Free Fiction – Shelley Burbank, Writer

San Diego Open Mic June 2019

Dear Reader: Every second Friday of the month, San Diego Writers, Ink hosts a Dime Stories open mic event. I love these readings. What better way to spend a relaxing Friday evening than listening to some short personal narrative, memoir, or short fiction while at the same time honing my own public reading skills and also making some friends and connections in the San Diego literary scene? This was my third time at The Ink Spot, a gathering room big enough for about fifty people, a podium, and a sign-up table at the back. The atmosphere…

Fiction: I Never Was That Fond of Kafka

I never was that fond of Kafka. We had to read “The Metamorphosis” in high school, and I just couldn’t feel sympathy toward the main character because all I could picture was this giant bug scrabbling around a pitiful room full of shabby furniture. I mean, insects are pretty gross. June bugs thumping against screen doors on summer evenings give me the willies. Japanese beetles fornicating in disgusting insect orgies while turning my crabapple leaves into brown lace make me positively murderous. I have no problem grabbing the pickle jar full of bleach and water and…