A. Medlin

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another Tuesday Novel Storytime, this time featuring an excerpt from chapter 6 of my novel Dog Down. Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading! CW: animals in danger, talk of zombies . . . . . After a few seconds, Indigo was almost certain whatever it was had been a trick of the mind, but before long, she noticed something much smaller than a human moving through the hedges along the house closest to them. Indigo knew this was no strange human, the strange humans were much bigger than whatever this was, but she was confused as to why this creature was stalking its way towards them. The shape stopped just short of the edge of the hedge, a little too far away for Indigo to call out to, but she could see a pair of eyes staring at her through the foliage. A cat? Indigo voiced to herself, confused as to why a cat was interested in them. Indigo herself didn’t know much about them, only that they were often allowed to roam freely in a way her kind were no...

Hi lovelies! This is a new monthly segment on the page where I post a NEW short story every third Friday of the month! Hooray!! Please enjoy... MORGAN’S MEOW CW: animal d3ath, ghosts (IT HAS A POSITIVE ENDING, I PROMISE) . . . . . Morgan had been dead for one hundred years and never liked the tenants in her house. Then, one day, they brought home a small, black cat. The cat stopped at the foot of the stairs, sat down, and meowed right at Morgan. Morgan’s eyes widened when it walked towards her and looked directly at her. “Can you see me?” she asked. The cat meowed again. Morgan had never had a pet, and she didn’t consider this one hers. However, the more the cat unsuccessfully tried to rub against her leg, or climb onto her lap, the more Morgan grew fond of the cat. In fact, she liked the cat so much, she stopped trying to chase away the tenants. One day, the man left the front door open. The cat got out. Morgan could only watch in horror as the cat ran across the street, o...

✨️On giving up something for lent✨️ As we are now in lenten times (for those familiar with Catholicism), I'd like to share some religious thoughts. Please bear in mind, I am an EX catholic, so if you're going to read this, do remember that and know I WILL act, and perhaps even respond, accordingly. Religion, to me, wears many oppressive hats. When I think about Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, I think a LOT about my culture. The peoples of Latin America had religion forced on them by colonialists, and so many of their descendants and the diaspora cling to this oppressive blanket like it ever did them or their ancestors any favors. I can't speak for everyone, but I will speak on the Mexican diaspora in the US. Unfortunately, those who do not reside in ancestral pueblos and villages and towns have lost their traditions and beliefs and folklore to Catholicism, to the "one true God," and it is reflected in the way so many young Latinos have bee...

I often like to think of the metaphor of the grief box when I'm missing my dad. I read about it on Tumblr once, so I don't remember the exact wording or who to credit. If you know, let me know! When we first lose someone, our Grief Box is large, and it's full of Stuff. That Stuff touches every side of the Grief Box so that you feel like it'll never end, that it's just always going to be massive and you'll never feel relief. Fresh grief is its own hell. But, as time goes on, the Stuff in your Grief Box begins to shrink. You barely notice at first, because the Stuff is still touching the sides of your Grief Box frequently, often, every few minutes, etc. More time passes. The Stuff continues to shrink. And as it shrinks, it stops touching the sides of the Grief Box as often. In time, the Stuff is so small, it hardly ever touches the Grief Box. But the Stuff never goes away. The Grief Box never goes away. There are days we can breathe, and days we cannot. Today, it ...

Hi lovelies! Please enjoy an excerpt from chapter 9 of my novel DOG DOWN , and please let me know if you would like to read more! Please forgive me being scatterbrained and posting a day late as well! CW: mentions of death, mentions of zombies, animals in danger . . . . . Those three days after Korn’s death passed slowly. The dogs were bored, the kids were bored, and Mira was continuously curt with whatever human opened the door that day to bring food. She and the kids mostly contented themselves with talking lightly, playing games with small pieces of paper at the table, and twisting themselves into odd shapes on the floor, but they steered clear of the back corner where Benji and Indigo had had little choice but to relieve themselves. None of them were allowed outside, and Indigo took to staring out the window up at the sky almost the entire last day locked away. Three days later, the door was unlocked with a resounding click , and they were allowed out. The kids were whisked away ra...

I think a lot about my students, especially these days. I think a lot about their well-being, their safety, if they ate enough that day, if they got enough sleep. I think about their jobs, and their cars, and their families, their responsibilities. I try to remember being a student myself, with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I think about their safety a lot more these days. When I started teaching, I made it an unconscious habit, a terrible game if you will, to figure out escape routes from each of my classrooms. I still play occasionally, more often than occasionally. I know the best ways to keep doors sealed, or ways to hide or run without being seen on my side of campus. I've thought about these things a hundred million times. I'm a teacher in the USA. This is life. But now, I have additional concerns. I work at a HSI, a Hispanic Serving Institute. We are in the heart of Southern California, where the presence of agents has only increased as the weeks go on. LA has...