{"id":7,"date":"2014-08-07T16:10:50","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T16:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marylewiswriter.com\/mary-lewis-writer\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T01:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:45:15","slug":"mary-lewis-writer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marylewiswriter.com\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Up- My Pubs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ve been creating a lot of short stories in the last few years, many set in and\u00a0around an imagined small Iowa town. The characters are mostly working people:\u00a0farmers, business owners, nurses, bankers, teachers, and gangsters.\u00a0 In many, characters are forced into sudden intimacy, on the banks of a river, in a grocery store, or a stone basement where group therapy is laid on. New connections form, old ones are strengthened or broken, betrayals and secrets revealed.<\/p>\n

Here are links to ones that have been published in the last few years:<\/p>\n

\u201cAsylum<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 North American Review. Open Space Oct. 13, 2022. On a woodland hike along an icy river two strangers discover a sudden intimacy despite the maelstrom of splashing dog, flying sticks and skipping stones that surround them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrange Fan\u201d<\/a> Blue Lake Review. July 1, 2022. Seth quits before he is fired from the grocery store, because he makes artistic displays to impress a mysterious stranger.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Good Stunning\u201d<\/a> Wordrunner. April 2022. A farm woman who has a job as a stunner in a hog slaughterhouse,\u00a0 gets roped into killing her husband\u2019s hand raised pig.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreddy\u2019s Bro\u201d<\/a> Book of Matches. Sept. 2022.\u00a0 Go to p. 68 on computer, 65 on phone.\u00a0 Brad threw tantrums as a kid, so he gets it when he meets a man in the middle of one, and plays along.<\/p>\n

\u201cShiny Green\u201d<\/a> Litbreak Magazine. April 2021. Mateo heads to a roller rink to expand his gay social life, and stumbles into a love triangle with the most dazzling skaters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHula Girl\u201d<\/a> Sleet Magazine. Volume 14\u00a0 Number 1\u00a0 Spring-Summer 2022. This is very short. A woman moves her husband\u2019s treasured dashboard ornament, but it reappears in a worse place.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed Sun\u201d<\/a> Cleaver Magazine. Issue 41 March 29, 2023. A flood that endangers his daughter makes a climate change denier finally listen to her pleas to help the planet by making changes to his concrete business.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack Ice\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Allium. July 2023. Alex invites a new lover to skate on the Mississippi backwaters, but when he falls through the ice they must shelter in the ice house of a man who has never talked to a gay man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBag of Peas\u201d<\/a> Feels Blind Literary. Issue #9 Summer 2023.\u00a0In a desperate longing for connection, Trisha plans to tell her sister, who thinks the opposite way she does on everything, about her decision to have an abortion.<\/p>\n

“Kissing Bottles” <\/a>Thieving Magpie. Issue\u00a0 23 Fall 2023. An abused woman almost accidentally poisons her husband and may get away with it because it looks like he finally died from his drinking.<\/p>\n

“Bronze Shoulders”<\/a> Rundelania. No. 16 Nov. 2024. Confronted with a client who has everything but is still unhappy with his life, Hank is forced to look at his own. He has a n adventure, but returns home . He throws out all his ties.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Hat Pin\u201d<\/a> Boomer Lit 2024\u00a0 <\/em>Told by ten-year-old Candace, about the time a woman knocked on the door while the younger kids were playing on the porch. When Mom came to the door, the woman stabbed a letter to the table with her long hat pin. After that everything changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Fast Drydown”\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/a>Wilderness House Literary Review 2024. The stress of corn harvest amplifies the unhappiness of Doris, a young farm wife, who leaves in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

“Solid Oak”<\/a> Sensitive Skin 2024. A woman in a lonely farmhouse watches as a man drags a woman to her door.\u00a0 <\/span>Terrified, she hides in the basement, only to find out that she is the victim of a cruel joke.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Red Knees\u201d<\/a> Map Literary. November 2024. A man is puzzled as he watches people sort through his personal items without noticing he is there, as he thinks about different times in his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cYellow Shift\u201d<\/a> Euphony 2025 .\u00a0 A woman takes part in a whacky encounter therapy group that makes participants go through forced intimacy with a stranger matched to their needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cScreen Door\u201d<\/a> Minerva Rising 2025. The Keeping Room.\u00a0 Annie, who studies strokes in rats, travels to see her Dad who has just had one. Abused by him as a child, she confronts him, hoping for an apology.<\/p>\n

“Waiting for Doug”<\/a> p. 75. Ginosko 2025. Andrea encounters two bikers in a park who have collided, and waits for help with the one whose bike was damaged. But when they are caught in a flash flood, the find they must depend on each other for survival.<\/p>\n

“Cold Feet” <\/a>BlazeVox 2025.\u00a0 When Lucy manages to get a new mortgage on their house, she expects Andy to be pleased, but he suspects she took advantage of the banker\u2019s Asian fetish to get the loan.<\/p>\n

\u00a02025. Clueless about women in the upper world, Alfred falls into a manhole and in the sightless underworld is pursued by a creature who wants him.<\/p>\n

