Tonight was the last class in Dr. Gish’s four week course, “Writing Short Stories”, and I was the worst prepared for a class I have been in a long time. Luckily, it was not a course of great academic consequence- I was supposed to show up and learn, for myself. Still, I didn’t read a lick of two stories we were supposed to read for class, and during class itself, I could not find a document with a list of key questions we were supposed to answer during the course. I spent most of the time he was reviewing those questions looking for them in my packet of class papers. And, I was still editing my short story final draft that I was going to give Dr. Gish to critique a half an hour before the class started. Talk about cutting it close.

But, as usual, the class was great this evening anyhow. Gish briefly went over the two stories we were supposed to read for class, which made me want to read them, and then he just opened the floor so that any student who wanted to read some or all of their story to the class could.

And there were some really good stories. A very talented lawyer in the class read his story about a character witnessing an auto accident at an intersection in downtown Houston. A young man read a short piece of romantic fiction that ended with a good rewarding twist. Another fellow wrote about a confrontation between prisoners in an open yard that had excellent tension. Another man wrote a subtly funny satirical peace about an IT nerd in a corporate environment who sticks it to “the man”. A nurse wrote an engrossing story about some of her hardest experiences as a young RN working in some not so decent hospitals, and how it changed her. Another guy wrote about the effects his protagonist faced when his mind was transferred from a brain and body into an application on computer- and after he became solely mind, his inability to sense like a human led him to regret his transformation, and to “delete” his life. There were quite a few talented writers in the class.

I could have read my story, but I chose not to. I don’t know.

After class, I gave the professor my story in a self-addressed stamp envelope so he could return it to me with comments. I also then asked him what his favorite book was he had written. He named his short story collection “Fresh Horses” as his favorite, despite the many flaws he saw in it. He was young, Gish said, but he loved writing those stories

I’ll find a copy of it.