Tales from Room 302

Thanks for visiting Room 302. Currently we have a story in residence. Jacksonville Boogie was my entry for the Summer 2010 issue of The First Line, a literary journal that provies a first sentence every quarter, and the writer's job is to write a 3,000-words-or-fewer story that starts with this line. I've sold stories to them before, as you know if you've ever visited Room 302 before. This one just missed the cut, apparently.

Jacksonville Boogie was somewhat inspired by the car service guy who picked us up after our car broke down on the way to Orlando this past April. There's at least one actual quote from a conversation I had with him while he drove us to the airport to pick up our rental car. I won't say which quote, but rest assured it's in there.

My latest attempt at selling a story to The First Line was thwarted by an uncooperative email program that didn't send my email and didn't let me know this until after the deadline. So you can expect to find that one here sometime soon. But until then, this is the chance I got to tell another Tale from Room 302. Please ring the bell for service...