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Here’s a Short Story of Mine That Was Published Years Ago

12/20/2010

2 Comments

 
My Heavenly Father
by Dana Crum

This story was published in Gumbo: An Anthology of African American Writing in 2002 and in 64 Magazine in 2000.

Picture
It's the evening after I sinned against God, and the heat so bad it seem like somebody done wrapped a coat round my shoulders even though I don't need one. I start thinking about Hell. If I go there when I die, the Devil he gon' be waiting for me and he gon' poke me with that big pitchfork he got.

I'm sitting on the steps of the porch, looking over at the houses across the street. Old people is out on their porches too, rocking in rocking chairs, fanning theyselves to keep cool. Every now and then one of 'em call across the street to somebody and ask how they doing. Them crickets done just started up their racket, and I'm thinking about what I did at church earlier today. That's when my grandma call me.

"An-DRE!" she say, her voice getting high at the end.

I put them quarters back in my pocket real fast like and look over my shoulder. "Mam?"

Read the entire story.
2 Comments
booklover
1/26/2011 04:04:28 am

Here are my thoughts about your story and “Gumbo,” the anthology it appears in. This gumbo is rather tasty. Its ingredients are truly varied. It has literary heavy-hitters like Edward P. Jones, Edwidge Danticat and John Edgar Wideman; new jacks like you, David Wright and R. Erica Doyle; and popular/contemporary/genre writers like E. Lynn Harris, Tananarive Due and Connie Briscoe. I really enjoyed your story, "My Heavenly Father." Told in a nonstandard Southern dialect that simply leaps off the page, set in a Baptist church that is brought fully to life, the story is about a young boy who misses his absent father. Sometimes the story breaks your heart. Sometimes it makes you laugh. At all times, it avoids clichés. William Henry Lewis' "Rossonian Days" is innovative. Edward P. Jones' "An Orange Line Train to Ballston" is splendid. This anthology is well worth the money.

Reply
Dana Crum
1/26/2011 04:05:48 am

Hi, again, booklover! It’s nice to know that you enjoyed not only my novel excerpt “Nothing Can Remain Unchanged” but also this short story, “My Heavenly Father!” Thanks for your kind words about my story’s use of the vernacular, its descriptions, its dramatization and its mix of pathos and humor. Yeah, in this anthology I’m in the company of some well-known authors – some literary, some mainstream.

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