By Any Other

My story By Any Other just came out in the Written in the Wind Anthology – Fantastic Tales on the Power of Names!

The story is about a man who always knows everyone’s name, even if he’s never met them before. This has not served him well, since he tends to say people’s names whenever he meets them, which sometimes gets him beaten up, and sometimes accused of stalking.

However, it turns out that the skill is quite useful at the morgue, when trying to identify John/Jane Does. That, of course, just gets him into more trouble.

This story might have been inspired by an anecdote of my sister’s (which I stole wholesale :-), where she greeted a complete stranger by name, much to his surprise–since he’d forgotten he was wearing a name tag.

Given my terrible memory for names (and faces) I personally think everyone should have to wear a name tag all the time (possibly with a short bio so I can figure out where I know them from).

The paperback is out today, but, due to the vagaries of Amazon, the e-book doesn’t come out until tomorrow. I’m looking forward to reading the other stories in the collection.