Contributor Update: Timothy Reilly

We are excited to celebrate Timothy Reilly’s recent publication of his fiction chapbook, Short Story Quartet.

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” — C.S Lewis

As the title suggests, this fiction chapbook (published by Bottlecap Press) contains just four stories. The tone is set by a flash fiction titled “Tom Corbett and the Cadets of the Academy.” The flash is something of a “junior” quest story: via a 1950s TV space adventure show, and a box top from Kraft caramels. The stories in this miniature collection are certainly diverse, but they are all stories of longing —with skirmishes and hints of reconciliation between physics and metaphysics. The collection ends with a story blending youth and old age: with an unapologetic nod to The Wizard of Oz.

This book has been well received, hailed “A beautifully nostalgic collection” by Fictive Dream literary magazine.

Timothy Reilly has contributed stories to Superstition Review in both Issues 16 and 19. He also wrote two guest posts for s[r]: “Mozartean,” (November 21, 2020) and “How a Former Tuba Player Becomes a Writer of Short Stories” (October 18, 2018).

You can purchase Short Story Quartet from Bottlecap Press here.

Timothy Reilly had been a professional tubist (including a stint with the Teatro Regio of Turin, Italy) until around 1980, when a condition called “Embouchure Dystonia” ended his music career. He gratefully retired from substitute teaching in 2014. Three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, he has published in Zone 3, The Main Street Rag, Fictive Dream, Superstition Review, and many other journals. His chapbook, Short Story Quartet, is published by Bottlecap Press Features. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Jo-Anne Cappeluti: a poet and scholar.

Authors Talk: Timothy Reilly

Today we are pleased to feature author Timothy Reilly as our Authors Talk series contributor. In this podcast, Timothy discusses the inspiration behind his short story, “The Task at Hand,” calling it a “nod to the old Grail romances.”

Timothy states that “‘The Task at Hand’ is not a ‘Baby Boomer’ story,” even though it concerns a protagonist from that generation. Instead, he says,  it is “an internal quest… framed within a common 21st-century excursion.” During that quest the protagonist “deals with the challenges of age and memory,” as well as “the fickleness of pop culture.”

Timothy, hearkening back to his lifelong interest in Grail legends, declares that “myths are about truth, not facts.” He ends by referencing a quote from C.S Lewis, saying that when he realized this fact and “was old enough to read fairy tales again,” he began to write short stories of his own.

You can read Timothy’s story, “The Task at Hand,” in Issue 16 of Superstition Review.

 

 

 

Authors Talk: Timothy Reilly

Today we are pleased to welcome Timothy Reilly as our Authors Talk series contributor. Timothy talks about what inspired his story “Nosferatu” and what genre it might fit into.

The story takes its title from Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. That said, the story is not fantasy, nor “so-called magical realism.” Rather, Timothy evokes the vampire myth to put the reader in a particular and strange mindset. Timothy closes by briefly discussing the origins and benefits of this mindset.

You can read and listen to “Nosferatu” in Superstition Review, Issue 19.