I hope you like to read short stories. If you don’t, let me offer a few reasons to try them out. First, my short story collection Creek Songs is live on Amazon.com! More on point, short stories are user friendly, time friendly, and mood friendly.

User Friendly. Reading a short story collection is like shopping at Trader Joe’s. You can read the stories in order, similar to going up and down the aisles. Or you can wander around the pages, similar to strolling about the store to check out the flowers, then the What’s New Section, and then going to the dairy section to buy milk (which is the reason you came to the store.)

Time Friendly. Short stories vary in length, possibly as long as 15,000 words or as few words as six or less. (Here is an example of a six word story from Margaret Atwood: Longed for him. Got him. Shit.) My collection has one longer story called “Ferrelli’s Fall.” The others are in the 1500 to 3500 word range. A short story offers a nice bedtime read.

Mood Friendly. Do you want mystery, suspense, family, love, tension? Let the stories take you on a wild ride or allow you to savor a gentle moment. Neil Gaiman writes: A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.

And so, here it is . . . Creek Songs. The stories follow a moment in the lives of flawed, everyday characters dealing with life and the quirks of chance, luck and fate. Settings range from Palm Springs to Niagara Falls to WWII France. The characters are young, old, and in-between. If you enjoy your experience, feel free to leave a comment on Goodreads or Amazon. Reviews are always appreciated. As songwriter Carl Perkins notes, Without the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song. To me, that’s a perfect way to explain the ebb and flow of the human experience.