December 23, 2010: "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote is one of my favorite short stories (of any season). It's only about 4,800 words long.

"As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes ... " Read the full story >>

December 22, 2010: "The magi, as you know, were wise men ... They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. ... And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children ... But ... let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest."

O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" is only about 2,000 words long. Read the full story >>

November 16, 2010: For reasons that may or may not soon become clear, depending on how ... well, or quickly, this story comes together, I just finished re-reading The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

"The arrangement of Laura's hair is changed; it is softer and more becoming. A fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass touched by light, given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting."

October 27, 2010: "This [past] weekend," writes Joe Hill on his blog, "Neil Gaiman invented a new Halloween tradition. He's calling it All Hallow's Read, and the idea is to give your loved ones a scary book on Halloween Night. His reasoning is simple: there need to be more holidays where people give books. I couldn't agree more."

September 21, 2010: "I was walking through the mall when I saw a kiosk that claimed to be selling time. And I don't mean in a 'buy some labor-saving device' kind of way. I mean, little white boxes each labeled 10 minutes ...

- 'You can't just sell people empty boxes.'
- 'What do you care?' she said. 'You didn't even buy it. You stole it.'
- 'I didn't steal anything!'
- She held out a hand. 'Not if you pay for it now.'"

Read the full (580-word) story, "Now Open" by KJ Kabza, at flashfictiononline.com >>

September 1, 2010: Ten Amazing Facts about Books >>

July 28, 2010: I met Maile Meloy! She read from "O Tannenbaum" at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Worth reading is an interview she gave last year to New West.

July 25, 2010: Short stories in 140 characters or less. @VeryShortStory is by @Sean_Hill.

May 16, 2010: "I don't worry," he said, "but I can't keep from thinking." / "Don't think," I said. "Just take it easy." / "I'm taking it easy," he said and looked straight ahead. He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something. (from "A Day's Wait" by Ernest Hemingway)

April 18, 2010: I'm about halfway through 20th Century Ghosts and wondering how I missed out on Joe Hill until now. Dude's amazing. "Pop Art" is as good as everyone says, and (speaking of baseball), "Better Than Home" might be my early favorite.

April 5, 2010: "I want to be the ball and the bat and the mound/and the sweat and the grass." Cheers to another season. Watching St. Louis at Cincinnati. Harang struck out the first two batters he faced, before Pujols took him deep. He then got Holliday to line to short to end the top of the first. Check out "Immortality" by Sandra Beasley for the rest of the poem, from I Was the Jukebox.

February 19, 2010: In a recent cover of Bruce Springsteen's "My Father's House," Ben Harper omits several of the verses, including the one where the strange woman opens the door, giving the story a spiritual quality, which, hearing it again, was always there, but I'd never noticed it before.

January 28, 2010: J.D. Salinger passed.

• When I was a kid, my mom gave me The Catcher in the Rye. When she found me reading it later, she joked, "I can't believe your parents let you read such filth."
• My youngest brother, when he was a kid, upon exhausting Salinger's published works, stopped reading for a while, wondering why Salinger stopped publishing.
• Upon learning of his death today, my brother called Salinger "the first person to show me that reading could actually be fun."
• Upon learning of his death today, someecards eulogized Salinger differently: "It's time to honor the life of an author who openly despised all of us."
• Without further ado, the full text of "For Esmé — with Love and Squalor" is available on an Arabic literature site called Dibache.com. (The story's in English. Arabic, too, I assume.)
• One thing the Dibache.com reproduction doesn't capture, unfortunately, is Salinger's use of italics, which he uses very well. For example, the second paragraph of the story should begin: "All the same, though, wherever I happen to be ... "

January 6, 2010: Today is Bean Day. To celebrate, why not read "Jack and the Beanstalk"?

December 7, 2009: Just finished reading Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy. She may or may not be my new favorite writer. She writes the kind of stories I wish I could write ...

November 20, 2009: The New Yorker published a new Stephen King story earlier this month. It's called "Premium Harmony." It's ... OK.

October 30, 2009: Apple-picking season is almost over:

• After Apple-picking by Robert Frost
• The Orchard by Alex Brown Church

October 28, 2009: Port O'Brien's "Sour Milk / Salt Water" is NPR's Song of the Day:

"According to Herman Melville, 'At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine in that respect.' The members of Port O'Brien ... let their many months-long excursions in Alaska ... inform their ethereal folk in exciting and unpredictable ways." Read the full article; listen to the song >>

November 2005: MattLally.com first comes online. Future generations will no doubt look back on this moment as a watershed in the history of American letters:

The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
...
Others the same—others who look back on me because I looked forward to them;

Or, quite possibly, not. At any rate, "Lower Ornaments" and "The Shattuck Park Shuffle" are published.