Three of our Whittlesey Wordsmiths, Cathy Cade, Wendy Fletcher and Philip Cumberland have had their short stories featured in this book. The stories were first featured on Marsha’s blog.
Fiction relaxes and stimulates intelligent, busy people, as social media and games can’t. A professional commuting to work or waiting for the next meeting is too busy to read a long novel, but they might be looking for the next book for an after-hour reading.
Each story in the new book, Story Chat: Online Literary Conversations: Series of Short Stories and Ruminations, takes three to five minutes to read, making it the perfect book for well-educated readers who love reading fiction in short spurts. Some of the authors are just getting their literary feet wet, but many of the Story Chat authors already have published longer novels.
“Daily, we miss out on a valuable 24 minutes waiting on other people.” Patricia Murphy Irish Independent.
Everyone browses on their phone, but according to one life coach, reading is an effective way to use those minutes. Bookstores at airports, near subways, and offices where people wait carry a myriad of reading choices. Why should an intelligent reader choose Story Chat: Online Literary Conversations over a magazine or a novel?
My colleague Carmen called her quick fiction “mind candy.” Her “mind candy” came out during breaks between presentations, when she traveled, or when she needed to rest her brain.
Anthologies like this one introduce book consumers like Carmen to many authors quickly. Each story entertains yet has a deeper vein for the perceptive reader. At the end of each story are three or four quotes from previous online readers.
Online readers had this to say about Story Chat: Online Literary Conversations.
- “I loved not only reading brand-new stories, but the interaction between readers was also great.”
- “There was an excellent mixture of genres.”
- “The balance is perfect. There is a good mixture of male and female writers from all over the world.
Story Chat stories were first published on AlwaysWrite.blog. They covered working and retired adults’ topics like dealing with dementia, bullying, nursing home care, social services, PSTD, surviving as an x-con, changing jobs, single parenting, and finding romance. Most of the stories have surprise or open endings. Some stories are realistic, while others mix in paranormal.
The first readers of these stories online were writers, social workers, librarians, lawyers, psychologists, professors, and teachers who each wrote an in-depth analysis of each short story in the comment section. The author and readers bantered back and forth online like they were sitting together in a book club host’s living room, enjoying their favorite beverage and snack. Each author left with new knowledge and a Mona Lisa smile.
Story Chat: Online Literary Conversations: a Series of Short Stories and Ruminations is Marsha Ingrao’s first experience as a contributing editor. Previous works include a chapter in This Is How We Grow (2023) by Yvette Prior, Images of America: Woodlake, published by Arcadia Publishing (August 13, 2015), available on Amazon. She has had a blog since 2012 with over 1,600 posts. In addition, Ingrao has had numerous poems and articles published during her twenty-five-year career as a teacher and educational consultant.
Contact:
Marsha Ingrao
Contributing Editor
Always Write
559-303-9241
alwayswrite01@gmail.com or tchistorygal@gmail.com
# # #
Whittlesey Wordsmiths 