My (mostly true) short story ‘The parallel universe of Memphis’ has just been published by Wild Greens. https://www.wildgreensmagazine.com/
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Uber Santa
A Christmas present. UK magazine Humour Me has just published my piece about the possibilities for booking a Santa just like you book an Uber. For some reason WordPress won’t let me publish the link, so here’s the piece.
Welcome to the Uber Santa website!
As busy modern parents needing to be available 24/7 to your employer/s, we know you don’t have time to go Christmas shopping.
And we know, you need your shut-eye, so you can’t be waiting up half the night to ensure the kids are asleep before you can safely stuff their stockings or build that swing set with instructions you can’t read after that second bottle of wine.
Never fear, Uber Santa is here and he’s just a few clicks away!
Just sign up with your credit card and follow these simple step-by-step instructions for a hassle-free Christmas Eve.
- Shop – Click the Shop button and select a budget for your Christmas spend.
- Recipients – Fill out the names and ages of your children and tick the categories of presents they will love.
- Review your order – See what we’ve selected and click Pay Now. (In the unlikely event that you don’t like or approve of our selections, go back to Step 2.)
- Delivery instructions – Please provide us with:
- Your address and phone number
- Names and bribes for any household pets that are likely to be aggressive.
- Keycode numbers for your burglar alarm and/or details of which flower pot or mat your key will be under.
- Diagram of your house marked with where you want presents left.
- The preferred age, gender, sexual preference, nationality, race and voting record of your Uber Santa. (Note that we cannot guarantee to meet all of your requirements and substitutions may have to be made.)
(Don’t worry, your data is completely safe with us. Honest. Cross our heart and hope to die.)
- Click Complete Order and then leave the rest to us.
What to leave out for Uber Santa.
Please be aware that your Uber Santa can sometimes have specific dietary requirements. We will send you a text on Christmas Eve advising whether your scheduled Santa is vegan, gluten free, lactose intolerant, Scottish, Asian, Jewish, Muslim or Mormon or has any other special dietary requirements.
What NOT to leave out for Uber Santa.
Carrots – If you haven’t had the conversation with your children before, now is the time to break it to them that Santa doesn’t have a sleigh or reindeer these days.
Suggested answers to those pesky questions
Leading up to Christmas, children will often ask difficult questions. Here’s some suggested answers to the more common ones:
Does Santa contribute to climate change with all that flying around?
No, he uses a solar-battery-powered rocket that burns no fossil fuels, so he doesn’t contribute to pollution-induced climate change.
How can Santa be everywhere at once?
His rocket travels at the speed of light. (For the little ones you might need to explain that’s faster than any Marvel super-hero.)
Is Santa real?
He’s real until you decide he’s not real. That’s when the presents stop.
How come Santa’s a fat old white man? Our teacher, Ms. Wildflower, says people like him have caused all the problems in the world.
Actually, nobody has ever seen Santa, so you can picture what we call Santa as anything you like. Your mother sees him a young, sensitive, slim man who likes poetry and yoga. I imagine Santa as being just like my Mum. Everyone’s different, just like Ms. Wildflower.
Masticadores success
A couple of my quirkier and darker pieces have been accepted by Masticadores – Istanbul. https://istanbulmasticadores.wordpress.com/2024/12/09/two-stories-by-doug-jacquier/
Story Chat II is live!
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Story Chat – Vol. II, is published and available through Amazon.com. The Editor, Colleen Cheseboro, has done a very professional job.
(In the interests of full disclosure, my work appears in it and I helped a little with the editing process.)
Marsha Ingrao’s achievement in establishing Story Chat, hosting it and publishing this collection from around the globe is nothing short of remarkable. What makes Story Chat and this collection unique is its invitation to join the chat and share your experience of each of the stories.
Story Chat started as a unique online blogging program for authors and readers. This second book includes a diverse set of original short stories by authors from almost every continent in the world. This collection includes sci-fi, comedy, and two non-fiction articles about the writing process.
This book is especially helpful for writers who constantly work to improve their craft. Each story has discussion questions that you can use if you belong to a book club or writing group.
All of us, known as Story Chatters, hope this book will make an impact in your lives.
My Review:
Marsha Ingrao’s Story Chat is an online reading discussion group. It’s like having a group of BETA readers who share their thoughts on what they enjoyed in your story or poem. Everyone is supportive. The comments are designed to help the writer make their story the best it can be.
