Micro Stories

Every Monday on Patreon I post a Micro Story for my Patrons.  These stories are usually between 70 and 350 words.  They're short and sweet, and they show up like johnny on the spot.  Another word to describe them would be flash fiction.  So if you like your fiction tiny, head on over to Patreon and check out It Pays to be Prepared.

If you like what you see, you can become a patron of a story teller (me) for as little as $1 a month.  And for that you get 5 to 6 micro stories a month.  Sure, if you think about it, every three months there are 5 Mondays.  If you do the math, that's 52 Micro Monday story posts per year plus 12 mini zines mailed to you.  64 thought provoking, entertaining little stories a year for only $12?  Who could resist that?

Thanks for reading my pitch and enjoy the story.

Hearth & Heart 2017 Winter Edition Preview

I spent almost the whole day yesterday, working on the template for this edition.  I'm close enough to say that it will most likely be ready to go to the copy shop on Monday.

Here is a photo of the main illustrations for City of Embers.  In three dimensions, the title illustration looks amazing.  Unfortunately, it will flatten out during duplication.  Hopefully it won't lose too much in the translation.

Momentary Magic i.e. Hearth & Heart

Getting to know Hearth & Heart

Hi, It's great to see you again.  I'm here with a friend and I'd really like to introduce you.

Reader, this is Hearth & Heart.  

Hearth & Heart, may I present Reader.  

I knew you two would hit it off.  I hope this will be the beginning of a long and lasting friendship.

About Hearth & Heart

Hearth & Heart is an illustrated quarterly collection of original short stories compiled into a half page zine format.  The stories are often seasonal, and are a blend of fiction and real life.

After writing Winter Tales in November of 2014, I wanted to publish more stories.  Winter Tales was a limited edition letterpress chapbook from Pegana Press, and it wasn't practical to continue to offer the works of an unknown story teller like myself in that same format.

I wanted to self publish and make the stories accessible to a wider audience so I decided upon presenting them as zines.

I published the first Hearth & Heart as Volume 1 2015 Summer Edition.  The stories are a blend of reminiscences, day dreams, and flights of fancy born from ordinary experiences.

For example:  this edition of Hearth & Heart begins with a story titled May Baskets and Spring Flowers.  Originally titled  A Story of May Baskets, it appeared as a blog post in Tea With Whimsy April 30, 2013 and was revised 2 years later to be included in Hearth & Heart.  I still can't decide which version I like better.  The original almost seems more intimate to me.  

Stories To Be Carried, Reading To The Faeries, and The Spider were all written within a two week period during the summer of 2014.  Stories To Be Carried came to me during a walk on a country road.  I made a special illustration for it which appears on the back cover.  Not great, but it was the first time I had drawn anything in about a decade, and I was delighted that it even resembled what I had in mind.  Reading To The Faeries came from actual observations made while in my back garden and appears as a micro story in a tiny book which you will find in a pocket on the last page of the zine.  The Spider is a story of perception and I think it would surprise most people.  It was told by observing the interaction between a fly and a spider.

A Conversation With The Moon came to me after spending the pre dawn hours communing with the full moon in November of 2014  I made a special illustration for this story by putting in a door that opens onto the story.  Under the illustration are a few lines (placed there as a caption) from a blog I used to write called Heal Earth Now.  Posted on  January 16, 2014, it goes like this...With my feet on the Earth, I stand in the silver light of your radiance, wrapped in wool against the cold night.  We watch one another.  And we tell each other stories...  It seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

I was so excited to finish my first zine that I immediately got the next edition ready.  Hearth & Heart Volume 1 2015 Autumn Edition was written, compiled, designed and had all the art work chosen, but the problem I kept running into was that I couldn't get any of the images to print clearly no matter where I went.  It looked like that edition was simply not meant to be...

Please join me here this Thursday as I continue to tell the story of the 2015 Autumn edition of Hearth & Heart.  

Momentary Magic

I'm considering changing the title of my zine from Hearth & Heart to Momentary Magic.

