Pity Party
Short fiction for middle-grade
2021 Little, Brown
Dear missing parts, broken hearts
picked on, passed up
misunderstood
sitting alone
Dear ADD, ADHD, OCD
WX, Y and Z
Dear everyone
Dear you
You are cordially invited
Come as you are
Help yourself to the cake
Spin your troubles round the dance floor
This party’s for you
Dear weird toes
crooked nose
stressed out, left out
freaked out
Dear strep throat, chicken pox
ate a moldy muffin
stepped in poison oak
Dear lost sweatshirt
Dear lost dog
Dear didn’t make the team
didn’t get the part
didn’t pass the test
Dear just moved to this town
Dear desperate to get out of this town
The Best Worst Thing
A Middle Grade Novel
Spring 2016 — Little, Brown
The mini mart clerk has been shot, the murderer is loose in the neighborhood, middle school has just started, the man who lives on the other sides of the fence is about to sell his rabbits to a restaurant, on September 23 the mean neighbor boy with the mean dog is getting a gun for his birthday, and Maggie Alder is sure that it is up to her, and only her, to save everyone. The Best Worst Thing is a story about learning what you can control (almost nothing) and the good (sometimes even best) things that can come of finally letting go.
Warm-Blooded Animals
(A SHORT STORY)
Nailed Magazine
Grandma calls it the stuffing arts. She has blue ribbons from the fair and certificates on her wall saying she passed squirrel and hawk class, but she knows how to stuff other things too. The squirrels and skunks she gets from the highway but the birds she gets from the wildlife rescue center. Birds from the road are no good anymore.
“You have to go real careful around the paws,” Grandma says. “See how I do?”
Mostly it’s wild animals in her house—skunk, raccoon, that kind of thing—but she stuffed Reagan too because Reagan was the best cat she ever had. Grandma says she does it because she loves animals and you can admire them better when they’re holding still. MORE
After the End
(A VERY SHORT STORY)
Los Angeles Review
The bakery was the last building standing and so everyone gathered around its two and a half walls, its one miraculous window. They took turns walking up to what was left of the counter, ordering biscuits and scones from the unblinking baker now floured in ash. One line of red you could trace up his apron to a flap of skin hanging from his chin.
The biscuits and scones had been reduced to black pebbles and nobody seemed sure what to do with them, why they wanted them. Some licked. Others, with nothing left to carry, cupped them like eggs, like answers. The children were the most inventive, building palaces around the pebbles, summoning six-horned beasts to guard them. The pebbles were magic, they said. Yes! If you plant them, new buildings will grow! You’ll see, papa, we’ll have a city again! MORE
Deaths I've Imagined
(Flash fiction)
Monkeybicycle
...
In need of Heimlich, I am only person who knows Heimlich
Murderer disguised as tricker treater dressed up as murderer
Earthquake on bridge
Elevator asphyxiation
Crossfire
Free round-trip ticket to anyone willing to take the next flight
Running triggers the mountain lions natural instinct to chase
Eric
Marna
Andy
Eric
Falling rocks
Falling trees
Falling balcony
Falling
It likes to be scratched under its neck
Don't worry, the jetty keeps them from coming in this close
With this ring, I thee wed
Leaning over stove in angora pancho
Mattress improperly tied to pickup in front of me
Bear
MORE
Training of Bird
(Flash fiction)
Untold Gaze
The sun is hot through the window. It makes a crooked yellow square on the Doctor’s desk. The boy does not like the Doctor. He is bald. He is old. The boy has thought before that the Doctor would look nicer if he had hair. If he put some pink on his dry white lips.
On the desk are two pictures. The boy is to choose the one that makes him feel happy inside. “Like mommy just gave you a big ice cream cone.”
The boy would like to be outside in the sun, holding his mother’s hand, walking to Sweetie’s for ice cream, and he would very much like to be back in his sister’s room playing dress-up, even though there will be no more dress-up says mother, but he forces his attention on the two pictures. Lady in dress. Man on tractor. “To eat?” he asks.
Doctor’s eyes on boy’s face, boy’s eyes on Doctor’s hand. All on its own, like a robot, like Frankenstein, Doctor’s hand writes words on striped paper.
“Is that what you would like to do? Would you like to eat them?” the Doctor asks, even though he was the one, not the boy, who said ice cream. MORE
About
Kathleen Lane is founder and program director of Create More, Fear Less, a nonprofit program that.encourages young (and all) people to work with anxiety in a new way—as a source of creativity, empathy, wisdom, and courage.
She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she also co-hosts the art & literary event series SHARE and is currently finishing up her
adult short story collection, Average Life Expectancy, and pondering possibilities for her next book for younger readers.
She is endlessly grateful to her brilliant editor, Susan Rich, her wonderful writing community, her sweet, supportive family and friends, and all of the young people who fill her with inspiration and hope for this world.
Photo by Heather Hawksford