December | 2023 | TomAdams.Ink

I took a creative writing class called Spark Your Creativity, A Journey into Deep Imagination, from Darlene Frank this past January. Our group of adventuresome writers met over three days. We wrote, shared, and ultimately, with Darlene’s help, finished stories for publication in her Spirited Voices zine.

Darlene used her own stories as writing prompts. It was a great time to let go and see where the prompts led. I found myself deep in my family history from one of her prompts. I submitted and worked with Darlene on, What My Bones Know. It’s the last story in the zine. Darlene referred to my story as the benediction for the publication.

She’s teaching the class again this January. Read about it here. It’s fun, it’s generative, it’s on zoom.

One of my goals for 2023 was to get a story published in the California Writers’ Club, San Francisco Peninsula Branch’s Fault Zone Anthology. I joined the club several years ago and was fortunate to be invited into a writing critique group that included a Pushcart nominee (Tim Flood), a former Reuters journalist (David Harris), and a graphic designer (Doug Baird). All of us have stories in the anthology. Doug produced the cover’s front and back.

The club’s authors wrote fiction, non-fiction and poetry, that spoke to the word Detachment. My story, Ricky the Robot, is a speculative fiction piece about how a build-it-yourself robot helps a young boy cope with the emotional loss of his mother.

Ricky the Robot is part of a collection of short, speculative fiction stories built around a fictitious company named Domestic Alliance. The Domestic Alliance family of companies designs and delivers androids to promote the general welfare, provide for the common defense, and insure domestic tranquility for its subscribers.

The book is published by Paper Angel Press. The Fault Zone Detachment can be purchased here through Amazon on both Kindle and paperback. A hardbound book is due out soon.