Barbara V Evers

I love to tell people I was a skeleton clown for Halloween when I was five.  It's true, I'm not lying.  The third child of four, I didn't have many opportunities to choose my costume until I got a little older.  Still, in some warped way, I enjoyed being the skeleton clown.  We had a skeleton outfit, but no mask.  For some reason, we had a clown mask.  Voila! That's how Mom dressed me that year. Another year, I was a cowgirl, wearing an outfit originally made for my brother or sister.  I don't recall all of my costumes, but I do know that the skeleton outfit was a rarity.  We made our costumes, year after year.  I talked Mom into buying me a princess costume in the store one year.  Back then, store-bought costumes were made out of ridiculously flimsy material, and I couldn't wear the masks, anyway, because of my glasses.  So, the princess outfit didn't work out too well. Over the years, I dressed as a gypsy, a man (I cut a...

What do you ask a person when you learn that he or she writes? Most people start with:  "Are you published?"  If people spend a little more time on the topic, they ask: "Where do you get your ideas?" Inspiration surfaces in a variety of ways.  Some originate from actual events.  That's where my story, Whippoorwill Calling , originated. When I was in high school, my friends and I played a practical joke on a close friend. I have used this experience as a story-telling exercise in public speaking in the past.  Why not write a story?  To make it believable, I had to change the facts a little, but at its core, the story relies on a true event.  You can read it in The Petigru Review , available November 1 on Amazon. A green and yellow striped paper clip provided the inspiration for Lifesource , a speculative fiction short story published last year in Stupefying Stories . Sometimes a scene appears in my mind: a white kitchen looking into a large g...