Whispering Shadows is a collection of short stories. Some have been published individually, in magazines and a few have won recognition in competitions. My plan is to submit the collection for publication by the middle of this year.

1.      Excerpts from the collection:  Whispering Shadows

From Share House

Today is the first opportunity I’d had to see the house empty…a place where I’ll live.  Augie had told me that no one would be home at this hour but I hadn’t expected it to be so silent. It was cavernous.  

From Legacy –

Today, I stand at my father’s bed looking at his decrepit body remembering a time when he had stood tall above me.  Then, he was a handsome man with clear wide eyes and a moustache the same colour as his bushy dark hair.  I see myself as a four or five-year-old watching him snip and trim the edges until it was pencil thin.  Now, I notice only straggled wisps of white hair on his top lip.

From New Start for Jack

I watch Dave’s car speed off.  I fumble in the dark with my keys.  Usually the porch light is switched on…Heavy metal music still thumps in my head and my throat feels like it’s been sandpapered raw.  None of the usual junk clutters the hallway and at first I don’t notice the phone sitting on the floor or that the little table we’d bought at a second hand store is missing.

 From Pilgrim Souls

p.7     I remembered times when Peter, Anna and I ran along that beach. I thought I saw spectres of our life together dance along the sand in front of me. When I closed my eyes for a few seconds, imaginary bits of our summer dresses floated and flung themselves at the breeze. I saw our long skinny legs extended by the sun, we looked like we stood on stilts.

p.67     I spotted Grandpa right away. He was the only elderly man in the company. As he came towards me, he limped a bit and leaned to one side. He held onto a walking stick with one hand and clutched a baseball cap in the other. You could see where the hat had flattened his white hair against his head. He had a slim build and his lean, tight face looked like it had been scrubbed clean and dipped in sunshine. His eyes, blue and sparkling like polished metal, glinted behind frameless glasses. Creases down the front of his trousers looked like they could cut through hard butter and his shoes shone like patent leather. When he got close to me, he put his walking stick against the wall, his hat on a little table and said, ‘Hello hen.’ The soft greeting had trouble leaving his lips as he took both my hands in his and kissed my brow.