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Tag: literature

The Torch

Published by Shahidul Alam on December 10, 2013

Nuhash Humayun?November 13, 2013

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I was ten years old, on a bicycle, taking the only path I knew. I was going from my mother?s place to my father?s. People would ask me what it was like, having parents who were separated. I never really had an answer. Honestly, it wasn?t strange for me, it was the only life I knew. It was always like this, as far back as I remembered. My sisters would tell me that we were once this one big happy family, but those were just stories to me, fairytales almost. I had almost no recollection of seeing my parents together, ever. As far as I knew, this was life. I had a happy family too, just a little separated. And separations were temporary, right? It?s just one big fight that takes a while to fix.

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Ami Tomay Bhalobashi

Published by Shahidul Alam on October 8, 2013

Bedford College Magazine (my first short story)

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The sound of the bolt seemed to grate loud into the night as he locked the door.? For a fleeting moment he flustered as he imagined every person in the enormous house knowingly smile at hearing the sound. It was her he was more worried about; locking the door when they were the only ones in the room seemed to have sinister implications somehow ? but, surely it was understandable, after all they were now man and wife.

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Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World

Published by Shahidul Alam on September 14, 2013

By Marlene Zuk??Images forwarded by Manzoor
“People are more afraid of insects than they are of dying, at least if you believe a 1973 survey published in?The Book of Lists. Only public speaking and heights exceeded the six-legged as sources of fear … And yet for centuries, some of the greatest minds in science have drawn inspiration from studying some of the smallest minds on earth. From Jean Henri Fabre to Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson, naturalists have been fascinated by the lives of six-legged creatures that seem both frighteningly alien and uncannily familiar. Beetles and earwigs take care of their young, fireflies and crickets flash and chirp for mates, and ants construct elaborate societies, with internal politics that put the U.S. Congress to shame. …
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Published by Shahidul Alam on August 13, 2013

By Chris Heller The Atlantic

A lovely short story.

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Lucas Jackson/Reuters, Chris Heller

Craigslist: that scourge of the newspaper industry, that den of lust, that middleman responsible for an untold number of bedbug crises.
Or, Craigslist: the Internet’s simplest and most ingenious disruptor, a digital equivalent of the neighborhood telephone pole papered from sidewalk to eye line with “HELP WANTED” and “GARAGE SALE: TODAY!” fliers.
How about, Craigslist: accidental publisher of short fiction?
On Tuesday evening, “Missed Connection” appeared as a personal listing on Brooklyn’s corner of the website. It begins like most of these confessions do:

I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.
I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse.

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How to quit your job

Published by Shahidul Alam on July 26, 2013

How to Quit Your Job Like Sherwood Anderson: The Best Resignation Letter Ever Written

by?Maria Popova
?He is a nice fellow. We will let him down easy but let?s can him.?
Like a number of celebrated creators ? including?Dr. Seuss,?F. Scott Fitzgerald, and?Wendy MacNaughton???Sherwood Andersonstarted out in advertising to make ends meet, first as an advertising solicitor, then as an ad salesman and copywriter for farming equipment, and eventually as a copywriter in Chicago-based advertising agency Taylor Critchfield Co. until he became a successful novelist at the age of 41. Though he was man of?timeless, profound insight on the creative life?and the originator of some of?history?s finest fatherly advice, he was also a man of masterful humor and remarkable wit. In 1918, when the time came to free himself from the shackles of the corporate world and plunge wholeheartedly into his craft, Anderson wrote what?s possibly the best letter of resignation ever penned, found in the altogether delightful?Funny Letters from Famous People?(public library):

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