Sara Dobie Bauer's Blog, page 15

J. Dell photo shoot with some Tom Waits

Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress

Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light

The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak

Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall li...

The Oscar boycott and modern day witch-hunting

Salem, Massachusetts: 1692.In a community rife with arguments about property lines and church rules, three teenage girls started pointing fingers, accusing local women of witchcraft.

Tituba, a black slave, was one of the first targets, due perhaps to her ethnic differences. Martha Corey came later, perhaps because she voiced skepticism about the girls’ accusations and drew their ire.

By the end of 1693, the Salem Witch Trials had come to a close, and twenty people were dead, thanks to hyster...

A ghost story in Bop Dead City

Some stories we write and love to read again. Others we write and sort of shudder. Not because they’re bad, but because they remind us of a certain time and place we’d rather not revisit.

My short story, “Ghosts of Ice Cream,” is one of those stories, written during a deep depressive phase in Phoenix when I was … blocked.A writer’s nightmare. Plus there was just some bad shit going down, so I wrote this story, haltingly, alone in a corner, probably smoking a cigarette.

Bop Dead City admired...

Creative ways to fight SAD in winter

Trust me, this is not a clinical analysis of Seasonal Affective Disorder. This is my list of things I do to pick me up on a day-to-day basis. See, everyone I know has been a little wary, what with me moving from sunny Phoenix to the frigid Midwest. My family and friends know I’ve suffered from depression ever since I was old enough to buy black lipstick. It’s been over a year since I went off anti-depressants, and I’ve been doing great actually! However, with the creeping cold comes some cree...

A recap of 2015, including that time I almost drowned

I get kind of dizzy thinking about 2015 because so much happened. I can’t believe Jake and I squeezed so much into a single year, but here goes. Let’s sum up an incredible 12 months.

1. THE MOVE

Jake, the farmer boy, with my parents.

Jake and I built a life together in Phoenix, Arizona, for five years. We moved there so Jake could have a lifelong career as a nuclear engineer only to have him realize he actually wanted to be an organic farmer, which he is, here in Chardon, Ohio. Four months ag...

For Christmas: Meet Cleve the Cannibal in Flapperhouse #8

Nothing says Christmas like an immortal monster who eats human flesh! Cleve might be a cannibal, but he’s really a good guy. He only eats sick people; he’s just saving them the trouble. Then, he meets Blake Shepherd and things take a turn.

I’ve always been fascinated by bad guys with charisma.Think Hannibal Lecter (also a cannibal), Michael Corleone, and even Batman’s Joker. There’s just something about a charming villain that makes you root for them. I mean, even Darth Vader has a sort of j...

Ripper Street: A perfect ending … or not?

Let us not call this a rant. Let us call this a confused, mystified, 600-word bitch fest wherein which I try to make sense of someone else’s terrible decision. Since its inception in 2012, I have been a fervent fan of the BBC television show Ripper Street. The setting is Whitechapel, London, in the days directly following Jack the Ripper’s bloody rampage.

Three men are drawn into the fray: brilliant Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfayden), brawler Sergeant Bennet Drake (Jerome Fl...

We fight a war of hate

It never occurred to me that I was anti-war, but based on some recent short stories I’ve penned, maybe I am. It’s difficult to say for sure when I support and respect so many people who have served this country, but even my soldier friends tellme talesI’d rather forget.

I wrote my new short story, “Project: Terminated” several months before the tragedy in Paris, but I imagine I was gripped by some level of anger even then over The State of Things. While writing, I imagined a world where dead...

Christmas sale for Life without Harry and Forever Dead

Now that it’s December 1st, I can say it: MERRY CHRISTMAS! I try to keep to one holiday per month, but today, I embrace the Bing Crosby ringtone on my phone and my Jacquie Lawson advent calendar. I also embrace … a sale.

Both my Amazon-published novel and short story are cheaper than ever for the next twenty-five days, at only 99-cents a pop. It’s the perfect time to catch up on your reading and buy yourself an extremely inexpensive Christmas gift.

What people are saying about Life without H...

Thanksgiving Before

Mom, Grandma, Susie, Barney, and Dad

I wake up hung-over. The night before, I took my little brother Matt (home from Ohio University for Thanksgiving) out on the town. He didn’t realize the night before Thanksgiving was like a Perrysburg High School reunion, the bars of our small hometown overflowing with alumnus, all there to see each other, reminisce, and get irresponsibly spiffed.

I shower, drink some coffee. Around noon, Matt shows up at my tiny, one bedroom apartment that sits above a ra...