Podcast appearances and mentions of William H Coles

William H. Coles, MD, MS, FACS, a former ophthalmic surgeon, is the award-winning author of short stories, essays on writing, interviews, poetry and novels in contests including The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. He is the creator of StoryInLiteraryFiction.com, a website dedicated to educational material, a workshop, and examples for writers seeking to create lasting character-based fiction with strong dramatic plots that stimulate thought about the human condition. The site has attracted 3M+ page views. In 2010, Coles published Facing Grace with Gloria and Other Stories, his first collection of award-winning stories. His 2011 debut novel, The Surgeon’s Wife, was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. Coles wrote scripts for editorials and weekly radio segments on jazz for the NPR affiliate WBFO that he presented on-air. He  collaborated with nine acclaimed artists to illustrate stories and novels and created an online art gallery of the works. In filmmaking, he won the Conrad Berens Award Competition for best film on a medical subject. In 2018, he produced the “Story in Fiction” podcast, reading his stories and novels, and improvising and playing the piano for intros and outros.

A literary psychological thriller by award-winning author William H. Coles. Two orphaned sisters, facing a future of want and loneliness, quarrel when the older sister, responsible for her dependent teenage sibling, repudiates her sister’s affair with a political activist–older and unacceptable–she bonds with on the internet. Can adolescent love ever transcend innocently ignored incompatibility to ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #35, the novella “Sister Carrie”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

The Wreck of Amtrak’s Silver Service A surgeon in a small town lives with his garrulous socially adept but childless wife. He blames her for his failed career and anger mounts to where he plots to be rid of her, seeking help to remove her from his life, but his plans go horribly awry. Gatemouth ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #31, the short stories “The Wreck of Amtrak’s Silver Service / Gatemouth Willie Brown on Guitar”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A disabled young man becomes homeless when his only relative, his grandmother dies. He’s a kind soul in a world of anger despair and hurt. A homeless woman befriends him and teaches him to stand up for himself against others, knowledge that leads to newly learned violent actions that change his life. These stories and ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #30, the short story “A Simple Life” by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

Clouds The first story is Clouds, the story of a loving single parent mother who must take her developmentally disabled son to be institutionalized when a trusted caregiver dies. Her grief is intensified by the obstacles her estranged husband presents. The first . . .”Clouds” is the story of a mother who must take her ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #29, the short stories “Clouds / Dilemma / Crossing Over” by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

Finalists in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. The first story, the Bear, is about two trappers and a boy in Alaska who anger a bear who seeks revenge with unrelenting rage. Second Story: Father Ryan. The Bishop is escorting Father Ryan from Boston to his new assignment in Idaho, under mysterious circumstances and salacious ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #28, the short stories “The Bear / Father Ryan / Lost Papers” by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

The armed-service wife of an air force Captain stationed in France in the 1960’s stands up to the selfish philandering of her pilot husband and demands justice and compensation for her leaving him and returning to the states. A resistant commanding officer denies her just demands to disastrous consequences. Award winning short story in the ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #27, the short story “Captain Wither’s Wife”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

The first story, On the Road to Yazoo City, is about a broke, loveless guitar player walking through Mississippi hoping to find a gig when he comes upon a young aloof waif of a girl who leads him through a day of shocking awareness of the nature of love and life that changes the direction ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #26, the short stories “On the Road to Yazoo City / Dr. Greiner’s Day in court”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

In a small town in Mississippi, a young boy is bullied by an older girl on the way home from school he retaliates and is blamed as the aggressor. When the families of the two children are on an outing, the girl is found dead. Although there is no proof, and the boy is innocent, ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #25, the short story “The Indelible Myth”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

With consternation, a long-haul big-rig truck driver reluctantly picks up a young woman seemingly injured on the side of an interstate highway and against his will and judgement takes her home to his wife who receives the girl as the child she never had and irreversibly alters the trucker’s future. Award-winning short story in the ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #24, the short story “Inside the Matryoshka”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A medical student is infatuated with her much older professor and defies her mother’s warnings of disastrous results if she continues an affair with a much older man highly respected for his status and work at university. But the mother’s feelings and advice are complicated by the arrival of a box that has items that ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #23, the short story “Grief”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A boy mother takes him to visit his grandparents in upstate New York when the farm is swarmed with hordes of flies from swampland on an adjacent property forcing angry dysfunctional interactions among grandparents and mother that finally presents an opportunity for the boy to see his father, who is estranged from his mother and ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #22, the short story “War of the Flies”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

The daughter of a well-respected portrait painter confronts the reaction of the community to the series of nude portraits her father painted of a young woman and must respond to rumors the town has disseminated based on more than a few carnal interpretation of the paintings. The daughter, as her father’s business manager, scrambles to ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #18, the short story “The Thirteen Nudes of Ernest Goings”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A former college roommate Peter comes to university to interview and Tony and his wife Amanda invite the roommate to dinner. Tony’s attraction and always unstated affection for Peter intensifies. The couples, at a sit-down dinner, listen as guest Peter tells a story of sexism and poorly disguised misogyny. Tony must decide whether or not ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #17, the short story “Curse of a Lonely Heart”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