“Alfred Under”<\/a>p. 61. The Opiate 2025. Clueless about women in the upper world, Alfred falls into a manhole and in the sightless underworld is pursued by a creature who wants him.<\/p>\n

“The Tire Guy”<\/a>\u00a0 The Pasticheur 2025. Andy, who works as a mechanic\u00a0 is so shaken when his wife nearly dies as medical personnel fear to help her with her miscarriage because of new abortion laws, he changes his mind about a woman\u2019s right to choose.<\/p>\n

“Clara’s Clues”<\/a> Modern Literature 2025.\u00a0 A woman known for her boring conversation has moments of startling predictions about the future, but doesn\u2019t realize she is saying them.<\/p>\n

“One Headlight<\/a>” Flora Fiction 2025. A young woman attempts an escape from a cult, with the help of her boyfriend on the outside.<\/p>\n

There are\u00a0 also several in print journals:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Happened to Our Sense of Wonder?\u201d Riversedge. Vol. 32, Issue 1 2019.\u00a0 This essay explores what it is that makes us care about our world. As an ecologist, and grown up kid, I’m deeply concerned about the planet, coral reefs, rivers, air, trees, and wish we humans could stop messing things up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite Moon Road\u201d Antigonish Review. Volume 52, Number 209 Spring\u00a0 2022.\u00a0 A woman leaves a midnight summer solstice party on a walk with a strange silent man, who leads her to a train where none should be.<\/p>\n

\u201cStays on the River\u201d Evening Street Review. Number 39 Autumn 2023. A woman reluctantly consents to a kayak trip with friends who want to help her with her grief over the loss of her son.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Streak of Grease\u201d\u00a0 Taj Mahal Review. Vol. 24 Number 2 Dec. 2023. When a woman seeks help for her old car, Lyle tells her what he can do, but she wants so much more.Whi<\/p>\n

“Tomatoes at Night” Rivanna Review.\u00a0 Issue 10 December 2023.\u00a0 A woman who has just lost her mother wanders at night through a garden in the county fairgrounds and meets a man who is just as lost as she is.<\/p>\n

“Whitetail” Rivanna Review. Issue 13 Sept.2024. When Rachel is passed over for a promotion at her bank, she goes for a run and finds an ailing fawn she takes home to care for, to the delight of her son and objections of her husband. As the fawn grows in strength, hers does as well when she confronts her boss.<\/p>\n

“Green Madonna”\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>Inscape. Vol. 49 2024. <\/span>On their wedding night Audrey\u2019s new husband turns cold and distant. Thinking it\u2019s due to the strange statue he has brought with him, she insists he get rid of it, but he reacts in anger and she fears for her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cSourdough\u201d\u00a0 Valley Voices V24 N2 Fall 2024 A man discovers his sister\u2019s house is on fire and sits with her on the curb watching it burn.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorenza\u201d Nonbinary Review #38 2024.\u00a0 A cat lover sees a lost cat poster and plans to change time to before it was lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and My Tyrone\u201d\u00a0 Main Street Rag Vol 30 no 2 Spring 2025 A woman employs an AI language app to help her write a scathing note to her ex BF, but begins to fall for the AI.<\/p>\n

Older Links<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA Good Session<\/a>\u201d Persimmon Tree. Summer 2014. What happens when Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses come to the door of an evolutionist.\u00a0 Wait, one of the visitors is tall and dark and has a sculpted jaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuessasomethings<\/a>\u201d r.kv.r.y. Quarterly. vol. xii. no. 1 winter 2015. If you’ve ever been to a snobby party and felt out of it, this one’s for you.<\/p>\n

“Freedom to Wander<\/a>” Toasted Cheese.\u00a0 Sept. 1, 2015. An essay. I tell the tale of a risky ski trip across snowy fields in history-making cold, and also how a canoe trip went really badly, but both have to do with wandering the land freely. I think that ought to be allowed a lot more than we let people do it in this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cBest Stuff on Earth<\/a>\u201d Spadina Literary Review. April 2018. A surgeon suffers self-doubt along with a huge headache on the train home after losing a patient, but awakens to a past joy that he stirs up in a muddy puddle on his walk from the station.<\/p>\n

“Big Air”<\/a> The Woven Tale Press. Vol. IV\u00a0 #8. Sept. 30, 2016. This is a gorgeous journal, full of visual art as well as poems and stories. After a huge argument with her husband Gabe, Elena hikes through the snow along a favorite trail that ends high on a cliff, and she considers the peace she\u2019d have if she slipped off into the air in front of her.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been creating a lot of short stories in the last few years, many set in and around an imagined small Iowa town. The characters are mostly working people: farmers, business owners, nurses, bankers, teachers, and gangsters.  In many, characters are forced into sudden intimacy, on the banks of a river, in a grocery store, or a … Continue reading What’s Up- My Pubs<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat's Up- My Pubs - Mary Lewis - Writer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marylewiswriter.com\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What's Up- My Pubs - Mary Lewis - Writer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve been creating a lot of short stories in the last few years, many set in and around an imagined small Iowa town. 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