Christmas Past, Present and Future

By Shay Zeller on Sunday, December 23, 2001.

Year after year, you hear the same Christmas Stories, right? Well today we're starting our own traditions with new stories from four New Hampshire writers. Doug Schwarz goes back in time to remember a very special gift, Victoria Shouldis looks through old pictures, Ann Robinson reads her short story "The Elf Gig" and Science Fiction writer James Patrick Kelly shares his Fruitcake Theory. Heat up some eggnog and get a pull up your favorite chair for What's Your Story.

DOUG SCHWARZ
A GIFT FOR GIVING
From: Twelve Years of Christmas published by www.plaidswede.com

?A Gift for Giving? originally appeared in the Concord Monitor last year. Doug Schwarz has collected his annual columns in his new book, ?The Twelve Years of Christmas.? He has written numerous plays including ?I go Pogo? a musical comedy adaptation of the comic strip Pogo. He is also a computer programmer, actor, and singer. His newest project is an ecological memoir about his family?s longstanding relationship with Wild River at the North East corner of the White Mountains. Doug lives in Penacook, New Hampshire.

VICTORIA SHOULDIS
THE FAMILY ALBUM

Victoria is a native New Yorker, but has lived in southern New Hampshire for nearly 20 years. She is a social worker writer and regular contributor to The Concord Monitor. Her brother Michael is now 45, but his whereabouts are still unknown.

ANN ROBINSON
THE ELF GIG-

The Elf Gig by Ann Robinson originally appeared in Yankee Magazine. In addition to her comic novel Witch, Ann Robinson is working on a collection of short fiction Ordinary Perils. She has also been published in Yankee, Oxford Review, the Keene Sentinel, and The Nightshade Nightstand reader. Ann Robinson lives in Swanzey, New Hampshire.

JAMES PATRICK KELLY
THE FRUITCAKE THEORY

"The Fruitcake Theory" was originally published in Asimov?s Science Fiction Magazine in 1998. James Patrick Kelly has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. He has won the World Science Fiction Society?s Hugo Award twice: in 1996, for his novelette ?Think Like A Dinosaur? and in 2000, for his novelette, ?10^16 to 1.? His books Wildlife, Heroines, Look Into The Sun, Freedom Beach and Planet of Whispers. A new short story collection, Strange But Not A Stranger, will be published in August of 2002. His audio plays are a regular feature on Scifi.com's Seeing Ear Theater. He is currently one of fourteen councilors appointed by Governor Jeanne Shaheen to the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. You can learn more about him at his website, www.jimkelly.net

If you would like information about the New Hampshire Writers? Project, visit their website at www.nhwritersproject.org