Tall And True Short Reads
Reminiscing with Alice
Episode 39 (24 November 2021)
The golden glow of Norman’s youth was a distant memory. The passing years had added aches and pains and padding, and his soft and doughy love handles had long since served no purpose with Alice. But when he looked in the mirror, Norman recognised the man he had once been. Just wiser and more wizened.
Reminiscing with Alice
Show Notes
Season Two: Episode 39 (24 November 2021)
Reminiscing with Alice is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.
Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/short-stories/reminiscing-with-alice
Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads
Buy Robert’s short story collections online:
- Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
- Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
- Rakuten Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead
Story Insight
Reminiscing with Alice was my June 2021 entry for the Australian Writers’ Centre’s monthly writing competition, Furious Fiction. Feedback on social media over the Furious Fiction weekend was that the month’s brief for the 500-word short story was challenging. It had to include (word for word) the following SEVEN descriptions at any point in the story body:
- THICK AS HONEY
- SILENT AND STILL
- GOLDEN GLOW
- HEART-SHAPED
- DELICATE PERFUME
- SOFT AND DOUGHY
- RAZOR-SHARP
GOLDEN GLOW gave me the opening sentence for my short story, “The golden glow of Norman’s youth was a distant memory”. And from here, the bulk of Norman and Alice’s story and the brief fell into place.
THICK AS HONEY proved a *sticky* description. However, by using it to describe Norman’s memories of his life with Alice, which “flowed sweet and smooth like honey, but could be as thick as honey, too”, I had my story and a poignant ending.
I hope you enjoyed Reminiscing with Alice (and Norman). You can read all my short stories, blog posts and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle and Kobo online bookstores.
The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will appear in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, don’t forget to check your feed or the podcast website for earlier episodes from Seasons One and Two.
And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite app. Doing so helps me share my writing with other listeners.
And finally, please support this podcast by telling your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.
Podcast Theme and Sound Effects
Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.
Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:
- Clock Ticking: https://freesound.org/people/Julien%20Matthey/sounds/457651/
Production Notes
Tall And True Short Reads produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.
Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.
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