Browsing Archive: January, 2014

"A STORY A WEEK NO. 19": ONE SATURDAY IN SIPOKNI WEST

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, January 31, 2014, In : A Story A Week 
(Note: This week's entry in the "Spohn Challenge" is a lighthearted return to the setting of my first book, Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West [pictured above], which is available for purchase at Amazon.)


Sheriff Jess Harper was on his way over to the Flaming Star one Saturday to have some lunch and talk a bit with Wichita Billings when he happened to spy Clem Morrison walking down the middle of the street waring nothing but his boots.


"What the...?"  Harper dashed across into th...


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"A STORY A WEEK NO. 18": THE ROAD NOT TAKEN...

Posted by John Allen Small on Tuesday, January 28, 2014, In : A Story A Week 
(NOTE:  This 18th entry in the "Spohn Challenge" project was supposed to have been posted last Friday, but duties at work kept me from doing so and I didn't remember until this morning that I hadn't posted it yet. So I'm sharing it a bit late but I've still managed to keep writing a new piece each week, somehow. This one is actually an expanded version of the first of my "Two-Sentence Stories," which was originally composed back in college. It's also a little on the racy side, for me anyway, ...
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"A STORY A WEEK" NO. 17: THE CONDUCTOR'S LAMENT

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, January 17, 2014, In : A Story A Week 

It's a sad, sad story. I know, because I was there and I saw it happen...


There was this fellow I once knew who happened to be the frustrated conductor of an extremely mediocre local symphony orchestra. Few if any of the individual musicians could really be said to be players of professional quality; indeed, the only reason they had been accepted as members of this particular orchestra is because the city fathers wanted a local orchestra and, after all, they had to get their players from som...


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"A STORY A WEEK" NO. 16 - TWO-SENTENCE FANTASY STORY

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, January 9, 2014, In : A Story A Week 
(NOTE: This latest entry in the weekly "Spohn Challenge" project should be of interest to some of my Wold Newton buddies...)

Drinnon the Black Knight dropped his sword and ran away screaming as the dragon Loridans vomited a steady stream of fire in the direction of the knight’s retreating backside.


As he watched, Sir Eckert pulled the Princess close to him and said with a triumphant grin, “Well, if you can't stand the heat, don't tickle the dragon.”


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"A STORY A WEEK NO. 15" - THE DALMATIAN

Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, January 6, 2014, In : A Story A Week 
(NOTE: I had this one done and ready to go on schedule last Friday, but ended up getting bogged down with stuff at work and didn't get around to posting it as planned. Then I forgot about it until this morning. So here's Entry 16 in the weekly Spohn Challenge project...)


Grandpa Charlie was taking a drive with his grandchildren one day when a firetruck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck, just like you see in all the old movies, was a Dalmatian. Never having seen any of th...


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About Me


John Allen Small John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996). Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.) John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something. In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems. He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.

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