Short Stories Archives - The Art of Creative Writing

Fear of Flying in Planes and How to Cure Your Fear

Anne Skyvington — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 02:42:01 +0000

My Story I’ve always been afraid of things. Psychologists in this country use cognitive behaviour techniques (CBT) on people like me. This involves teaching you how to change thoughts, to over-ride fearful feelings and alter behaviour. It’s a re-education process. What led me to this particular psychologist was an extreme fear of flying. My new […]

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A First Day in Paris

Anne Skyvington — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 01:09:00 +0000

This is a short story expressing contrasts between two cultures and the beauty and awe associated with the new one.

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This Happened at the Yoga Pool

Anne Skyvington — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 02:03:00 +0000

Jeannie is one of these inch worm types. One toe in, one toe back. The cold has always been alien. From birth, really. Even today, she shivers with the water temperature around 20 degrees. Babies are gurgling in mothers’ arms in the pool, for God’s sake. Cassius with the lean and hungry look is descending […]

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Last Words

Anne Skyvington — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 06:14:26 +0000

A short story based on a life well-lived This piece is loosely based on my husband’s life, as a child spent in the Sydney suburb of Bondi, and as a man trying to make up for past lacunae. I believe that our childhood experiences are what brought us together, at least in part. And our […]

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Carl and Emma Jung

Anne Skyvington — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 04:32:01 +0000

A story of eternal love Dearest, I was telling our grandson, Andreas, just the other day, how he possesses the feeling function more strongly than I. He had just espied, while on our walk, a darling dead chaffinch on the ground, and was kneeling over its poor lifeless body. The words, Nothing truly dies that […]

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Structuring a Short Story

Anne Skyvington — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 00:54:39 +0000

Note: I first published this post on this blog in February, 2013. I have added little to the original for re-scheduling it in April 2019, apart from photos and some minor formatting changes. I have also added Kate Forsythe's more complex pyramid diagram below. How do you go about writing a short story? You might […]

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The Night of the Barricades

Anne Skyvington — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 03:17:24 +0000

Emerging from the metro station, Hannah opened her eyes on a strange world into which she’d stumbled by chance. All was new and filled with a radiance she’d never known before in the antipodean world she’d left behind. Hippies were twanging their guitars along the River Seine, and flower sellers, good and bad artists, and […]

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The Trouble With Flying: A Review

Anne Skyvington — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:39:47 +0000

The Trouble With Flying, from the 2014 Margaret River Short Story Competition, edited by Richard Rossiter, Published by Margaret River Press, 2014 Review first published by Margaret River Press This was the third year of the Western Australia Margaret River Story Competition; 24 stories were chosen from 218 entries from all over Australia and one […]

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Crow

Anne Skyvington — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 21:02:51 +0000

He is waiting for me again this morning, out on the same post, watching me with one eye slanted as always, my jet black crow. He is out for what he can get, the crow. I give him titbits, a piece of meat or a worm or two that I dig up in the garden. […]

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Review of Knitting and Other Short Stories 2013

Anne Skyvington — Wed, 01 May 2013 07:13:06 +0000

Knitting and Other Stories from the 2013 Margaret River Short Story Competition, edited by Richard Rossiter. Published by Margaret River Press, 2013 (First published on Margaret River Press website). The three stories I’ve chosen to review attracted me first and foremost by the authentic voice and original characters they contained. Other elements I looked for […]

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