I wrote Cheating Songs for an online workshop I participated in last year, lead by Siobhan Wright. That workshop has generated some of my best work to date. It was called Tell Us a Story. This is the third piece from that workshop to be published, and I’m continuing to work with Siobhan Wright, who has become a trusted friend and writing companion.
(The other two pieces that have been picked up from that workshop are “A Simple Twist of Fate,” published in Kestrel, Issue 43, September 1, 2020, and “The Contract Fulfilled” published by 50-Word Stories in March 2020.
Thanks to Michael Simms at Vox Populi for soliciting a story from me. Technically, “Cheating Songs” is an essay, but my father has always been a character in the stories I tell myself. He reads like fiction, because he was so unique. My mother was also an atypical sort of person, and when I write about either of them, their special quirks make it easy to tell compelling stories about them. I think of it as a story, and it’s one of quite a few I’ve written about my parents since both of them passed away in 2019. I hope to have a worthwhile collection of short essays and creative nonfiction pieces to share about them eventually.