My short story for February is OATSY (Copyright © Arliss Ryan, 1994), a tale of two elderly sisters and a long-ago pony on a farm.  It is the only one of my short stories to be published twice, first in Edge City Review (January 1994) and then in Crone’s Nest (Summer 1995).  Must be good, right?

You can read it at www.arlissryan.com/short-stories/

For the last two Thursdays, I’ve been sitting in the county courthouse, observing arraignments as part of my research for a new novel.  Since most of us get our impressions of a courtroom from TV, it’s fascinating to see the real thing at work.  So far, I’ve been impressed by how thorough and respectful the two judges were in making sure the person charged understood their rights and the implications of entering a particular plea.  I’m curious as to why so many of the defendants choose to appear in T-shirts and ratty blue jeans, almost as if it’s the expected dress code.   Most important, it struck me today as I was leaving how vital it is to have an open court system and how scary it must be when you are denied this basic right.

I finally got to see the movie Anonymous that portrays Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the Shakespeare poems and plays.  It bypassed St. Augustine in its initial release last fall but has now shown up in our only remaining independent movie theater–thank you, Pot Belly’s Cinema!

I thoroughly enjoyed Anonymous.  Sure, the chronology is way out of whack, and the idea that Elizabeth Tudor had several bastard children and then had sex with them is hilarious.  But put all that aside, view it as sheer fiction, and it’s an entertaining twist on the Shakespeare tale.  Besides, we all know Anne did it.

Opera, ballet, suicide–click on the link below to read “Cygnet,” my short story selection for January 2012.

http://www.arlissryan.com/short-stories/

This year I will put my first novel, The Kingsley House, on Nook, Kindle, etc.  Incredible as it seems, when The Kingsley House was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2000, ebooks did not even exist.  Nor did track editing, whereby writers and editors exchange manuscript revisions via a special software program.  Instead, all 420 pages of The Kingsley House were edited on paper by hand.  So my first step is to bring the original manuscript on my computer  into alignment with the final, published version, a word-by-word process with which my husband Eric is helping.  For excerpts and photos of the real Kingsley House go to:

http://www.arlissryan.com/books/

http://www.arlissryan.com/photo-galleries/

Saddle shoes, seventh grade, and the travails of selling Girl Scout cookies in 1962.  Check out “Cookies,” my short story for December, now available on the Short Story page of my website.

A lovely bit of news:  The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare has been sold for publication in Brazil.  This is the second foreign sale; the novel has also been sold in Germany where it will be published sometime next year.  It’s fun to think of someone in Berlin or Sao Paulo reading my book.

My short story for November, “Team Sports,” is dedicated to everyone who has ever been the last person called to join a team.  You can read it at:

http://www.arlissryan.com/short-stories/

October’s short story is now posted on my website, so please check it out.  THE OTHER WRIST (Copyright © Arliss Ryan, 1995) is from my collection SUICIDE NOTES and was published in Onion River Review, Fall 1996.

Go to: http://www.arlissryan.com/short-stories/

My agent is a man of few words, two to be exact.  After reading my new novel, his email to me said:  “Love it!”

He’ll now submit the manuscript to potential publishers, so once again, keep your fingers crossed.