“Snow floated in the next day, early in the morning, like a sifting, and the dark hill framed by my window slowly turned white behind the twisted black veins of barren branches and the wind rose and the snow got bigger and did not stop.”
Robb Todd, “The City From a Bridge”
There was hopeful, corny graffiti on a rock: ‘I’VE SPENT ALL MY LIFE IN SEARCH OF YOUR LOVE.’
I like to think of my fiction collection as both—the stories themselves stand alone (I hope), and when read as a whole, the collection has a very novelistic feel. I aimed for both over the years of writing these stories, and whether I was successful or not, I suppose, is in the hands of the…
“Standing in the stairwell, Hannah gripped her daughter’s book and wondered why she did this, why she bothered with the long lunches and extra vacation days. None of it seemed to matter anymore. She was jealous of Ethan, of the time he spent at home with Alicia. But that wasn’t it. No, it was Ethan. Their marriage. The silences that now supplanted their conversations. He leaned over every night before falling asleep and kissed her shoulder and said, Don’t forget you love me. The words meant something once, long ago she thought, when they were young and naive and perfect. When she couldn’t imagine, even for a moment, forgetting how much she loved him. Now, she could barely look at him. He knew, she thought, but he didn’t care. Perhaps he had forgotten. She had tried, for some time, to remind him, but everything seemed to end in futility. Something new interrupted them, something unfamiliar and broken. She was at a loss as to what to do next. Leaning against the wall of the stairwell, she watched her daughter. Hannah took quick, unsatisfying breaths. Her marriage was worn, stuck between gears. It seemed the final miles had already come.”
Don’t Forget You Love Me, published in Used Furniture Review
“I dove into piles of leaves in a park because it was my last chance before the snow and if my friend and I were going to enjoy the city properly on the holiday, unbound from obligation and other people, we had to do whatever everyone else was not doing.
Birds flying in flocks circled above the streets and between buildings, black outlines against a bright, clouded sky, and they landed on ledges and rested and did the same thing over again.”
Robb Todd, “The City From a Bridge”
But they would sometimes stop before the complete disclosure of a thought and would then try to imagine a phrase that could express it anyway. She did not confess her passion for another man; he did not say that he had forgotten her.
“When Elizabeth entered the bookstore, she could still hear the conversations and see the commotion pouring in from Union Square.”
from “Union Square,” forthcoming in Gris-Gris
“What makes Steal Me [for Your Stories] great is that it completely succeeds in what all those other youth-in-the-city short story collections merely attempt – and fail – to do. Steal Me doesn’t just capture the absurdity of drunken young people in the 21st century, it doesn’t try to seek triumph from exposing the inner workings of sexually active minds, it doesn’t force truth out of vomit, cramped apartments, and antidepressants. Steal Me brings to light what those other writers apparently have forgotten is just as true and as important as those ridiculous, depressing moments: the euphoric bits of life.”
—A.K. Mayhew, review of Steal Me for Your Stories by Robb Todd
(Read Todd’s short story, “The City From a Bridge,” taken from Steal Me for Your Stories, in the new issue of fwriction : review.)
Enjoy the new issue of fwriction : review—Robb Todd’s “The City From a Bridge”—from Todd’s debut collection, Steal Me for Your Stories, on your mobile device!
(Short) Fiction Collective loves words. Sharing the works of talented authors, both established and emerging, is our passion. Primarily an online magazine, we’re now venturing into print. The issue is scheduled for release in June 2012, with the exclusive .pdf version available sometime in May. The majority of the money we raise will go towards the printing, editing, cover design, and shipping of the issue. But we’re also allocating some money to go to the author’s because we believe that the writer’s should be compensated for their work. Our hope is that you’ll join us in helping spread some great literature as well as confirming our belief that the print culture is in fact, still alive. Once funded, we plan on sending out feelers to some of the best and brightest contemporary authors in the game. In the past, we’ve published some really talented writers such as xTx, Jordan Castro, Sheldon Lee Compton, Joseph Riipi, Len Kuntz, Noah Cicero, and Meg Tuite, just to name a few. So get on board and help us out!
(Find us on Facebook, too!)
From the New York Public Library:
Union Square looking north towards 4th Ave. 1870?-1890?
Created using the #Stereogranimator (via New York Public Library @nypl_labs). For more information, visit http://stereo.nypl.org/.
Robb Todd’s “The City From a Bridge,” in the new issue of fwriction : review, is taken from his debut collection Steal Me for Your Stories.
It’s on sale here, at Tiny Hardcore Press. Yes.
Read a review of this amazing collection over at A.K. Mayhew’s Reading Through College.
nypl:
The Library has just launched Stereogranimator, a site that lets users turn our historic collection of stereographs into animated images like the one above. Read all about it in the Times and then go play! It’s the latest way we’re using technology to bring our collections to the public, following our What’s on the Menu, Biblion iPad app and map warping projects.
Caturday will never be the same …
Chosen by Robb Todd for his short story, “The City From a Bridge,” from his debut collection, Steal Me for Your Stories
What About Sushi?, published in Wufniks
DANIELLE: (to George) Neil?
The woman touches George on his shoulder, to get his attention.
...
YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE THE INTERNET UNATTENDED
I went to another country for a while. In that...
From my collection, here is the second set of showcased linked stories:
Jerry: Oh! God.. Oh! man…..Oh! brother!!! I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This woman his...
HELEN: Well, also, Jerry, we read an article in the Sun Sentinel. (digs in her purse and...
…These essayish ‘stories,’ most appearing in English for the...
Year One
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