A haunting memory and Ray Bradbury inspired this writer’s short story

Where do you get your ideas for short stories? I like to think of them as slices of life. An event or image sparks an idea with an emotional response at its core.

Author Sam Weller says a haunting memory sparked, “The Girl in the Funeral Parlor.”  An image of a woman and her baby in a casket formed the kernel of an idea. At the end of the story, he explains how it came to be, including how he was influenced by author Ray Bradbury.

“But I didn’t want to just retell my experience; I wanted to look at my memory through the prism of fiction, as Ray Bradbury has regularly done in such stories as “The Lake,” “The Crowd,” “Banshee,” and so many others,” Weller writes. “I wanted my story to take on a life of its own, as good stories so often do. It was at this point that the concept came to me—what if you met the love of your life and it was too late? What if that true love was dead?”

To read the story and the full explanation of how he came to write it, visit Byliner.

Weller’s story and others by authors who also were influenced by Bradbury appear in Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury.