Short Story Contests

Baby Boomers Plus 2019 submissions are open. The deadline is June 15.  Stories may be about any topic. Tell us about an experience growing up, or use the experience gained from being a Baby Boomer and tell us a story. Part of the fun of this series is seeing what the baby boomers choose to write about and how they handle the topics.

Submissions are open for Sightseer Saga. We are asking for stories about your travels. You know, the time you drove down the pedestrian path in Luxembourg because you couldn’t read the sign – oh wait that was one of us, but we know you have stories too. You define what travel means to you. First class or backpacker, local, domestic or international, it doesn’t matter we want to see them all! Give us straight facts or embellish the story a bit. Just make sure you entertain us. This contest will be a little different. We are not going to set a deadline. We will accept submissions until we have 100 entries.

Musically Literate: A Music And Literature Gathering

R.T. Kilgore is having a reading and signing of ‘The Historical Chronicles of Elinor  Sturgeon and the Last Human  Colony’ at Bookwoman in Austin. It will be April 30th @ 7pm.

She is also co-hosting Musically Literate: A Music and Literature Gathering at Barracuda Austin‎. The event features R.T. Kilgore and other local talent. The doors open at 1:30, her reading is at 2:00. You can say you are coming on the Facebook page.

Past short story editors

Some of our short story authors have published books after having their stories published in our Stories Through The Ages series:

Kyandreia Jones, whose story ‘At Home’ was in our College Edition 2017  has published a children’s book called ‘Choose Your Own Adventure Spies: James Armistead Lafayette’ it can be found on Amazon.

Laura Boldin-Fournier, whose story ‘Trial by Water’ was in Baby Boomers Plus 2018 has published a children’s book called ‘An Orangutan’s Night Before Christmas’. You can see her YouTube video here.

Susan Lowell, whose story ‘Ironwork’ was in Baby Boomers Plus 2017 has a story collection “Two Desperados” which has won the George Garrett Fiction Award. The collection will be published by Texas Review Press this year. We will provide a link on our website when it is available.

Compliments by Dan Peavler

Living Springs Publishers recently asked for and received many testimonials from authors of our Stories Through the Ages books. The response was tremendous. Reading the testimonials triggered my memory back to 1970 when I was playing basketball for Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado.

On a very cold night our basketball team was playing in Kearney, Nebraska. Surprisingly there were many fans at the game despite the snowy conditions. That night I played the best game of my college career. I felt energized and played as hard as I could the entire game. The rebounds seemed to bounce my way and most of my shots found the bottom of the net. 

After the game ended I followed my coach towards the locker room. An older man in bib overhauls stopped in front of us and extended his hand. 

“I really appreciate your effort tonight,” he stated, shaking my hand. “Your shooting was fun to watch. Glad to have come out in this storm to watch the game.”

I lowered my head and said, “I was just lucky tonight.” 

I followed coach into the locker room as the man left down the hallway. The moment we entered the locker room coach turned around and looked me straight in the eyes.

“Don’t ever respond to a compliment like that again. The time that man took to seek you out is not meaningless,” he said very firmly. “Right now you don’t understand how far and in between true compliments will be in your life. You should have looked that man in the eyes and thanked him. There are many positive possibilities you miss from downplaying compliments.”

I never deflected a compliment again. Which brings me back to Living Springs Publishers response to the testimonials. We thank all of the authors for taking the time and effort for the sincere compliments. We realize how fortunate we are to have partnered with you in creating these wonderful books.

THE SPHINX:  by Henry Peavler

 I just finished Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims Progress and it triggered a whole slew of blog topics in my mind, including censorship and political correctness. Some of his descriptions of the native people of the Arab countries would be banned in certain places today. But, on the other hand, it would be required reading in other places. The whole issue of censorship is a sore point with me, believing, as I do, that I should be able to write whatever I want—it’s my prerogative as a citizen of this great country—like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press. So why does the Gestapo division of my publishing company constantly tell me ‘that is inappropriate’ or ‘you can’t say that’.  Censorship my friends! But, I digress, because that isn’t what I wanted to say about The Innocents Abroad.

Twain’s dramatic description of the Sphinx triggered a memory of a time in 1955. Mrs. Roper had invited the parents to visit us after school for a special program about what we were studying at the time.

We students were abuzz with excitement as we helped prepare for the festivities. Mrs. Roper spread a large sheet of white butcher paper on the wall. She stretched it from the blackboard to the window. I was ablaze with curiosity. Then she summoned Mary Jean Larson, Peggy Burrell and Shirley Lipscomb. They huddled near the butcher paper then began sketching and putting colored string on the paper leading to pages from the National Geographic. Oh, I was dying to get into the fray, but we were given strict orders to focus on our work assignment, until called, and not look at what the girls were doing. Well, that was like a direct order to do just the opposite, so we all hunkered down toward the desk, looking at our books with one eye and the butcher paper with the other.

