn or dumbed down into a ho-hum bedtime story.  

The evidence of facts as just more fiction are evident everywhere.  Explore cable news or online sites and check ten different talking heads on ten different channels.  Same data, different conclusions.  Same genre, different stories.  Science as unsolid as a gaseous state, someone trying to turn it solid by virtue of the way the story is told.

The world is changing.  There are experts everywhere, one for anyone.  You can always find someone who might write a story with an ending that you like.  But like a Doc’s diagnosis of dire destiny, I always recommend a second opinion.  Maybe one that has an ending different from the one you expect.

The Story is Fiction

High on any list of nonsense words ought to be “nonfiction”.

There really is no such thing as “nonfiction”.  Even medical journals and scientific papers are just conclusion based upon hypotheses.  Stories borne out of conclusions based on study and information.  A meteorologist gives a story of tomorrow’s weather based upon information and turns it into a (oftentimes farcical) narrative.  We understand that science is not the same as nonfiction.  But a doctor gives an opinion based upon information and everyone takes it as fact.  We like to believe in hard truths, but really the hard part is to accept that everything we experience is just a story that someone is telling us.

Recently, I asked a few people to name three timeless “nonfiction” books—it’s harder than it seems.  Even prominent works like A Brief History of Time is fiction—information as interpreted by Stephen Hawking.  His speculation is based on information.  As nonfiction as The Shining. 

Biographies, autobiographies, technical manuals.  None truer than a Shakespearean tragedy.  The histories of the Bard take details of the lives of kings such as Richard III and Henry VIII to play out as high drama.  The result?  A timeless lesson on conflict and power that has survived for four hundred years.

So what relationship “nonfiction” self-help book will survive the test of time like Romeo and Juliet?  What episode of Oprah will still speak to relationships in four centuries like Much Ado About Nothing?  Fiction gets to the heart of the matter, whereas folks telling facts fail in the interpretation.  Because the real story is always the human one, how we react to the world and how it changes around us.  What does a novel like To Kill a Mockingbird say about human nature that a hundred studies on race relations fail to report?  What insight does Pride and Prejudice give us into social norms and relationships between people in the 19th century?  Fiction gives the human story behind the mutable information, and that is a truth that is truly timeless.

            

The Story in Fourteen Words

“It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

Just a few words thrown into the wind to be plucked and pruned.  What new meaning can be construed by a limited bunch of letters?  Information in limited form can be given new beginnings, new endings, or made into something it never was.  Either side can make it mean opposite things depending on agenda and experience.

A story is more than just the last line of the novel.  The whole tale cannot be contained in a random passage plucked from the middle.  An ominous beginning may lead to a brighter end.  The story is more than one single chapter.  More than one paragraph or an especially interesting quote.  The story needs context, history, nuance, mystery.  Don’t believe you can know the whole story by just a few words.

Lately, we are given just a few words of the story.  A single picture from an extended video or a few words from a long speech or a sampling of data without regard to relation or method.  New stories form from this nucleus, and may be something entirely unrelated to the original intent or its actual genesis.  Too often, the story is construed into something fantastical from very limited information. 

“It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” In Catcher in the Rye, what did those last words by J.D. Salinger’s convey about the whole story?  Fourteen people would take those fourteen words and tell fourteen different tales.  We cannot know a novel by its end, nor a whole story by just a few words, nor glean truth from snippets.  The world has been rendered soundbites and memes, a whole fiction based upon just a few random bits of information.

As always, I challenge us to ask questions.  Doubt before deciding.  Wonder instead of settling on a set story.  Don’t believe that you know the whole story by just skipping to the ending . . .