Art Imitates Vesta

About ten years ago, got my first short story published in a professional, non-academic print literary journal. The Baltimore Review was the journal. “Out for a Walk” was the story.

“Out for a Walk” was about a pet dog who had to be put to sleep, and the difficult days between long-time companions before the act. I didn’t have a dog in my life at the time that I wrote the story, but a couple years later I did. It wasn’t until a recent reading of the story, all these years later, that I realized how alike Thurber, from the story, and Vesta, from real life, were.

At the Reston Reading in November, I was invited by one of the fellow featured writers to submit a previously published story to Redux, an online journal devoted to giving new life to old print stories. “Out for a Walk” immediately came to mind as the story to submit.

Then, just a week later, we had to have our own family dog put to sleep. Art imitates life, life imitates art. Stories bring the dead new life.

I look forward to seeing and sharing “Out for a Walk” and the accompanying story behind the story in a future issue of Redux.  www.reduxlitjournal.com

In the meantime, here are some pictures of Vesta.