Out of the blue, Mrs. Roper called me to the project and explained what it was. A depiction of the Nile River from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Pyramids. We had been studying geography, not my favorite subject, so it came as a bit of a surprise. The possibility exists that I hadn’t been paying attention during the lessons. I was summoned not because of my geography skills, but because I could free-hand draw. It was my exalted task to draw the Great Sphinx of Giza.

I strutted back to my desk to retrieve pencil and eraser. Kenny and Ron glared at me out of one eye. I don’t even want to comment on the ugly look I received from Mary Jean Larson who was assigned to draw the pyramids, a simple draftsman–she used a ruler. I was an artist.

With face contorted in concentration, I set to it. After sketching with pencil, I filled in with ink. When complete, Mrs. Roper couldn’t heap enough praise on my shoulders. I blew up with so much pride, I fairly floated out to recess. I thought about shooting marbles, but my mind was still a swirl with Mrs. Roper’s cries of adulation. I couldn’t stand it, I had to go back inside and gaze at my creation. As I stood admiring the masterpiece, a marvelous idea suddenly flooded through my body like electricity. I would draw Sphinx’s from Cairo to Alexandria. I even turned one backward so he could gaze out into the desert protecting the citizens from angry hordes of Bedouin’s charging through the sand. I finished just as my classmates filed back from recess.

 I could see the admiration in their eyes as they observed the marvelous display of art that I had created. Mrs. Roper crumbled into a chair, overcome with emotion. Mary Jean Larson had to bring her a glass of water. I was bursting with pride until the moment she regained her senses and shouted, “There’s only one, in the whole world, Henry, haven’t you been listening?” 

The possibility exists that I wasn’t!

Release of The Historical Chronicles of Elinor Sturgeon and the Last Human Colony – Volume I Living Springs Publishers is pleased to announce the debut publication of a new, exciting science fiction novel by R.T. Kilgore. This is the first in a series. The author is an English Literature teacher at Leander High School in Leander, Texas. She has a degree in Victorian Literature from the University of Iowa.

For information on the book contact us, or you can reach the author through her website..

“The Historical Chronicles of Elinor Sturgeon and the Last Human Colony ” can be found on Amazon or the paperback ordered through our website. If you purchase the book from Amazon, please leave a review – this will help make the book easier for others to find.

Testimonials

We put out a call for testimonials from all of the authors in our “Stories Through The Ages” books. We were very pleased to receive eleven very quickly, with promises of more to come. Treating people fairly and honestly is a hallmark of Living Springs Publishers. It is gratifying  to hear that we have been successful. You can read the testimonials on our website.

Contests

Our Generations Plus 2019 and Baby Boomers Plus 2019 contests are under way.  The deadline for Generations Plus is April 15, 2019  and the deadline for Baby Boomers Plus is June 15, 2019. Make sure to get you entries in.

We have decided to start a new contest called Sightseer Saga. This contest will be slightly different than our other contests. It will have a theme of Travel, although we will leave the interpretation of what travel means to the writer. Instead of having a set deadline we will close submissions after a predetermined number of entries are received.  Stay tuned for more information on this.
 

Books and flyers

If you are going to a writers workshop we would like to send books for door prizes or giveaways and flyers as hand outs. Email us and we can discuss the specifics. 

Publishing

Other than our books for our short story contests, we plan to publish one more book this year. We will be opening submissions in the near future.

Our South Dakota Adventure

by Dan Peavler

Living Springs Publishers has been fortunate to find a mother lode of very talented authors to participate in our "Stories Through The Ages" short story contests. These contests have provided many writers an avenue of acknowledgement for their hard work and creativity. We want to continue being a place where writers can write for a purpose. When my niece Emilee, Jacqueline's daughter, who has traveled extensively, mentioned that she very much enjoys reading stories about peoples travels, it piqued our interest. Everyone has a story about traveling, whether across the United States or overseas. 

Recently I thought I would test my theory about everyone having a story to tell. At a dinner party at our house I told my wife Helen that I would tell a travel story and that I bet at least two other people would tell a story of their own. Because one of the couples was from South Dakota I chose to tell a story our family experienced in that remote and beautiful state.

Helen grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota where many members of her family still reside. From the time our children were very small we would drive from our home in Littleton, Colorado to Minneapolis at least once a year. The summer after my youngest son Travis received his driving permit we took one such trip.

