Hatsubon

I’m really happy to report I had a short story published in Literally, Stories called “Hatsubon.”

As I mentioned earlier, I really love connecting short stories together. I love the idea of stories that stand alone but can also be fitted into a series.

To that end, this is a story that follows “The Burning Bones,” published in 2020. That story focuses on the grief the husband feels at his wife’s funeral, while this story follows their oldest daughter, who carried the photo of her mother out the door after her mother was cremated.

I also have to say I like writing stories about older people. I think that thanks to media and the internet doing a fantastic job making it difficult for older people to connect to other generations, too many people in younger generations write off the older generations.

I wonder how many people think “Well, she died in her 90s so that’s fine.”

Grief is still grief, and none of us, I think, are really ready to say good-bye to people we love, no matter how old they are.