This month’s content is brought to you by readers like you whose paid Substack subscriptions and book purchases help produce and promote my work: extraordinary stories about ordinary Americans. Good stories don’t, and shouldn’t have to, conform to the dominant aesthetics and politics. If you’re a free subscriber, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Thank you for supporting and reading my work and spreading the word. And a hearty welcome to new subscribers.
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Cloudbreak: Stories – Available 19 September 2025
Cloudbreak, my next collection of short stories, will be available 19 September 2025. Your books purchases and paid Substack subscriptions helped produce and will promote this book—thank you.
“A life inside yourself isn’t a life.”
Seventeen stories laced with humor and heart crisscross America where ordinary men and women search for identity and order. A retired colonel investigates a cloaked figure at a naval station. Struggling with PTSD, a sister makes a request of her brother. After success at work, a man’s stress outlet creates problems on a family vacation. Old flames cross paths and tour a cave. A former athlete weighs an invitation to a ceremony honoring his team’s achievements. On the day of the winter solstice, a trail guide takes a stranger to a vista. During the last day of filming, a reality show’s contestant wrestles with his goal. And a grandfather distracts his granddaughter with the outdoors while her parents figure out their marriage. From the coasts to the lands in between, these and other characters seek connection and meaning amid expectations, responsibilities, and chaos.
244 pages
ISBN (print): 9798986092782
ISBN (ebook): 9798986092799
A book’s success can thrive on word-of-mouth and grassroots marketing. Producing and promoting stories requires time and money, and independent authors like me are often overlooked because of trends, sales, and genre. I’m asking you to help spread the word about Cloudbreak. Anything below you can do can positively impact me and my work:
Order the book (print and ebook).
Recommend to family, friends, acquaintances, book clubs, libraries, bookstores, bloggers, and platforms devoted to American fiction and culture.
Share on social media and websites.
Add and rate on Amazon, Goodreads, and similar outlets.
Place a copy in Little Free Libraries.
And now for this month’s story…
“Triptych”
William Auten
Copyright William Auten
Two women in line ahead of me ask if boys are all right and the men they will become as they scan their jeans, candles, and a shirt with three states joining hands over a point their borders share, and I tell them I was born in that state, chased a rabbit into thickets in the other, and confessed my love to a woman on the banks of the river running through all three. They look me up and down—my clothes, teeth, my hair, what I’m paying with—and ask if I had a son what I would do in these times, and I tell them keep him away from you.
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