I belong, as a contributing member, to a talented group of writers who are responsible for A Muse Bouche Review, a literary newsletter. It gives me a chance to write something new each month around a given theme, which I’m enjoying. The theme for May, 2024 is The Letter and my contribution this month started out as a little short story, but then something surprising happened. I ended up writing what just may be the first chapter of something longer. The result is titled A Letter Discovered. Here’s how it starts:

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Hazel McTavish found the letter tucked between the pages of a book in her local public library, a small, cozy brick building at the end of Maple Street. 

Hazel was thirteen. She had discovered science fiction and fantasy in the school library her first week at Maple Junior High, a much larger, much less cozy building which squatted at the other end of Maple Street. She had spent the entire school year working her way through the SF&F section in the library, starting at the upper left with Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and working her way down to the bottom right, finishing with Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes In Amber.

Once the school year ended, Hazel started over alphabetically with the much larger public library SF&F collection. By midway through July she had reached the Ls, and it was when she was in the Ls that she found the letter. She was ensconced in her favorite threadbare, overstuffed chair that was perfectly positioned so that she could look out a window into the library courtyard and watch the hummingbirds flitting between feeders. She’d just sat down with a clearly much-loved hardback edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. She did what she always did before beginning a new book, particularly older volumes—she held it up to her nose and breathed deeply, inhaling the dry but earthy book smell. As often happened, she sneezed, jerking the book. That’s when the letter fell into her lap.

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To read the entire story, and all the other pieces from this talented crew, check out the May A Muse Bouche Review, available here:

https://mailchi.mp/8aed5df0d334/a-muse-bouche-review-plots-parties-17764312?e=46f6fd2a9e