Tomorrow I’m sending out my first email newsletter in several months, in which I share one of my favorite short stories ever, The Carousel.

The Carousel is very short (only 700 words) but it’s creepy and rich and wonderfully tragic. I love this little story. And even better, it arrived in my head as a complete unit, which I wrote in a glorious hour in 2011, and never had to revise. Never. (If you haven’t caught on, this is the holy grail of writing… something that happens approximately once every ten years.)

I wrote the story in response to a writing prompt that included the word carousel, as well as two other words I don’t remember. I wrote it. I loved it. But I couldn’t figure out what to revise. And then I took the story with me to Odyssey, where I had one of the instructors read it. “It’s perfect,” he said. “Don’t change a thing.” So I read it aloud at the bookstore event Odyssey does, just as it was, and got so many positive comments, again, just as it was. And the angels showed up to rejoice with me–it was the first short story I’d ever written to be “done” and to make me proud.

Want to read The Carousel? Make sure you’re signed up for the email newsletter here. I’ll hand-send copies to anyone who signs up after tomorrow and before December 20th or so. If you sign up by tonight at midnight or so, however, you get first look 🙂

Hope you guys enjoy!

Alex