"Once Tanko came upon the small village, he ventured over to a trading stand to see if the traders knew what this green thing was. The traders were greatly interested by the item, even though they had not the faintest idea what it was..."

Down Went The Spoon is an imaginative look at childhood from the perspective of a little one who's growing and discovering that gravity is often working against her. Oh, and the little one who inspired this story? She’lll be beginning college in the fall. We wish her well. My, how time flies...

We'd have to spell out words around him, and he'd play hide-and-go-seek with us throughout the house...

I was going to title this story "Big Dog and Little Dog" until Charlie, resident Captain Underpants scholar and expert, informed me that that was the title of a line of Dav Pilkey books. Well, live and learn...

Our friend Laura G. has sent us a new story. When I read it, I was struck by how it applied to my family at this moment in time. Last week, my mother-in-law was in the hospital for a few days. She's okay, but we, our son especially, have to deal with the fact that she's getting older...

A few days ago, Chance was doing some serious barking in the backyard. I thought maybe there were men working in the trees (the phone company), so I went out, only to find him, full of righteous indignation, barking at a jet that was leaving behind a very long contrail...

These were the words used in a search query by someone (likely a high school freshman) who found StoryRhyme.com. To the seeker: I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn't read the story, did you? Because if you did, you'd know that O. Henry's use of irony is not exactly subtle. In fact, if at first you didn't know what irony meant, you would after reading "The Gift of the Magi..."

Update: Jim And Della's Gifts; Irony... Okay, since it's the season of giving and since I don't want to feel like I've got spiders in my soul like The Grinch, I'm directing this post to the many of you who are seeking the answer to the question: What is ironic about the gifts Jim and Della gave to each other. Also, what were they really giving...

The idea of worlds within worlds is so interesting to me. After our recent trip to the Griffith Park Observatory and watching the planetarium show, I was inspired to write a story about Charlie's encounter with an inhabitant of one of those worlds within a world...