This is a short story I’ve been working out for a contest with McSweeney’s. Derived from one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notebook entries, it has gone from ‘A Prince goes to Hollywood and is stuck only playing Princes…” to what follows. I am also working on a novel treatment based on this story.
All posts by Axel Howerton
A Letter in Regret
This is a story I wrote in a blind flash of inspiration. I had originally written the first paragraph to begin what I imagined as a Zombie road-trip story. Upon revisiting that stanza a year and a half later, this is what poured out of me. This is obviously NOT a true story though, for some reason, people keep giving me their condolences as if it were. I did lose my very dear Uncle to the terrors of ‘the Big C’ and have nothing but compassion and respect for anyone who has lived through it, or watched someone else die. So I guess you could say – inspired by the surreal nightmares induced by the intimate knowledge of a true story that bears no resemblance to the current work – does that work?
Ode to a Gamy Pickle
Here’s a pretty lame attempt at E.E. Cummings-style wordplay from what seems like a century ago. Surprisingly, it was published in a local publication (Camens Expeditus) at the time. Obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended) it was just a fun little number, not unlike Steve Miller Band’s “Hot Chili”, except you can;t really dance to it…
Bachelor Days
This is another ‘early’ entry. My pale imitation of a ‘Beat’ poem. Or is that ‘Poem I should be beaten for writing’?
Got How? 