It was the smile that fooled her. A brilliant, beguiling, bewitching smile which lit up the girl's face; it was an illusion, a delusion, a seduction she allowed to lure her in and ease her mind between the periods of the glum and the irritable, the attitude of indifference.
Click on the link below to read the rest of this flash fiction story.
The link will take you to the main page. Clik on issue 31, then scroll down to the Cairo Room.
I found this story by clicking the "Literary Fiction" link atop the page of one of my own stories. The first sentence captured me, and I followed the link to read more. This story is beautiful. I am not a mother myself, but the anguish of the mother in the story is tangible even for someone who has never been close to the place where she is. The ability to create that kind of emotion is the mark of a truly gifted writer. Well done!!
My second book is about a boy who has Asperger's Syndrome and is bullied to the point to where he shoots up his school. I have divided the excerpts from it into three parts: Before, during and after the shooting.
A teenage boy struggling with the coming-of-age issues of sexuality, religion, and peer approval is overwhelmed, but soldiers on. After several years, he comes to understand the family forces that have left him so deeply troubled, and the process of