This book is an anthology of short stories that cover various genres: humour, science fiction, drama, poetry. etc. There’s literally something here for everyone.
This is a great resource for book clubs and writing groups. At the end of each chapter is a section of questions for your Story Chat group, which is followed by the comments from the readers of the Story Chat blog.
Marsha runs Story Chat from her blog. She is currently looking for writers and poets who would like to participate in 2025. Find more information at Story Chat.
Story Chat Vol 2
Check out this collection, including some of my work and which I helped edit. https://bit.ly/4fCuH8W
Seeing Red
My story ‘Seeing Red’ has just been published by Sky Island Journal.
The editors, Jason Splichal and Jeff Sommerfeld, are a joy to work with and have the best personal touch I’ve ever seen. This is an extract of their acceptance letter: “Seeing Red” is stellar flash fiction. It resists the temptation to get in its own way, and the emotional transport it provides is astonishing. Your craft is tight; your dialogue is shockingly natural; your pacing is perfect, and your palpable imagery saturates every layer of this character-driven narrative. The ebb and flow of your restraint and revelation is so organic—and the tension you build is so incredibly subtle—that readers are deliciously unprepared for your dagger at the end. In many ways, this is Doug Jacquier flash fiction at its finest, and we can’t wait to share it with our readers around the world.”
They have over 150,000 readers in 150 countries and a family of over 900 contributors hailing from 50 countries and they send you an actual physical post card when they select your piece.
Infinite scroll
A couple of my micro pieces featured here.
https://infinitescrollmag.com/issue1-1/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
A Bracing Tale
Wonderful to have this 100-word story shortlisted for the Wilson’s Tales in the UK and featured in their announcement of winners. It was also read out on the presentation night.
Synkroniciti Magazine
Nice little write-up from Synkroniciti about my poem ‘Reflections’. https://synkroniciti.com/belonging-featured-artist-doug-jacquier/
At the end of the word
This piece of mine has just been published by The Aesthete https://theaesthete.blog/the-aesthete-issues/ (begins p. 22)
The man had sensed the teenage boy was out there, even before the dog smelled him and hunted him into the clearing, nipping at his heels.
‘Call your bloody dog off!’ the boy snapped.
The man looked at the dog and it sloped off to drink water from a tin bowl.
‘You oughta have him chained up.’
The man turned his back on the boy and went to sit in the old armchair under the lean-to veranda. He took a sip of tea from his enamel mug, picked up a book, opened at it the page marked by a feather and began to read.
‘Can I have something to drink?’
The man didn’t look up but nodded in the direction of the rainwater tank. A tin mug dangled from a rusty chain on the tap.
‘Jesus, mate, I’m not that desperate. What about a coffee?’
The man continued to read.
The boy began to walk towards the house. The dog moved into his path, with its lip curled and emanating a guttural sound. The boy groaned before moving towards the tank.
When he’d finished, he sat on a tree stump and looked around the clearing. Apart from the small house, there was a chook run, a veg patch enclosed by chicken wire, and an outhouse.
At dusk, the man put down his book and entered the house, leaving the door open. Shortly after, a light appeared in the window and wispy smoke began to emerge from the chimney.
The boy ventured as close as the dog would allow him and called out ‘Any chance of a feed?’
Just before dark, the man appeared, dropped a blanket on the armchair and put a plate of steaming stew, with a spoon sticking out of it, on the veranda floor. The dog emerged and settled on a pile of hessian bags between the chair and the door. The man returned inside and the light was extinguished.
The dog allowed the boy to pick up the plate and sit in the chair to eat. After eating, the boy stared briefly into the total darkness. He closed his eyes and wrapped the blanket tightly around his thin frame.
…
The boy woke to the sound of caroling magpies and a Police vehicle navigating its way up the twisting track to his house. The man pointed to the bush and the boy took off.
When the Police officer arrived he produced a photo and showed it to the man. ‘Recognise this lad?’ The man’s face remained immobile.
The officer shook his head and said ‘You bloody locals wouldn’t tell me even if you had.’ He climbed into his vehicle but before he drove off he said through the open window, ‘We think he could be dangerous.’
After the officer left, the man returned to his armchair on the veranda, picked up his book and apart from turning the pages, he and his dog sat perfectly still. They knew the boy would not come back.
Six Crooked Highways 