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My latest release, When the Shoe Won’t Fit, led a long and tangled life up to this point. It is now available for the first time in eBook form, most specifically in Kindle form so it is available to Kindle Unlimited readers for free.

I wasn’t much for talking about my writing on my blog back when this story was first included in the online magazine Aurora Wolf and then the related anthology Aurora in the Dawn in 2010, but sometimes life gives you a second chance…or you take it.

Yes, When the Shoe Won’t Fit is an updated version of a story that was traditionally published, but it’s much more than that.

When the Shoe Won’t Fit first came to life as part of the second Story a Day challenge on Forward Motion in 2004. The prompt I drew is below:

My main character/protagonist is a female. My main character is a babysitter/nanny. An archetype present in my story is Bigfoot. A key object or symbol in my story is a lava lamp. My story will be set in a motor home. My story is about bigotry. An event or situation in my story is defamation.

I didn’t include every element, nor did everything come through in the way intended by the prompt, but Tiptoe’s short, poignant, tale about belonging is one I’m quite happy with. It touches on the insidious nature of bullying as well as Tiptoe’s core generosity despite the way she was raised in the fairy village. If you do read the story, come back here, it might be fun to come back here and see how I translated the above into story.

I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I did writing it. The fairies are non-traditional to modern ears (eyes?), but those who look back to the older portrayals will find something uncomfortably familiar in the sharp bite of these fairies.

Read an excerpt and back cover text here or use the button below.