Decision on the Stairs: New Short Story at Cultivating

The Summer 2026 edition of Cultivating Oaks Press is online today, and the theme is “renewing charity.” My new short story, “Decision on the Stairs,” is fiction, but it’s based on something that happened to my wife and I in London in 2012. We were getting ready for our day when fire alarms went off, and the hotel had to be evacuated. The elevators were not an option; we were on the 14^th floor, and the hotel was nearly full. There was no panic, but there was rising anxiety, and people were rushing to get out.  

What happened on the stairs became a short story 14 years later. You can read the story here. You can access the entire issue here.

Photograph by H&CO via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Christmas Solo – my new story at Cultivating Oaks Press

I have a new story at Cultivating Oaks Press. Entitled “The Christmas Solo,” it’s a tale of a man floundering after a marriage disaster who finds his way back with a Christmas song.  

It’s inspired by a song that has a short but strange history on YouTube, of all places. Early last October, a suggested video showed up on my YouTube page. Because it used a photo of the singer Josh Groban, I thought it was a new song by him. It was called “Light of Heaven,” and after listening to it a couple of times, I realized it sounded like Groban singing but wasn’t. Then I ask myself, what is this? Something done with an AI program? Identity theft? But if it was on YouTube, shouldn’t it have been vetted or approved with a new channel?

 

There were a number of similar videos, most using Groban’s picture and the voice sounding like Groban’s, but not quite his. A few other videos used other well-known singers like Rihanna. 

 

But I liked “Light of Heaven.” I’d listen to it while I did my periodic walks. Slowly, as I listened, a story began to shape itself in my mind. A song about the Nativity could become a way of redemption for a broken man. 

 

That’s the story I wrote for Cultivating Oaks Press. 

 

I had continued to listen to “Light of Heaven” on YouTube until this past weekend. It was still available on Saturday. On Sunday, clicking on the link brought this message: “Video unavailable. This video has been removed due to a contractual obligation with a music licensor.” Not only had the video vanished, but its channel, along with all the other songs, was gone as well.

 

It’s a story based on a song that became a ghost. All that’s really left of the song is this story. 

 

Photograph by Tom Allport via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Wisdom through the awful grace of God – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The Adams Book Club: An Introduction – Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Archaeologists stunned to find Homer’s Iliad inside ancient Egyptian mummy – Vishwam Sankaran at The Independent. 

 

Vagabondia – Spitalfields Life.

Cultivating, Winter 2026: Renewing Gratitude

The winter issue of Cultivating Oaks Press is live, and the theme is renewing gratitude. This issue includes some wonderful essays, articles, and stories by Rob Jones, Annie Nardone, Sheila Underwood Vamplin, Adam Nettesheim, Christina Brown, Lara d'Entremont, Kelly Keller, Maribeth Barber, and many more. I have a short story, "Grateful for the War." 

Some Monday Readings

 

C.S. Lewis Returns to Earth – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Dispatch No. 4: Jayber Crow – Amelia Friedline at Dispatches to Jack.

 

Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

The Christmas Nobody Wanted

The Christmas issue of Cultivating Oaks Press is now online, and I have a short story, “The Christmas Nobody Wanted.” It includes essays, reflections, and even a recipe by Andrew Roycroft, Amelia Friedline, Annie Nardone, Junius Johnson, Matthew Clark, Adam Nettesheim, Marbieth Barber, Hillevi Anne Peterson, and several others.  

The theme of the issue is “Making Room to Receive,” and you can access all the posts here. 

 

Photograph by Jessica Fadel via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The New Edition of Cultivating Oaks Press: Fidelity

The autumn edition of Cultivating Oaks Press is online, and its full of stories, articles, poetry, and beautiful photography. The theme is fidelity, defined by my Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the quality or state of being faithful” and “accuracy in details.” Synonyms are faithfulness, trustworthiness, and loyalty. 

This issue includes stories and articles by Tom Darin Liskey, Annie Nardone, Sam Keyes, Rob Jones, Amelia Friedline, Andrew Roycroft, and Lara d’Entremont, among several others. I have a poem, entitled “52,” and an article entitled “A Lock of Hair.”

 

It’s a wonderful issue.

 

Related:

 

A playlist for the autumn edition, Fidelity, of Cultivating Oaks Press.

The Mud Queen

When I agreed to co-teach a Sunday School class of second graders, I had no idea of what I was going to experience. And it wasn’t the kids. 

It was my co-teacher, Carl.