At the end of each visit with Helen's parents we would say our goodbyes the night before so we could get a very early start for home the next morning. Maggie, Helen's mom would always wake up and come outside in her night coat to see us off. She would bless our car and very quietly and secretively slip me a hundred dollar bill. This particular morning she slipped me the hundred dollars but forgot to bless our old Cadillac Seville.

We decided to take the trip back to Colorado by way of South Dakota. I drove from Minneapolis for several hours and then decided to let Travis drive for a while. He was excited and adjusted the mirrors and settled in to drive. I sat in the back seat with Helen, allowing my oldest son Jon to sit up front. After about forty five minutes of resting my eyes I felt the car jerk.

"Hey pop, I'm pushing on the gas pedal but nothing’s happening," Trav yelled, just as the transmission fumes filled my lungs.

"He's been driving it seventy miles an hour in low gear," screamed Jon.

I looked out the window and there was a big billboard asking "Having transmission problems? Mitchell, South Dakota one mile". The car was sputtering and barely moving. I told Trav to put on the hazard lights and take the exit to Mitchell. The transmission was completely shot as we rolled down the off ramp. As the car came to a complete stop I got out and moved to the front of the vehicle. An F250 pick-up truck came roaring by me, stopped and started backing up to our car. Out jumps a tiny woman with a huge cowboy hat.

"I smelled the transmission fluid a mile back," she stated. She threw her cowboy hat on the hood of our car and jumped into the bed of her pickup. She tossed a tow rope out the back of her truck, hopped out of her truck bed and grabbed the end of the tow rope. She then lay down on her back and shimmed under the car. Climbing out she brushed her butt off, hooked the other end of the tow rope to her truck, grabbed her cowboy hat and said, "put it in neutral, I know just where to take you."

She towed us to the front of a transmission shop. She repeated tossing her hat on the hood and shimmying under the car. When she climbed out from under with the tow rope in hand she was covered in dust. I finally had a chance to thank her and offer her money for towing us. She laughed, brushed herself off and said, "just like to help. You can trust these folks here, they won't steer you wrong." They didn't, the repairs were far more reasonable then I ever expected. It did take two days for the repair. We were given a loaner vehicle. 

For the next day and half we enjoyed the neighborly people of the sixth largest city in South Dakota, something we would have never done if not for car problems. Even with a population around 15,000 people there was a lot to do and see in Mitchell. Exploring the Corn Palace and Prehistoric Indian Village took up most of our waiting time. 

I thought often about the lady who helped us get the car to the repair shop. She was an exceptional person. Traveling is about cultural influences and exchange, learning first-hand about other people. It's about experiences, adventure and memories. 

After telling this story to our dinner guests I waited to see if anyone would tell a story. I wasn't disappointed. For the next hour three more stories were told - from Death Valley, to Las Vegas all the way to Boston. Everyone really does have a story to tell.

We at Living Springs Publishers hope to receive many stories of travel, real or imagined, not only from established authors but from first time writers. We know the ideas, creative thoughts and real life experiences exist. We hope this contest is successful because it will result in a very entertaining book of original stories. 

Bucket List of Books Henry E. Peavler

I was visiting with my old friend Mary Jean Larson the other day, as we are wont to do every few weeks and she made the comment that she felt sorry for people who don’t read. Well, I agreed with her and proceeded to tell her how I have the ability to read three books at a time and remember what page I’m on in each book. “That’s called multitasking,” I announced proudly,….”Hello, are you there?”

“Ok, first of all that’s not multitasking, that’s like uni-tasking multiple times. Multitasking is if you can watch television and read a book at the same time.”

“I don’t have a television.”

“That’s not the point,” she said, pointedly. Plus, that is not an ability that is an affliction.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Wouldn’t you agree that the conventional way is to read one book from start to finish?”

“I’m not conventional.”

“Point taken! But still.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what are the three books?”

“War and Remembrance” by Herman Wouk, page 528, “The Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain, page 158 and Truman Capote’s, “Other Voices, Other Rooms”, Page 3. 

“Page 3?”

“It’s in Spanish.”

“Let’s get back to the original question,” she said with a certain exasperation in her voice that I’ve noticed has gotten worse over the years. I hope it isn’t trouble between her and her wonderful husband, George.

I asked, “What was the original question?”

“I thought you could multitask.”

“Now see, Mary Jean, you’re the one with an affliction, you always think your right about everything.”

She made that exasperated sound again and said, “Don’t you feel sorry for people who don’t read?”

“I do, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

Suddenly she was excited, “Let’s compile a list of the top ten or twenty books a person should read before they die, like a bucket list of books and then you guys can print it on your Publishing Company website.”

“Ok, that’s a good idea, I’ll make the list and ask the Managing Partner if they’ll put it on the website.”

