I made it through the weekend, even submitted my final short story for the first ever (!) 48-Hour Short Story Race three hours ahead (!) of the deadline.
With anticipation, I refreshed my inbox repeatedly, waiting for the directions and my assigned prompts. I’d read the welcome email a number of times, but the prompts were slow in coming. At 7:20, FINALLY, they came through: psychic, postcard, Natural History Museum. Natural History Museum? Really? Ugh. And someone got Funeral Home – lucky duck. In all honesty, I was disappointed. Does anything interesting actually happen at a Natural History Museum? Other than the events of Night at the Museum? Don’t get me wrong: dinosaur bones are cool, but I’ve seen ’em.
But from those prompts sprang the story of Lavinia “Vinnie” Walker Fairfax, Mineralogist and Curator of Gems at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. And I love her. Wanna read my story? Here it is, all 1863 words of it. Gloves Off
shelly. walston. writes. 