La Fatale Captures Midway Spot In Feb. 10-Minute-Story First Sunday Prose

The Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic” session (cf. January 5, et al.) was a little bit different this month.  Instead of the usual featured readers plus walk-ons format, it was all “open Mic” but with doubled time, ten minutes instead of three to five, allowed for each reader.  Regardless of format, about fifteen people attended at local tavern Bear’s [image error]Place, with some suggesting that possibly more might in the future should it be repeated, allowing as it did a little more flexibility for walk-ons with slightly longer than flash pieces.

In all, seven attendees read, including two with short novel chapters.  Of these, I came precisely in the middle, in number four spot, with a 1300-word story, “La Fatale,” recently mentioned here as a possible entry in a locally edited anthology, RAPE ESCAPES (see December 23), a variation on DRACULA in which Mina Harker, fled to France after becoming a vampire herself after all, proves a savior to three new Frenchwoman friends when attacked on the streets of after-dark Paris.