As I mentioned last week, a short story of mine is in this fiction contest and I’d be so pleased if you’d read it. If you like it, you can click “recommend.”

Interestingly, several people have commented to me on the fact that the narrator of the story is a guy. My father in law, for example, told me I had guys all wrong.

“How so?” I asked.

“You know that part where he does all that stuff he doesn’t want to do, all so he can get the girl?”

“Yesss,” I said, hesitant (I don’t entirely see Steve’s motives that way).

“Well, we don’t really act like that.”

(Later he told me he was just giving me a hard time.)

And my friend An Honest Mom told me she thought it was very “brave” to write in a guy’s voice, that it surprised her.

Is it naive that the identity of my narrator?him being a man, me being a woman?never even occurred to me? This has really gotten me thinking.

That story was an example of one that just kind of happened. It was based on a few real-life events; my husband’s stepmom had just died of cancer more quickly than any of us expected her to. I am from Boston, and a few of the Boston references were real. And I was reading Buddhism at the time. And I just love any story, song, or poem about a breakup, because it may be the one human experience we can all relate to: being dumped, or dumping, and the grief and conflict that go with it.

So yeah, I wrote from a guy’s perspective. Who knew?

I have only had three takers for Faith. Come on, people! Free book!

Happy Monday,

Susie