“Two things wrong with that statement. First, any list you make would be bogus, because you are….weirdly unconventional, kind of unaware….don’t interrupt….Second, the Managing Partner is your sister and I’ll just call her and ask her to do it.”

“Ok, Miss Know-it-all, what is your top ten list, No, what is your number one book that everyone should read?”

“You go first.”

“Well, I haven’t thought about it.”

“I’m busy the rest of the week. Call me on Saturday with your list in hand, top ten, and make sure they are written out so I can verify that you did it.”

Mary Jean Larson is very opinionated and egotistical and exasperating. Sometimes, I don’t know why I put up with her, but I did make my list and call as instructed. Here is a word for word transcript of that conversation.

She said, “What’s your first book.”

“You go first.”

Exasperated sigh, “Ok, my first book is Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’. 

“Ok, not bad, but I knew it. I knew it would be a female author.”

“Oh please, I’ll bet you don’t even have a female author on your list.”

“Do too.”

“Who?”

“Charlotte Bronte”

“I could have guessed, Jane Eyre, I’ll bet it’s number nine or ten. Nine out of ten are male. How typical of you.”

“I’m at a loss here, I don’t even know what to say.”

“Allright, what is your number one?”

“Ok, you are going to be so impressed when you hear this. My number one book that everyone should read is, ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’….Hello, Mary Jean, are you there?”

“You’ve got to be kidding. That book shouldn’t even be in the top ten.”

“Hey, there are no right or wrong answers here. Come on, move on to your second book. Jeeez!”

“Ok, Ok, my second book is, Julia Alvarez, ‘Return to Sender’….Henry are you there?”

“I’ve never heard of it. How can you have a top five book I’ve never heard of?”

“If we could only have books that you have heard of, we would still be stuck in the Victorian age, plus, I thought there were no right or wrong answers.”

“I’m only making a comment, Mary Jean, I don’t know why you have to be so argumentative. It proves my point that you always think you are right about everything.”

“Move on, Henry, what is your second book? I would like to spend some time with my family this weekend.”

“Ok, here you go, this is a good one, I know you’ll love it. Joseph Heller, ‘Catch-22’.”

“Predictable, I knew you’d pick that one or Kurt Vonnegut’s, Slaughterhouse-Five, which I’ll bet is next.”

“You think you know everything. What is your next book? I’ve got things to do.”

“Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’!

“Oh, puleeeze, you’ve never even read it.”

“I most certainly did, in English Lit, Arizona State University 1970.”

“Why didn’t I hear about it?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Henry. While you were partying in Boulder, I was studying and we didn’t exactly spend a lot of time talking about school when we were together. So what’s your third book?”

“Ummm….’The Brothers Karamazov’, Dostoevsky.”

“No!”

“What do you mean no?”

“You moved that up or just added it randomly to counter my Tolstoy.”

I hurriedly crossed out Vonnegut’s name at number 3 and wrote in Dostoevsky and said, “That is beneath you Mary Jean, to suspect me of that kind of childish behavior over a silly list. Now I suggest we move on. Where are we, I believe it is your turn number four.”

“George Eliot, Silas Marner.”

“And you accuse me of being lost in the Victorian Age. I’ll bet you have nine out of ten female authors on your list. You are so predictable. Ok, my number four is John Irving, ‘The World According to Garp’.”

“I thought ‘Setting Free the Bears’ was your favorite John Irving book.”

“It is!”

“You don’t make any sense Henry. Ok, I’m done, I’m going to call Jacqueline and ask her if she’ll have people send in their list of top ten books to read before they die. If I relied on you, I’d die before we got the list put together. Good bye Henry,”

“Goodbye Mary Jean, my love to George and the grandkids.”

I’m not sure but I think I may have heard a sob as she hung up. I sure hope she and George are getting along. Anyway, if you get a chance put together a list of your top ten books to read before you die. Send it in to the Website. I was hoping Mary Jean Larson would help, but I think she’s depressed over something so maybe we better do it. I’m going to go and read for a while and de-stress myself. Darn, now I forgot what page I’m on. 
 
Thanks everyone,
 Henry E. Peavler 

My Father, Henry, was a war hero. A fact my sisters, brothers, and I knew nothing about for over sixty years after the end of World War II. He died in an automobile accident in 1953 without speaking of his time in the war with anyone we know of. Our mother, Betty, who worked in an ammunition factory during the war, only knew that he had fought in Europe. She heard no details of his service, not even a “war is hell” description, offered by many veterans of war.