This is an example of the type of story that appears in Hearth & Heart.  I would appreciate some honest feed back to the following questions.

1.  What are your favorite genres?  (for example:  weird, fantasy, mystery, horror, suspense, etc.)
2.  Who are your favorite authors?
3.  In which genre would you place Stories To Be Carried?
4.  Would you read more stories like Stories To Be Carried?

Please feel free to respond in the comments below.

Stories To Be Carried

528 words

I saw a woman on a dusty road one day. The sun shone hot, and there was the smell of berries and pine trees in the air and the drone of insects, and no other sound was there but for my own breathing as I labored to climb the steep hill we were both on. She was walking down the hill, and she had strapped to her back an enormous basket. And as I approached her, I could see the basket was hanging with the open end downward.
She greeted me, and I her, and then I asked her about the basket.
"It was for the stories I gathered," was her answer.
"But it's upside down. You've lost your stories, " I said with deep concern.
"Well, they weren't really mine, you know," she said leaning in and placing a hand upon my arm as if to reassure me that it was quite alright.
And then her eyes left my face and looked off into a distance which I could not perceive, and she spoke.
"There was a time gone by, when I would collect all the stories I would come across. And whether they spoke of beauty and joy, or they spoke of tragedy and pain, it was all one and the same to me, for each story would wring my heart until it felt like it would burst within my breast.
"And because I gave them my attention, and allowed them to touch my heart, they would cling to me, until I had to find a basket large enough to hold them all.
"And still I went my way in the world, gathering more stories, until my basket became heavy with them."
She paused and looked at me. She made a deep satisfied sigh, and her face resembled that of a child, though she seemed ancient.
I looked back at her eagerly, and I waited for her to continue.
"One day, they just became too heavy to carry. So I simply turned the basket over, and allowed them to escape."
"But didn't they want to stay with you?" I questioned.
"They were old stories. They had grown sleepy. I don't know if they even noticed being loosed."
I pondered this a moment and she continued.
"Now when I meet a story, I can look it in the face, acknowledge it, get to know it even, before I continue on my journey. It's nice to be able to say to a story, "I see you" and then be able to part ways rather than picking it up and carrying it with me."
After a moment of silence, she sighed happily and spoke again.
"I've enjoyed our talk, but I must be on my way," she said gesturing to her path which led down the hill.
I turned to watch her go, and could see other women in the distance making their way up the hill, and all were carrying baskets of varying shapes and sizes.
I knew what I must do. I reached behind me and removed my own basket. Then turning it over, I watched the stories tumble out like colored marbles.

Copyright Rita Tortorello 2014 May 30
This story appeared in Hearth & Heart Volume 1 2015 Summer Edition

Thank you for reading and for your feedback.

Raining

We're having a rainy afternoon in the South Puget Sound area.

The cats are snoozing, Mike is reading, and I am working on our income tax return.

Seems like a good day to write instead, but someone's gotta do it.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go...

Here's a page from Hearth & Home vol 1 Summer.  I really do have more of them to release, but this one is the only one that made it to print so far.

What A Difference!

What a difference three weeks can make!

I have been plowing through the work around here.  My Kitchen has never been so clean.  I've lived in this house for 15 years, and I've never had much clear counter space.  It's mostly been covered by dirty dishes, bottles and jars waiting to be washed before going out to the recycling, and various works in progress.  A chaotic jumble about sizes the whole situation up.

But in the first two weeks of 2016, I managed to turn that trend around.  When I came home from the food co-op last week, I actually had a space to set all my groceries, when I brought them in.  The living room and dining room have also been decluttered, as well as The Bindery, which was starting to look a little chaotic.

Three weeks into 2016, and my house is starting to resemble a real home and not just a busy work space.

The Peepers are growing like crazy.  They're 10 weeks old now!!  I'm really excited that 4 of the 5 are pullets and only one is a cockerel.  Of course that still leaves me with a dilemma.  What to do with the excess male bird.  And he is at the moment far more lovable than his pop.