The younger daughter of a mother battling against the society and humanity with misdirected fervor that when her first grandchild dies in the womb of her elder daughter, the mother seeks vengeance on erroneously perceived injustice; her younger daughter realizes she is of age and must make decisions that her mother does not agree. Finalist ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #16, the short story “The Activist”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

An insecure, uptight, assistant professor of English denies his suppressed attraction to a precociously arduous and passionate student in his evening noncredit creative writing course with twisted consequences that could deny his desire to be full professor. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. Finalist, (top six) Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. This story ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #15, the short story “The Perennial Student”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A Chinese girl abducted and imported illegally into the syndicated New Orleans sex trade befriends one of her handlers scheming to escape and fulfill her dreams of living the American dream—like she knows from seeing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. After many attempts to gain freedom, she finally succeeds in escaping but not to ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #14, the short story “Suchin’s Escape”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

An older couple with deep caring for each other live together unmarried and take an extended tour of India where they befriend a married couple, the wife who insists on wearing an expensive and ostentatious multicarat-diamond necklace on tour that is stolen with repercussive consequences that make the unmarried couple realize the value of love ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #13, the short story “The Necklace”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A lonely grocery store manager hires a seriously disabled boy to collect wheeled shopping-carts and becomes involved in false accusations, injustice punishment, unexpected caring, and painful loss. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. This story and thirty-two others are available online free for listening or reading, and download: https://www.storyinliteraryfiction.com/stories-novels An Illustrated print version ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #12, the short story “The Cart Boy”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A half-crazed, homeless con-man meets a young girl grieving for her father killed in a plane crash and is faced with the dilemma whether to persist in a scam when truth is called for. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. Finalist, (top six) Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. This story and thirty-two others ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #11, the short story “Facing Grace with Gloria”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A Socialite’s philandering physician husband goes to a medical meeting and when he doesn’t return she must face the humiliating pain of friends’ sympathies and the discovery of betrayal by her closest friend Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. This story and thirty-two others are available online free for listening or reading, and ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #10, the short story “The Golden Flute”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

During the French Revolution, a fatherless apprentice iron-monger carries his mother, dying of a throat lump, to a cathedral near the sea to find a miracle to save her, and is gifted with many miracles that will shape his future. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. This story and thirty-two others are available ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #9, the short story “The Miracle of Madame Villard”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

The time is late nineteenth century, the place “A Barnum and Bailey’s Circus on tour just ten years after the civil war. DiDi, one of the performing dwarf falls in love with Lazlo, the five-foot one trapeze sensation and rejects the amorous attention of the diminutive attendant of her midway act. She learns about the ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #8, the short story “Homunculus”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

An arrogant, self-centered audiovisual technician is fired for incompetence, his wife leaves him and he courts and marries the rich widow of an owner of a used-car lot. When his first and only love becomes ill, he hard-headily makes uninformed decisions about her health care with disastrous consequences for all. Finalist in the William Faulkner ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #7, the short story “Nemesis”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

Following the teachings of non-violence by Dr. Martin Luther King, a low-down blues piano player befriends a white-farmer of the Klu Klux Klan at a truck stop gig in Maryland. His activism saves lives but destroys his family. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. This story and thirty-two others are available online free ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #6, the short story “Big Gene”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A young white male in prison for murder is the object of a young graduate student’s research—his first female contact since his mother stopped coming years ago. He begins to covet the attention of her sessions and schemes to charm her so she’ll never desist but has difficulty finding a key to open her caring. ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #5, the short story “Reddog”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

An adolescent boy, the only son of an illiterate gravestone cutter, falls in love with one of his father’s beautiful clients and during his fatuous, one-sided affair he finds admiration and love for a father he’s silently scorned and dishonored for as long as he can remember. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #4, the short story “The Stonecutter”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A story about a man’s anger for his dead wife who he despised for her betrayal and rejection for whom he reluctantly agreed to deliver a eulogy at the burial. He discovers the power of forgiveness, through an unanticipated acquaintance with a college student. Finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. This story and ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #3, the short story “Speaking of the Dead”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

At a small Midwest college a failing college student takes summer courses to stay in school and is charmed by the innocent beauty of an Amish girl selling pastries and baked goods on a street in  an adjacent village. The shy girl ignores him at first but as his attraction intensifies they must face inevitable ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #2, the short story “The Amish Girl”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.

A mother, fearing social disdain, sends her pregnant teenager daughter to a convent in France to deliver the baby for adoption. The infant girl is deformed and adoption fails but the daughter loves the child and must try to raise  her to thrive and succeed despite a parent’s objections. Award winning short story in both ... Go To Episode The post Podcast #1, the short story “The Gift”, by William H. Coles appeared first on Story in Fiction.