I’m bored already. I don’t want to hear a story about a school. I’m sick of schools as places where stories happen. Muggles or non-muggles. I don’t care.
Once upon a time there was a high-school.
Worse! I don’t care about what goes on at some stupid suburban high-school or some stupid rich kids private school. And I for sure DON’T want a story about some inspirational white person who is middle class and who “changes the lives” of the poor underclass persons who are not like that inspirational white person. Freedom Writers! Argh!
Once upon a time there was a university.
Ugh. Nothing even happens there except – in the olden days professors and students used to hook up. But that was boring too. So no one does it any more.
Once upon a time there was a medical school.
Wait – are there dead bodies in it?
Once upon there was a laboratory at a research center.
Seriously? No way, not unless something blows up!
Once upon a time there was a shopping mall that was the only structure that survived an unnamed global disaster.
Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a magical realist prose fiction writer, novelist, occasional essayist, and a committed, intermittent poet, as well as a passionate instructor of writing. A 7-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize she has published work in Hayden's Ferry, Pearl, CRATE, Rhapsoidia, NYCBigCityLit, the East Jasmine Review, Apeiron, Inlandia, Literary Alchemy and the Bellevue Literary Review among other places. She is the author the fabulist novel THE PUPPET TURNERS OF NARROW INTERIOR (Urban Farmhouse Press), a novelette, RESCUE PLAN (Bamboo Dart Press), a prose poem chapbook collection, SEX WITH BUILDINGS (dancing girl press), and a poetry collection, HOW FORMAL (Spout Hill Press).
Stephanie's new novel PRETEND PLUMBER is available for order from your favorite bookstore, and her poetry chapbook CITY SLICKER appeared in July 2022. Stay tuned for her novella, JOURNEY TO MERVEILLEUX CITY, coming out in 2023!
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Stephanie Barbé Hammer Writing (Un) Real 