If not for finding, in 2015, a hidden box filled with pictures and notes from his time in Europe we would have never known of his heroism. A small brown book with dates and locations was especially informative. We were able to follow him during the Battle of the Bulge as his unit was chased out of Krinkelt, Belgium on December 17, 1944.We saw how his division crossed the Rhine River at Remagen by way of the historic Ludendorff Bridge in March of 1944. We learned of his involvement with the liberating of concentration camps as his unit rushed across central Germany. They finally met with General Patton to cross the Danube as the war in Europe came to an end.

After researching and writing about Father’s war time experiences, I recently realized I was missing something in telling his story, the imagery of what he experienced: the apple pies the citizens of the small towns would bring to the soldiers when they first arrived in Belgium,  the beautiful stone churches and cobble stone streets throughout many of the towns, getting unexpected Christmas presents while sitting around a fire to keep warm while the Battle of the Bulge raged on, the beautiful picture of a small girl playing in a bed of flowers. This is what kept them sane, what kept them human, during the horrors that surrounded:  the smell of smoke, loud explosions, and the wallowing of the farm animals, as the initial hour and a half bombardment marked the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge.

“A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway captures the horror of war through a love story. He does so with great imagery and detail. Hemingway was an ambulance driver during World War 1. His experience enabled him to create powerful imagery for his novel. It takes a lot of hard work for someone who did not experience an event to piece together an accurate account of an indescribable time. But, such is the quest of a writer.

It has been said that you exist only as long as you are remembered. Henry’s book, “What is a Hero”, tells many stories about living a life without our father. The picture on the front is of our mother and father shortly after they were married. My book, “Fatherhood a Journey Through”, from the 1990’s, also describes living without our father.

Whether it is writing a great poem, a great novel or an exposé of their life, people write to be remembered. Our father’s life is something well worth remembering. My next book will contain a descriptive account of his heroism, to be shared by his family and anyone else interested. Writing this book is not only fulfilling and fun – it is a way to ensure he is memorialized.

Stories Through The Ages

Our contests Generations Plus 2019 and Baby Boomers Plus 2019 are both open for submissions.

Generations Plus is for any adult born 1965 or later. The deadline for submissions for the 2019 edition is April 15, 2019. 

Baby Boomers Plus is open to anyone who was born 1964 or earlier. The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2019.

Coming Soon:

A first novel by R.T. Kilgore, Volume one of The Historical Chronicles of Elinor Sturgeon and the Last Human Colony

Earth is long gone, seventy-two humans have
been saved from dying on a lifeless planet by
the Par, and now they are expected to fight in
an intergalactic war. Does Elinor fight for the
Par, the creatures that enslaved her, or does
she let the humans die along with everyone
else?  

The History of Learning to Write by Henry E. Peavler

I love writing and always have. From my first encounter with a yellow number 2 pencil and a Big Chief Tablet. The lines were so wide that even I had no trouble keeping inside. Do they still make Big Chief Tablets? Do kids even learn how to write anymore? I’m not sure, I guess I need to ask one of the grandkids. I hope they do because it was a grand experience, realizing that those squiggly lines meant something to people who could read. We practiced for hours, each letter, both capital and lower case.

I hated Mary Jean Larson because she was a teacher’s pet always getting each letter the same all the way across the page. Each T the same height, one as indistinguishable from the next. My letters never looked the same. The capital T’s began to take on the shape of a cross and droop like flowers wilting in the sun and my a’s looked more like o’s as I grew angrier with each praise of Mary Jean’s perfect letters and the look of disdain that Mrs. Roper bestowed on me, no longer taking the time to correct, realizing the hopelessness of the task.

There was nothing creative about the exercise. But somehow, I remember it in vivid detail, even going to the pencil sharpener, which I doubt exists in a classroom anymore. Then, in high school, we had a business class, which was actually a typewriting class. I loved it. The teacher was a man, a fairly young man, as I think back, probably just out of college. His name is lost to the vagaries of memory, and I doubt it is of importance, but he had a tremendous influence on my growth as a writer–the creative part. We were freshman and he told us we didn’t know a ‘Goddamned’ thing about life. Unheard of for a teacher to use a curse word in the classroom. He belabored the point, obviously, in retrospect, because of some cosmic realization in his own life.

We were shocked, first because he used that word, but most importantly because we thought we did know everything about life. He was a young philosopher and he lectured us about keeping an open mind and forgetting what we are told and questioning everyone and everything including our parents. I think he only lasted a year at that school.

About typing, he was a reluctant genius. I felt that he was just bidding time but somehow he conveyed the idea that being able to type would open up a brave new world for us; that technology was the wave of the future and we needed to ride that wave or get left behind. He was right about the technology but wrong about the instrument. The typewriter has gone the way of my Blockbuster Video stock.