Rocky and I have a tenuous truce, which neither one of us is anxious to put to the test.  It makes cleaning the chicken house and working in that part of the yard difficult though, and if a fence comes down, it becomes a real adrenaline rush to get it repaired.  The secret to my success is that FOOD is the great moderator.

Sparky (Mike named the new one) is my friend.  I'm not sure if he knows the score or not, but he's doing his best to get on my good side, and so far, he's my pal.

Ruby (mom) is finally after 10 weeks, starting to peck at them.  Again, it's that whole FOOD thing.  I introduced her back into the hen yard with Rocky.  I won't say there was a tender reunion, because that's just not Rocky's style, but he was glad to see her.  (I might get more chicks out of that interaction).

She didn't stay put.  She was upset to be separated from the chicks, and wanted me to let them in too.  I decided to let her out instead, and she was OK with that.  Today we tried it again, though.  I guess for the next few days, I'll keep letting her into the hen yard until they remember who she is.  Ten weeks ago she was top hen in the flock.  Now she's at the bottom of the pecking order.  They won't let her near the food, and Rocky wasn't all that thrilled that I fed her a bit away from them.  He wanted to dominate both food supplies.  (Sort of reminded me of Monsanto.)  I had to lure him back to his own food.

I guess I'll just observe how it works out, and if I can bring her and the chicks into the flock--great.  If not, than I'll have two flocks.  I would rather have them all together though, but I'll have to see how Rocky and Sparky will get along.

I'll be glad to get the Peepers out of the back yard.  It was okay when they were still tiny, but now, my back porch and patio resemble a barn yard.  Every evening I have to shovel it off and sluice it down.  (I know, too much information.)

Never the less, I do love them and they always make me laugh.  And they all seem to like being held.

Enough about chickens.

My resolve to move toward zero waste, is coming along.  Last week we generated about a gallon of trash.  (I don't remember what we threw in the trash to even get that much...it must have been some kind of plastic that I ran across when I was cleaning out the kitchen.  I keep finding old plastic squirreled away (I guess I was hoping I would eventually find a use for some of it.)  But as far as the trash goes, typically, I generate about 3 yogurt cups full of plastic trash a week now.  It's getting easier to compost and recycle almost everything else, as long as I pay really close attention to what I am bringing home.  (We haven't bought bacon since the new year--sigh--I do miss it, and I just need to find time to drive over to the meat market, where I can hopefully get some uncured bacon wrapped in non plasticized paper.  #jumping through hoops!)

And finally, I wanted to share that someone who bought Winter Tales through Pegana Press, liked it enough to also buy a copy of Hearth & Heart Summer edition.  He also hinted broadly that he would buy Hearth & Heart Autumn (Coming Soon).  I got a chuckle out of that, until I realized that I had 3 zines partially finished and that I needed to get my butt in gear and get them out.  All the stories have been finished for months, I just need to put them in zine format, which is mostly finished.

But for now, I'm still binding another two batches of books and working on profit and loss for 2015 tax return.  Definitely trying to make sure I stay up with book keeping this year, so it's not so hard later.  The shoe box method, isn't working anymore.  I went in to see if I qualified for a reduced rate in my power bill last year, and the woman said to me.  If you're self employed you should have all your totals already.  I got a hardy laugh out of that, and resisted the temptation to respond with...You've never owned a business before where you did everything yourself, have you?  I have another friend who runs multiple business out of her home too, and it's just her and her partner, just like with me and Mike.  They do everything on their own, just like we do and they work 12 hours or more a day - every day, just like we do.  Tell me, where do people like us find time to make sure their book keeping is up to date?

But now that is on the list for 2016.  Wish me luck.

12 Days of Dec. ~ Day 4 #Zine Feature: Hearth & Heart by @RitaTortorello https://t.co/Nj4WSin1i8 #nature #stories pic.twitter.com/E1tLKorCcn

— Sweet Candy (@SweetCandyPress) December 5, 2015

eeeee!  I can't believe it.

