Worthing Flash

The topic this week - PUBLISHING SHORT STORIES or POETRY in LITERARY JOURNALS To read this blog, go to my author website:  www.lindasgunther.com Click on Write-Bytes at top of screen and enjoy this week’s byte.  Each week is a new blog post. All previous posts also appear for your convenience!​           Please feel free to share with others who might have an interest. Write on!     Linda S. Gunther has written five novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, and Dream Beach. She grew up in New York City, received a Master’s Degree in Psychology, an MBA and studied theatre at Oxford University with the British American Drama Academy. Linda’s passion for travel and continuous learning fuels her fire to create vivid fictional characters and unforgettable story lines.  

by RAJAN V KOKKURI Author of BORN TO DREAM & various stories “ Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired” -Robert Frost Mateo was born in a family having poor income in a distant Romanian beautiful village in Transylvania. Romania had a communist government during that time, and all teens were required to serve in the army for a minimum of 16 months. Mateo also joined army and was serving in Vrancea County in southern part of Romania. It was March 4th, 1977. He went to a cloth store in the downtown of Vrancea to purchase a shawl. When Mateo walked into the store, he noticed a gorgeous girl organizing the garments on the shelf. Mateo said, "Hello, I want to buy a shawl". She took out a bundle of finely handmade shawls from the shelf. While she was pulling the shawl, he didn’t forget to ask her name. “My name is Maria”. While she was taking the material out of the wooden cabinet, the floor and cabinet moved noticeab...

WRITE-BYTES Blog February 17, 2023 By Linda S. Gunther The topic this week - DIALOGUE WITHOUT GETTING WATER-LOGGED To read this blog, go to my author website: www.lindasgunther.com Click on Write-Bytes at top of screen and enjoy this week’s byte. Each week is a new blog post. All previous posts also appear for your convenience!​ Please feel free to share with others who might have an interest. Write on.   Linda S. Gunther has written five novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, and Dream Beach. She grew up in New York City, received a Master’s Degree in Psychology, an MBA and studied theatre at Oxford University with the British American Drama Academy. Linda’s passion for travel and continuous learning fuels her fire to create vivid fictional characters and unforgettable story lines.  

My childhood bedroom was a cold sad room in an old house. The wallpaper was a faded yellow, bland and boring. The bed had an iron frame with a spring base under a lumpy mattress. It had a pink candle-wick covering which was nice to stroke. Near the window stood a small wooden table and chair where I did my homework. My mother hated wall posters so I didn’t have any. There was a framed picture of the Blessed Virgin with a Mona Lisa expression over my bed. The sash window was small, and the light was poor. I had a view of the old rookery. The cawing and croaking of ravens and rooks, jackdaws and jays— the gathers of acorns and small shiny things— resonated from the massive ancient trees. Raucous and rough, never silent. I saw again the rays of winter sunlight reflected off the grey slate roof into the window of my childhood bedroom. I saw again my pre-pubescent self; my tear-stained face, belly hungry, echoes of shouts and doors slammed. I heard the raised voices of my elderly paren...

WRITE-BYTES BLOG …a resource for writers  February 10, 2023 By  Linda S. Gunther T he topic this week :  IN WRITING, COME TO YOUR SENSES To read this blog, go to  my author website:  www.lindasgunther.com Click on Write-Bytes at top of screen and enjoy this week’s blog byte. Each week is a new blog post and all previous blog posts appear   for your convenience! ​            P.S.  If you read the WRITE-BYTES blog, let me know if it’s of value to you.  Please contact me on website or friend me on Facebook. You can also send me an email at linda.gunther@sbcglobal.net Linda S. Gunther  has written six romantic suspense novels:  Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness ,  Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach , and most recently published,  Death Is A Great Disguiser . Ms. Gunther’s short stories and essays have been published in several literary journals.

I grew up with my two siblings in a thatched farmhouse. Lizzy, an aging spinster, and our beloved babysitter lived in a house in the town. The night my parents went to the cinema she piled coal and turf into the Stanley range. We listened to songs on the wireless from RTE, BBC, Radio Caroline, and Radio Luxembourg. She loved French words and French songs. She brewed tea and fed us caraway seed cake smothered in damson jam, and we sang and danced around the flagstone kitchen with unsupervised abandon. We stayed up late, played cards—Old Maid and Twist—bounced on our beds, and oh, the wildness of Lizzy. She entertained us with stories of her travels in the countryside with her friend Nonie, another old woman. They begged for food at farmhouses and collected kindling along the road. Lizzy crafted a bundle of twigs, which she strapped to her lower back. “ Hey, there’s a tree growing out your backside,” young ruffians shouted as she walked by.   She ignored them.   ...

February 3, 2023 By Linda S. Gunther The topic this week - POINT OF VIEW (POV):THE WRITER’S CHOICE To read this blog, go to my author website:  www.lindasgunther.com Click on Write-Bytes at top of screen and enjoy this week’s byte.  Each week is a new blog post. All previous posts also appear for your convenience!​           Please feel free to share with others who might have an interest. Write on!

The old woman knocked out a Russian drone with a jar of pickled cucumber. No, a jar of picked tomatoes, some say. Does this detail matter? Perhaps. What happens is this: the old woman picks up the jar of pickles and opens her eight floor window in the draughty block of flats. The drone whines below, a metal bird, a predator seeking its target. A few flakes of snow meander from the sky and settle on old woman’s gnarled hands, and on the lid of the jar. She waits. She feels no fear. The moment is but a fraction of a second; the moment is the length of this long war. As she lets go of the heavy jar she thinks of all the work of growing and picking, of chopping and seasoning; the smell of vinegar and spices, the click of the lid, the writing of the label. She thinks of how fast spring turned to summer, and the sudden late winter of this war. She thinks of her children, and their children, and those yet unborn growing in the dark, and if the light will vanish from all the...