At about the same time, I was discovering the world of books. I don’t have a specific recollection of who introduced the idea that reading was associated with writing but it happened somehow. The rules of writing would be necessary to creating something that someone might read. This was especially poignant when I won the Voice of Democracy writing contest my Junior year and received profuse praise from Mrs. Roper, either forgiving or forgetting my earlier failure in Capital T’s and small a’s.

I read widely, believing that books would ‘learn’ me a style that I could adapt to my own musings, but I quickly came to realize that just isn’t true. Each good book has its own distinctive voice, each author his own divergent style. Hemingway, in his understated declarative sentences was completely different than William Faulkner who was cerebral and wrote long sentences which were paragraphs in themselves. Yet I enjoyed both authors.

Writing defines a whole spectrum of occupations from creative writing to writing instruction manuals and ‘how to’ books to writing code for software. They all use their own special language and require specific skills. But to write creatively takes a different mindset and requires an entirely different kind of skills—of imagination, of observation and even invention—but most of all it takes practice. Someone who seems to write with ease has practiced for hours, alone, because writing is a private occupation.

Faulkner said, “Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.”

So I leave you, readers who want to be writers, with these words of wisdom. Go ye, my children and write. You don’t know a Goddamned thing about life, I don’t care how old you are. Get out from behind that TV. Go find a typewriter and write something.

Stories Through The Ages Baby Boomers 2018

Welcome to Stories Through the Ages Baby Boomers Plus 2018 where memories and relationships populate this wonderful selection of creative tales. From intrigue to personal memoirs, throw in some vigilante justice and tragedy, then add a touch of comedy and you will have a basic idea of the entertainment found within the pages of this book.

The fifteen winners of the 2018 contest have given us stories that will make us think, make us sad, and make us laugh. Some of the authors penned stories based on their own experiences while others wrote of pure fiction.

Pick up the book and take a trip down memory lane or learn a little about times gone by.

Dennis Winkleblack with “Never Work for Someone Who’s Not As Smart As You”.
Pam Parker with “A Worthy Spine”.
Martha Worcester with “Softening Sorrow”.
Laura Boldin-Fournier with “Trial by Water”.
Marilyn V. Davidson with “Guardian Angels Came Late”.
Ron Dowell with “Longest Journey”.
Jean Ende with “Hocus Pocus”.
Rick Forbess with “Dubs Secret”.
Debbie Fowler with “Monterey Papa”.
Geraldine Hawley with “Whistle in the Fog”.
Ernesto Marcos with “The One That Got Away”.
Susan McLane with “An American Story”.
Robert L. Nelis with “Spying on the Gestapo”.
Ana V. Thorne with “Miss Mimi’s Charm School”.
Nancy Zupanec with “1200 Rupees”.

The third book in our Stories Through The Ages series has been published and is available on our web site and on Amazon.

Keep Writing by Dan Peavler

The endeavor of writing a short story can be something done very quickly or can take a lifetime. A wonderful part about writing a short story is that it can be altered easily. When ideas have been rattling around in one's mind for several years new technology or even a life altering event can sometimes bring the story together. Often stories that take years to create are the best. The writer lives with the characters and fully understands all their abilities and faults. We at Living Springs Publishers LLC understand the great amount of work that goes into writing. 

The first four books in our Stories Through The Ages series has over sixty short stories selected from entries submitted by hundreds of authors around the world. We couldn't be happier with the success of our contest. But besides offering a chance for authors to have their work published, and win a cash prize, we hope it encourages authors to continue writing and sharing their stories.

When I was younger I wrote a short story about playing football as a senior in high school. I wanted to emphasis that positive gains could be found in participating in sports. I spent hours creating my character, trying to emphasize the hard work involved in belonging to a team. The story would be something to pass on to my future children. Something I couldn't wait to tell them.

Many years later I was telling my twelve year old son the story —how I was very nervous the day of our state playoff football game. I turned that nervousness into positive energy. I played every single play as if it would the last thing I would ever do. I played so hard that by the end of the game my legs cramped with every step I took. 

I looked straight into my son's eyes as he looked at me with what I considered a great amount of awe. I said, "I scored four touchdowns that day."

He looked back at me and said, "Way to go Al Bundy."

Times change and so does one's perspective. But we keep writing anyway.

Announcing Generations Plus

Living Springs Publishers “Stories Through The Ages” short story contests feature stories written by people in different segments of the population. There is no prompt for the contests, stories may be about any topic. We will have a minimum of 15 finalists. For each contest the story from the finalists will be included in a book published by Living Springs Publishers LLP. In addition first, second and third place finalists receive cash prizes of $500, $200 and $100 respectively.

