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FATHERS AND SONS
A runner and skier examine their purpose, family, and relationships in these coming-of-age stories set in Michigan’s north woods. In “The Long Run,” Merrit Reef, wanting his father’s approval above all, looks to medal in a half-marathon and finds, through the rigors and sacrifice of competing, something wholly unexpected at the finish of the race. In “Snow Country,” Mark Silver, a reporter and Jew who befriends a migrant farmworker and her young son, experiences a crisis in faith as he attempts to overcome his fear of giving them a Christmas tree. For readers who love seasonal change, the Great Lakes, woodsy trails, and wandering souls committed to the outdoors as a means of salvation, Fathers and Sons delivers.
Fathers and Sons is an award-winning chapbook published by the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press (2012) and reissued by the Mission Point Press (2022). The book is available on Amazon and IngramSpark. |
PRAISE FOR FATHERS AND SONS
"Fathers and Sons is an elegant and flint-eyed look at families, love, and the natural world outside the window at dusk, in the autumn, or the first snowfall—or that first late night of spring when the day goes gloriously on ... These wonderful stories are evocative of many things, of place, the weather system of moods between men and women. Makiefsky’s stories are a gift not only to fathers and sons, but to readers who love great writing. A startling and memorable debut."
Doug Stanton, New York Times best-selling author of The Odyssey of Echo Company, Horse Soldiers, and In Harm’s Way
Doug Stanton, New York Times best-selling author of The Odyssey of Echo Company, Horse Soldiers, and In Harm’s Way
"Makiefsky has deftly pulled us into this place where the heat makes us dizzy and hallucinatory, and where the snow blinds us to what we need, what we believe we want. The prose is rich and evocative, amusing and moving, sensory and bold. And there is transcendence here as the stories invite us into the lives of these men, then lift us above northern Michigan’s woods and rolling hills, its bay and lakeshore, to a new place of familiarity and of understanding. A place where we—and the men of these stories—may find grace."
Patricia Ann McNair, author of And These Are the Good Times, Temple of Air and Responsible Adults
Patricia Ann McNair, author of And These Are the Good Times, Temple of Air and Responsible Adults
SLIPSHOD AND STANDING
Slipshod and Standing, a new collection of fiction which includes the two Fathers and Sons stories, continues the narrative of protagonist Mark Silver. The manuscript will be released in May, 2025 by the Finishing Line Press. More information, presales and all that, here:
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/slipshod-and-standing-by-b-l-makiefsky/ Additionally, the publisher is featuring in The Paddock Review a story from the collection: https://paddockreview.com/2025/01/28/a-short-story-by-b-l-makiefsky/ |
Photo by Frede Langlois on Unsplash
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SHORT FICTION AND ARTICLES |
PLAYS AND SCRIPTS |
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Makiefsky's short fiction has appeared in Dunes Review, Thoughtful Dog, Pithead Chapel, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Fiction Southeast, Hypertext Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Jewish Literary Journal, the Great Lakes Review, JewishFiction.net.
In addition, he has also published articles in the Detroit Free Press; The Grand Rapids Press; Traverse, The Magazine; and Bicycling. |
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