Looking for Stories

It isn't easy coming up with a new subject for a Black Coffee Fiction short story every other week. (Since Bettyann Moore joined us it is every third week.)  A few months ago, I came up dry so went to my photo scrapbooks to look for ideas.  The result was "Love in the Sixties" which eventually led to my Love Through the Decades stories.  Eight stories later, I've covered that ground.  In two weeks, I will need a new story, so I went back to the scrapbook shelves.  

I grabbed one of the books at random and came up with 1994.  I had forgotten what a busy year it was. I couldn't stay put!   It began with a storytelling trip to Texas in February.  I remember going to a rodeo in a San  Antonio arena, sitting with some large women in seats built for much smaller derrieres a hundred years before.  It got painful after a while.

That year I received a photograph of a little boy in Nambia reading my first children's book at a post office.  

In April, I was in Great Britain on another tour, for the first time meeting Helene my French pen-pal at an English friend's house.   Later Nancy took me on a tour of Essex and Kent.  From there I went on to Glasgow, Scotland and then the Lake District.  I am using much of that trip in a novel I am currently writing.  

But I wasn't done.  In July Gary and I went on yet another tour to Manitoba to take in the Winnipeg Folk Festival between storytelling performances. On our way back from Canada, I performed in North Dakota, a state I've come to love. 

In August, there was the Aestival Festival, a writers' workshop Bettyann and I began with the Quill Club writers.  It's a shame neither the festival or the club are around any more. 

But I still wasn't done.  In September I was on a southern tour that took me to Louisville, Kentucky for the Corn Island Storytelling Festival, all the way to Georgia then back to Tennessee and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough.  

In December of that year my Uncle George died after a full life that included service as a fighter pilot in WWII.  

The year wound down with the Ecumenical Christmas Concert (I was on the committee and wrote the publicity) and the Twelfth Annual All Purpose One Size Fits All Sing for Your Supper 12-Step Winter Solstice Party, held at my home.   

Surely in all of those experiences, I can find some stories.  Watch http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com to see where my scrapbook will lead me.