Collection of Stories Set in Kansas

I decided to collect all of my shorter works set in Kansas and publish them. The title is pretty trite: Kansas Stories and the cover is a sunflower, but it’s a nice big sunflower picture taken by Kansas City photographer Roy Inman.

There are eight stories in the collection, although one of them, Hospital Days is made up of 10 short-short works. The longest is around 30,000 words.

I guess I would classify the genre of each story as “literary.” Hope that doesn’t scare you off. The ebook version is here. The paperback version is here:

(A thank you to my friend Rob McKnight for suggesting this collection.)

Below are the titles and a link to the individual story if you’d rather just read just that one:

The Saltness of Time

A Kansas snowstorm forces a car of college students returning home for the holidays to take refuge in the hotel of a small town where they encounter a fellow traveler who also seeks shelter and has a story to tell about the consequences of another snow storm decades before when a hideous truth is revealed about an old woman, stuck in her own time slot.

One More Victim

Reviewer: “It’s no small feat to write such a richly-layered story that spans several decades in a scant 62 pages, but Randy Atwood has managed to pull it off. One More Victim is a coming-of-age story, a love story and a story about extraordinary secrets hidden by outwardly ordinary people. Most of all, it’s a story about how war can leave victims in its wake long after it has officially ended.”

Blue Kansas Sky

Opening: There really is a Kansas sky, wide as the land is flat. On fall mornings it seems as if the stratosphere drops down just before dawn to touch the trees, make crisp the leaves of brown and red and yellow, rise again to paint the sky a deep blue, and leave the air as clean and as fresh as a newly-cut lemon.

This Saturday the crystals of the first light frost melt on the buffalo grass and wet my shoes as I go to catch a ride to town on the bus for the insane.

The Notebook

No reader yet has foretold the ending to this story.

Reviewer: “Loved it! The ending came too soon, being so captivated by their story. This is a story I would recommend to my reader friends. This is also an author I will be following and waiting for more amazing stories. So much was told in a short time...it leaves you wanting for more…”

Downswing

Reviewer: “An absolutely gorgeous story, voluptuous descriptions that just beg for someone to paint the scenes in oils. Who thought that a short story about golf could be so intense, so vivid and so engaging - I literally walked out to the mailbox with my Kindle in my hand, reading. You don't want to miss this latest from Randy Attwood - go get it, and his other works while you're at it. You really won't regret it.”

Hospital Days

(ten shorts)

Reviewer: “This is a different type of read. It takes the reader into the life behind the scenes of a hospital. It is not like a TV show with heroics and handsome doctors getting all the attention. This is the grittier side of life with a true feel to the happenings as the reader is shown the life of a candy striper at first would like to be a doctor, but after what he sees in the real raw world a change of occupation might be in order.”

Innocent Passage 

A tale of innocence lost, as two adventurous boys discover tragic hidden secrets and their own true nature.

Bless Me, Father, forI am Sinning

Two teen boys take on the Roman Catholic Church.