Tag: satire

The American Robin: Hatched from Evil

Author KSBrooks Looking for a Robin-Free Zone
Author K. S. Brooks in Search of a Robin-Free Zone in the Arctic

Everyone loves robins. They symbolize the first sign of Spring. People delight over their teal colored eggs. And there is always excitement when their young start peeping in the nest.

Not me. I loathe them. Even the scientific name for the American Robin is heinous: Turdus migratorius. Let me translate that for you – it means they crap everywhere.

And everywhere is the key. In 1996 I traveled all the way to Alaska to photograph Grizzly Bears and Orcas (killer whales). After two long days on the water, I docked at the port of Valdez without seeing an Orca. The disappointment was staggering. When I arrived at the bed and breakfast, there was a large bird to the left of the driveway. It was too far away for me to ascertain its species. My heart jumped with the great anticipation of identifying my first sub-arctic land bird. I whipped out my 300 mm lens and clicked off four photos. As I did not want to frighten away this mystery bird, I crept in a couple of feet and shot some more. A few more steps, a few more frames, and before you know it I had rifled off nearly an entire roll of film. Finally, I was close enough to get a good look at this bird: it was a @#^&* robin! I had traveled all the way to the other end of the United States of America to see a robin? After wasting a roll of film on this common bird, I was steamed. And no, I never saw a Grizzly, either. Continue reading “The American Robin: Hatched from Evil”

Entitled

Oh my god, okay, so there’s this thing, right? Did you hear? There are these people, just ordinary people like you and me except they got lucky because there’s this revolution going on and people are bulldozing the libraries all across America right now and taking apart those Barns’n’No-Bull stores or whatever they’re called, which is, ha, funny, because it’s like that saying about locking the barn door after… anyway, I gotta tell you this, it’s so cool, and you’ll never believe it, but back to these lucky folks, one of them is called Joe Konehead and there’s even this really young chick named Amanda Hawking (I think she’s the little sister of that handicapped spacegeek with the creepy computer voice), and they heard about this new book revolution, only they’re not books, they’re eBooks and, oh my god, LOL, this is so amazing, you gotta keep listening. So they made, like, more money than Jesus at a Casino thanks to these iKindles and MaxiPads and all the other eReaders that all these big companies are now making especially for the eBooks, and you know, here’s the thing, you can now go sell your eBooks on them since it’s so easy, anyone can do it… Continue reading “Entitled”

How to Write an Interesting Bio Blurb

[This is a satirical article. If you want instruction on how to write a professional biography from someone  who actually cares, try this article. – The Administrators.]

One of the things an author is expected to do from time-to-time is to produce at least a short biographical blurb. These may be used for an interview, a book jacket, or even an event program in which you are a presenter. It seems a simple enough task to write a paragraph about oneself, and simpler still for a real writer.

Yet, simple though it seems, many writers have difficulty writing a bio blurb that does not have the side effect of producing heavy drowsiness. This is because most of us are boring. We write fiction (in some small part) because real life just doesn’t measure up—we feel the pressing need to create a more interesting world, even if it is imaginary. Continue reading “How to Write an Interesting Bio Blurb”

My Hormones Made Me Do It

Hormones. You can’t live with too many, and you can’t live without enough. Yes, my friend, without the proper hormone balance you will curl up like the feet of the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy removed the Ruby Slippers. Hormones are fascinating little buggers, and incredibly useful to the premenstrual writer. Sit back and enjoy the scene below as written by a woman in the grips of estrogen dominance.

I am the White Ninja.

One evening I sat at the kitchen table and watched my husband walk around the pool surveying his kingdom. Suddenly, I detested him and was determined to arrest his ability to suck in oxygen that should have rightly been mine. I imagined myself as a White Ninja, creeping stealthily up behind him, unsheathing the gleaming weapon I had sharpened only that morning. He turned, eyes widening as the swoosh of my sword smoothly sliced across his neck, decapitating him. It was a clean and perfect cut. His head bounced twice landing in the pool, the crimson clouds spreading smoothly like crimson cumulus clouds. Continue reading “My Hormones Made Me Do It”