The third annual Baby Boomers Plus edition is open to anyone who was born 1964 or earlier. The deadline for submissions for the 2019 edition is June 15, 2019.  The entry fee is $25. The word count for this contest is 900 – 4000 words.

We are changing the College Edition so that we can include all generations in our contests.   The Generations Plus edition is for any adult born 1965 or later. The deadline for submissions for the 2019 edition is April 15, 2019.  The entry fee is $25. The word count for this contest is 900 – 4000 words.

Living Springs Publishers is proud to announce the prize winners and finalists whose stories will appear in Stories Through The Ages Baby Boomers Plus 2018:

Dennis Winkleblack $500 first prize with “Never Work for Someone Who’s Not As Smart As You”.

Pam Parker $200 second prize with “A Worthy Spine”.

Martha Worcester $100 third prize with “Softening Sorrow”.

             and

Laura Boldin-Fournier with “Trial by Water”.

Marilyn V. Davidson with “Guardian Angels Came Late”.

Ron Dowell with “Longest Journey”.

Jean Ende with “Hocus Pocus”.

Rick Forbess with “Dubs Secret”.

Debbie Fowler with “Monterey Papa”.

Geraldine Hawley with “Whistle in the Fog”.

Ernesto Marcos                with “The One That Got Away”.

Susan McLane with “An American Story”.

Robert L. Nelis with “Spying on the Gestapo”.

Ana V. Thorne with “Miss Mimi's Charm School”.

Nancy Zupanec with “1200 Rupees”.

We received submissions from not only the United States but from around the world. There were many excellent stories to choose from, determining the winners was very difficult. Thanks to everyone who submitted stories.

Congratulations to all of our authors. Baby Boomers 2018 is going to be a very entertaining book.

Jacqueline Peavler, Henry Peavler and Dan Peavler

Baby Boomers make sure to submit your short stories for Stories Through The Ages Baby Boomers Plus 2018. The deadline is June 15. The contest is open to people born 1964 or earlier. There is no prompt – authors may write about any topic. The entry fee is $25 ($20 if submitting more than one story). The word count for this contest is 700 – 4000 words. Cash prizes of $500, $200 and $100 will be awarded. There will be a minimum of 15 finalists whose story will appear in the 2018 edition of the book.

Stories Through The Ages

PROCRASTINATION by Henry E. Peavler

If you are one of those people who thinks that procrastination is a bad thing, you shouldn’t be reading this. I am an expert at deferment and postponement, two of the prime ingredients in the art of procrastination. Who spouted that rubbish about not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today? What a crock, and I don’t mean of pickles. Always put things off until you are absolutely under the gun, behind the eight ball or, as the Aussie’s would say, “under the pump”. Don’t know why they say that, but they do.

I’ll give a prime example of how this practice will benefit you. I put off buying health insurance for 40 years, from when I was 20 to 60. I guess you can argue that when I turned 60 it wasn’t procrastination any more, it became a conscious strategy to wait until I was 64 and qualified for Medicare. But for 40 years I just kept putting it off, never sick a day in my life.

Come 64 I planned on getting a physical, let Uncle Sam pay for it. I was cocky about it.  Then the summer I turned 63 I got cancer. I told Doc that we would have to wait a year until I got Medicare because I didn’t want to pay the exorbitant costs of health care.

“Let Uncle Sam pay for it,” I laughed. We had a good chuckle over that until Doc said, “Oh, that’s a good one. I can wait, no problem, but you can’t.”  It took me a while to figure out what he meant by that.

So! You are probably asking, “How was that such a smart thing to do, Henry?”  I’ll tell you why.  If I would have gone ahead and bought health insurance like everyone advised me, I wouldn’t have lost all my money paying for Chemo and Radiation. Think of how I never would have had that experience, that valuable life lesson and that story to tell. I would have missed out on one of the signature moments of my very existence.

Now, how does that apply to writing? I’ll bet you’ve experienced the sensation of ‘I should sit down and write that short story for the writing contest’. But instead, you go have an Ice Cream Sundae or maybe go down to the Pub and hoist a few with some friends. Hell yeah, that’s more like it. You can write anytime, put it off, stall, delay, defer, no telling how many new life’s lessons you might learn while you’ve got a little buzz from a couple of pints of Fat Tire or maybe some shots of Jameson. You’ve got plenty of time to write and maybe you’ll meet a character that just jumps off the pages of that new novel you’ve been working on for 12 years.  

Don’t think about people like Carson McCullers who wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter when she was 20. Obviously she didn’t get the memo about putting things off.  She’s an anomaly, an exception to the rule.  I will admit that I’m starting to get a little nervous about finishing the Great American Novel I’ve been working on for 30 years. I call it the ‘The Next Greatest American Novel’, and it will cause a sensation in book clubs across America. I can smell the ink on the movie rights contract. But, like I said, I’m beginning to think that my time might be running a little short. I only have 80 pages written and it took me 30 years to do that. Maybe I’ll get up early in the morning and make a pot of coffee and work on it all day.