Now, I really do wish I hadn't been too busy to get the next two editions out.  Weeeellll, better late than never.  I guess I'll just have to add two more things to my list of priorities.

THANKS SAGE! for featuring my zine.

Hearth & Heart Autumn 2015 update

________________________
Hearth & Heart Autumn 2015
cover mock up

I was hoping to have this edition out by now, but things keep happening to delay.  I have almost the whole thing ready to go, but I needed to reproduce 4 major images and I'm not satisfied with the quality.  I guess I need to find another printer.

Zoë is another reason.  I have decided not to use that stupid over-sized cone on her, so that means that from time to time, I have to remind her not to start exploring her wound site, while it heals.  She's doing amazing.  I actually got some sleep last night.  I feel lucky that I work from home, because it allows me to be present with her.  One less thing to stress about.  And one thing I know from experience working in energy medicine with my own animals and with others, is that our human stress over our loved ones, slows down their healing process.  My analysis is that it causes an interference pattern in your psyche, which inhibits your ability to "see" your sick animal as healthy.  (Or to use the more familiar language of Abraham-Hicks, --You won't be a vibrational match with that outcome.)

I got some amazing insight into the physiology of a cat, while doing Zoë 's session last night.  It was so magical, that I might try and find a way to share it in story form.

I'm also doing some book binding work right now.  Pegana Press is releasing The Golden Key by George MacDonald with illustrations by Charles Van Sandwyk.  (hopefully by the end of September).  Visit the link to view photos of the book.

Well now it's off to work I go.

Hearth & Heart Autumn Edition

I'm just about ready to release Hearth & Heart Volume 1 2015 Autumn Edition.  This quarterly zine is filled with short stories, and images, as well as some surprises.

The Autumn Edition 2015 features 3 short stories, an essay, and a poem.  Story titles include  A Fairy Tale from 1969, Smile!, and There Be Giants.

Genre: Magical Realism

This zine will be available at Pegana Press Books  as well as at my Etsy shop  A Charmed Enchantment in about a week.  Only about 3 weeks later than I had hoped to release it, but considering my relationship with Time, I did pretty well.

Zine Complete

I'm excited to announce that Hearth & Heart is finally complete and on sale now.

You may find it on the Pegana Press website by following the link below.

Hearth & Heart

Hearth & Heart vol. 1 2015 Summer Edition

Hearth & Heart

I am very fortunate to know Sage Adderley of Sweet Candy Distro.  I met her a couple of years ago and to my delight, we have become friends.

Until I met Sage, I had never heard of zines.  But her passion for them is contagious and now I have embarked on creating my first zine.

Hearth & Heart is a quarterly zine which features short stories (of magical realism?).  What is Magical Realism? I just call it life.  I can't help it if it reads like fiction.  --I hope to have copies ready to sell before the week is out.

I have been taking a squint at my blog, (I had to blow the dust off it first) and I realized I hadn't been posting much since Penny died.   Just life happening.  It was Sage who reminded me not to neglect my blog.

So here's an update about the hens.  When the hawk took my Penny, I was determined that would not happen again.  My friends down the road who have chickens gave me a rooster, and he is turning out to be a good protector.  In fact at times he engages in protecting the flock from me, which is always an adrenaline rush.  It's really my boots that he hates apparently.  So we have to work around that.

Chicken drama!  Who knew?

Here's 3/4 of my flock.  Rocky (the barred rock rooster) is in the foreground.  I'm wondering if he will ever stop growing.  He's about twice as big as the girls now.  I fully expect to wind up with a six foot rooster.  Barredzilla!

Working on the zine now.  Will post update when it becomes available.

Winter Tales/Customer Reviews

Winter Tales contains three original short stories.  I wrote the material for a fine press limited edition chapbook, released by Pegana Press.  Here are some quotes from emails I received.

On Voice of Fire:

I Love the concept of music being held within the memory of the tree. Thank you so much for the beautiful book! I will treasure it for years to come. Please keep writing! You are  damn good at it!!