 

He recruited me. We both had our youngest children – boys – in second grade. The Sunday School class needed a teacher. We’d met in an adult Sunday School class, but we weren’t particularly close friends. 

 

“Look,” Carl said, “they need a teacher for the second grade. I can entertain the kids, but you’re the teacher. We have to make this fun. We can show the kids that Sunday School is fun. And so is learning about God.”

 

To continue reading, please see my story at Cultivating Oaks Press. This is the summer edition, and the theme is merriment.

 

Photograph by Matt Seymour via Unsplash. Used with permission. 

The Stamp of Generosity

The spring issue of Cultivating Oaks Press is online, and I have a short story, entitled “The Stamp of Generosity,” included with all the other articles that explore the topic of generosity. My story is based on an event from my own experience, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. A stamp store really did exist in that location, but it was known under another name.  

You can read my story here.

 

You can access the entire issue here.

 

Photograph by Krista Bennett via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Kindness on the Mountaintop

The Winter 2025 edition of Cultivating Oaks Press is now online, and the theme of this issue is kindness. You can read a number of essays and articles on the subject, and the authors include Annie Nardone, Amelia Friedline, Tom Darin Liskey, Rob Jones, Amy Malskeit, Lara d’Entremont, Matthew Clark, Christina Brown, Junius Johnson, Kirk Manton, Sam Keyes, Sheila Vamplin, and several more. 

I have a short story on the theme, “Kindness on the Mountaintop,” and you can read it here.

 

Photograph by Jess Zoerb via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Things Worth Remembering: The Zionism of Martin Luther King, Jr. – Douglas Murray at The Free Press.

 

Onward – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Winter’s Cold and Storms in Civil War Art – Brian Swartz at Emerging Civil War.

 

Diaspora 64 – poem by Oliver de la Paz at Literary Matters.

 

Trump is Uncool. And That’s a Good Thing – Peter Savodnik at The Free Press.

 

“I Sought the Wood in Winter,” poem by Willa Cather – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Cultivating Christmas

The Christmas edition of Cultivating Oaks Press is online, and it contains a number of excellent posts and stories about the wonder of Christmas. I have one about losing and finding the wonder of Christmas when I was six years old (a long, long time ago).

You can read the entire issue here.

A Language Lesson

I have a short story in the fall edition of Cultivating Oaks Press. The edition focuses on the theme of “fortitude,” and my story is entitled “A Language Lesson.” This is how it begins:

As the train arrived at Heidelberg Station, Sam McClure smiled to remember the first time he’d arrived here. In 1906, he’d just turned 16 and was preparing to spend his high school junior year with a family in Germany. He’d traveled by himself across the Atlantic on the H.M.S. Heimat for Hamburg, sent a telegram to Heidelberg to alert them of his arrival, and taken the train to his sponsoring family. His textbook-fluent German had been more than useful from the time he boarded the German liner in New York Harbor.

 

The Mittelstein family had been waiting: Dr. Aaron Mittelstein, chemistry professor at the university; his wife Ada; and their three children, Wolfgang, 18, Paul, 16, and Annaliese, 13. Wolfie was preparing to leave for university in Berlin. Paul, known as Mitti for being the middle child, was almost exactly Sam’s age and would share the same classes in Gymnasium, the German school he would attend. Annaliese would be attending Gymnasium with them.

 

Sam hadn’t known then what the Mittelsteins thought, but for him it had been love at first sight. That love, and what would become his deep friendship with Mitti, sustained him through a huge bout of homesickness and a steep cultural learning curve. He’d come to love this family so deeply that he returned four years later and stayed with them for a year abroad at the university.

 

To continue reading, please see my post at Cultivating Oaks Press. You can read all of the contributions here.

Photograph: Ransacking a Jewish home during Kristallnacht 1938.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The red star returns – Gary Saul Morson at The New Criterion on the specter of communism.

 

The death of conservatism? – Henry George at The Critic Magazine.

 

Slange Var! – Samuel Schaefer at Front Porch Republic on toasts.

 

Fine dining, POW Style: Johnson’s Island Rat Club – Kevin Donovan at Emerging Civil War.

The Unexpected Ballerina

The summer issue of Cultivating Oaks Press is live online, and the theme is courage. It includes a short story I wrote, "The Unexpected Ballerina." The issue is chock full of articles, poems, photography, and more by Annie Nardone, Junius Johnson, Maribeth Barber Albritton, Amelia Friedline, Kris Comely, Justin Lee Parker, Amy Wevodau Malskeit, Rob Jones, and more, under the general editorship of Lancia Smith. It's a wonderful issue.