From bestselling author Luanne Rice, a haunting and emotional short story, never-before released, and free to all readers. On the eve of a wedding by the edge of the sea, a once-in-a-lifetime storm sweeps through a family farm on the Connecticut Shoreline and sets in motion the events of The Night Before.
Read MoreThe Rocks at High Tide
The Rocks at High Tide is one of my first published short stories. It is one of many three sisters stories I wrote early on, and a predecessor to my first novel, Angels All Over Town. It came out in ASCENT. I was so fortunate to be plucked from the slush pile by the brilliant editor Dan Curley. He went on to publish several other stories of mine, and helped me connect with the editors of other literary magazines.
Dan was wonderful. I remember having a story accepted at another small magazine about the same time as my first publication in ASCENT, and Dan insisted that I let him claim me as his discovery, that he be able to say that ASCENT published me first. How flattering that was to a young writer. I'd thought no one could possibly care about such a thing.
He was a great champion of fiction writers, and I am so grateful for all his support and guidance. We met only once--he was reading from his own fiction at the library in his hometown of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He'd mentioned the reading casually in one of his letters, and I knew I'd get there no matter what. And I did, and we met, and our work went on for many years, and when he died--so many years ago now--it took me a long, long time to get over.
Please click on the link below to read the story. (Thanks to Mia Onorato, an incredible writer herself, for ransacking the bookshelves at Hubbard's Point, finding the magazine, and scanning the story to me.)