On Where the Snow Folk Live:

I've read and re read "Where The Snow Folk Live."

I feel like I have one of those huge and heavy fairytale books from my childhood. The book with stories that mesmerize. Tales for special occasions only. Reading your story Is like uncovering  a mystical passage and discovering a book that was hidden in order to preserve its secrets. 

And that is what great storytelling does!!!  Bravo

The  characters (in addition to the letters) really add to that story and the look of the page . They Create visual interest for me.

Thanks

On Cup of Cheer:

"Cup of Cheer" is my favorite of the three stories. For me it's like Jack and the Beanstalk and the Snow Queen went on a road trip and met the Star Trek crew. I love the idea of the "mixture of cultural anomalies." 

Winter Tales available from Pegana Press

Of Ice and Mountain Slopes

"And in my dreams, I travel with them to realms inseparable from the stars."
--Where the Snow Folk Live

Where the Snow Folk Live is one of three short stories found in Winter Tales available from Pegana Press Books.

Where the Snow Folk Live from Winter Tales available at Pegana Press

Winter Tales Ships Today

Winter Tales by Rita Tortorello available through Pegana Press

Winter Tales is complete and shipping out to new homes world wide.  I'm excited to see this book finally going into the hands of readers.

Limited to 50 copies, hand set and letter press printed by Mike Tortorello at Pegana Press in blue ink on snow white paper.  This book is bound as a chapbook and sold through Pegana Press Books.

It is my first published work, and I am proud to join the community of self published authors who are creating a new way to present their written words to the world.  I'm excited to be living in a time when we have the option to change how authors, artists, and musicians are received, making it possible for them to find their tribe of people who appreciate what they create.

I am the author of Winter Tales, which consists of three short stories inspired by Winter and the elements of Fire and Ice.  As the other half of Pegana Press, I also had a hand in the making of the physical book.  I do the binding at Pegana Press, and this book, because we wanted to keep it simple, is bound as a chapbook using a combination of blue flax linen and glacier blue silk threads to sew the cover of French Canson paper of soft gray, reminiscent of late afternoon shadows on snow with ornate cover title in blue ink and a glimpse of sparkle.

The three short stories contained within can best be described as magical realism.  Which is really just the ability to notice and interact with the magic which takes place in everyday life.  The Voice of Fire was inspired by listening to the Fire.  Try it and you'll see what I mean.  Where the Snow Folk Live was inspired by the land which is home to the Yeti.  And Cup of Cheer is the most magical of all.  Life on Earth from the perspective of that which fires the sky-the Northern Lights.  As I said earlier, all inspired by Fire and Ice.  The mystic spirit of Winter.

Stories like these exist to remind us that life is filled in every moment with magic which hides itself in ordinary things, but seeks to gain our attention so that we may awaken from the repetitive hypnotic trance of modern life and see through a different lens.

Stories tell themselves all the time--to all of us.  Sometimes, we hear.

Winter Tales

Cup of Cheer

Cup of Cheer is one of the short stories from Winter Tales.  The setting for this story is an inn on the frontier that borders "the land to the West and the land to the East".  Not only is the frontier a threshold between worlds, as all borders are, but it is the departure point for the narrator of the story.

A page from Cup of Cheer which appears in Winter Tales from Pegana Press

This is the final week end to get Winter Tales at the special preorder price.  This letterpress chapbook is limited to 50 copies and will be released on Monday January 19, 2015.  You may order your copy at Pegana Press Books.

Listen to excerpts read from Winter Tales in this discussion.

The Voice of Fire

Do you ever sit in front of a fire, and listen to the song it sings?  Have you ever hearkened to The Voice of Fire?  A story of magical realism by Rita Tortorello.  One of three short stories in Winter Tales available through Pegana Press.

The Voice of Fire from Winter Tales available through Pegana Press.

Here is a page from the letterpress chapbook, Winter Tales.  Special preorder price is available through January 18, 2015 at Pegana Press.


You can listen here to an excerpt read by the author.