Weekly offering

Really enjoyed Dinner Party, the way that the crowd mutated from sycophants to predators was excellent. The nonchalance of the crowd to there being a corpse in the room and how they just carried on bitching and eating, made me laugh. I also enjoyed Driving To Grandma's The description and use of the smells in the car, nearly made me vomit. By that I mean they were evocative rather than literally vomit inducing!! I wasn't so keen on Melody, but ghost stories rarely hit the spot for me. The descriptions of the ghosts and how she felt about them was good, I just felt that the story stood still most of the way.

I particularly enjoyed 'Driving to Grandma's' and thought it made an interesting comparison with Spack's 'Family', the thing about travelling with families is obviously a source of great inspiration for writers!

I certainly did not intend for anyone to vomit, however, the positive reaction to the smell description in the Grandma's story is encouraging. "Stood Still" as smillieboy described Melody, interesting observation. When I wrote that weird thing, I was trying very hard to recreate the exact process I experienced thinking it up. I was sitting alone and just trying to walk through a moment of silent contemplation. I did not like the end result, but it is funny how it represents the conception of the story. Obviously, I succeded on that part, but the piece doesn't stand on it's own. It would probably be better served as a portion of something more substantial. Thanks for the feedback.

'It would probably be better served as a portion of something more substantial.' Absolutley. It's just that this piece, as a short story, doesn't have any structure (not that they all do!). I also read and enjoyed some of your growing up in America stuff. Can you really roast a chicken over a burning tyre? I'm not sure Tyre Fried Chicken will take off (unless their salads are real good.)

In case of this story, the Salad bar would probably be off the side of the road.