Wait, I just got a text from the golf course. The book will have wait until Monday.

Undertoad by Henry E. Peavler (Part 3)

This is serious now.  I need to think, relax and reason through solutions not day dreams.  How long have I been here, thirty minutes, forty, I’ll bet they’re mobilizing right now but I don’t see any one.  The hotels look like they’re moving and I’m trapped in one spot, is this really an ocean current or is it a rip current created by the hurricane in the Pacific?  The waves have been high all summer, the equatorial current is further out to sea but this is a living, breathing creature that holds me, suspended in its womb. 

What the hell difference does it make, I can’t get out of it, what am I supposed to do, swim against it, with it?  That seems to make sense, I tried to swim against it and got worn out but I feel fine now.  

“Senor!”

I am at peace with myself and this situation.  I resolve to…..

“Senor!” 

What was that?  Oh no this is it, God’s talking to me and he’s a Mexican. I need to leave word, but how, the secret to life has been revealed just when I’m going to die and no one will be the wiser; of course, I’m in Mexico and God is everything to all people, it stands to reason.

 “Senor, agarra la boya.”  Grab the buoy, what a strange thing to be saying, and then I see him, a vision that, I swear on the bible, is shrouded in a radiant light, like a sun beam.  He swims toward me, a Mazatlán Salvavida, ‘Un guardia que salva la vida’, a life guard.
            
He tossed the buoy toward me and backed off quickly in case I’m in a panic, which I’m not.  Ok, I did panic earlier but not now.  I want to talk to him, embrace him, and share my insights but I realize that he’s still worried about getting us to shore.  Suddenly I feel an amazing sense of relief that quickly turns to a kind of embarrassment. I feel like telling him I’m fine, that I was never in danger. But I clutch the life buoy like a child’s teddy bear ready to defend it to the death.  The buoy was attached by a tether strapped to his back with a harness of some kind, an umbilical cord stretched from the womb of the current to my mother savior. 

Time blurred a bit at this point.  I remember him telling me to kick hard then I waited as he surveyed the waves for the right moment to swim and we didn’t go straight to shore but diagonally across the breakers.  We reached the beach and I had difficulty standing plus I was out of breath; he offered his shoulder pantomiming that he would help me but I shook my head; I was elated and felt like flinging myself on the ground to kiss the sand. 

“You saved me,” I said in English.

“Si,” he replied simply, watching me, I realized later, to make certain I was ok, but I misinterpreted it to mean that he was expecting something. 

He told me, “La corriente es muy fuerte aquí. Debe tener cuidado y observar las banderas de advertencia.”
I looked to where he pointed and the red flag flew meaning don’t go swimming.  He began to leave, hurriedly jogging back to a 4-wheeler parked at the edge of the sand but there were so many things I wanted to share, feelings to express, yet all I could think of was to say again, “You saved me,” he smiled and nodded. 

“Cuál es tu nombre,” I yelled after him?

“Eddie,” he shouted back. 

I felt a tremendous loss as he departed, a sense that I owed him something. Not money, maybe a companionship or brotherhood, we were interconnected somehow. I wanted a remembrance of what happened; a picture together on the spot where he rescued me, something I could share with my family and friends back home.   I imagined the two of us gazing at the camera as though it were the evil current itself, my arm around him smiling in the face of near disaster; instead, he roared away searching for other stupid swimmers.

I slowly walked back to the palapa where I expected a hero’s welcome, plopped down on the chair, water dripping from my hair into my eyes.  I spotted my shoes where I had placed them, my wallet peeking out, everything as I’d left it a lifetime ago. 

“What happened?” Larry asked. “We saw you talking to the lifeguard.”

“Didn’t you see him save me?”

“No.  I just told Larry that I can’t see you in the water.”

“We didn’t know what you were doing,” Larry added.

“I thought that you sent him to find me, he saved my life, I was trapped in the undertow, the rip current.” 

They stared at me, confused.

“You just now missed me?  I’ve been gone forever, an eternity, my whole life flashed before my eyes.”

Diane shook her head and displayed her watch, “You went in the water at one o’clock and its one twelve now. You were barely gone ten minutes.” 

Thanks to Amanda, our third place winner in Stories Through The Ages College Edition 2018, for sending a picture  with her $100 check. The book is now available for pre-orders.

The June 15 deadline for Baby Boomers Plus 2018 is approaching. Make sure to get your submissions in.