Stories from the Cyclops Cafe

Speaking of Jeff McNeil, some of our "blogging" interns recently ran across a bit of his ourvre on the old information super highway, as we like to call it here at the "blog." It really took us back, folks, to our pre-"blogging" days, when Jamie Kornegay and your humble "blogmaster" conceived of an anthology of short stories dealing exclusively with that mythical beast the Cyclops. The anthology - which, due to the circumstances of our meeting, as co-authors in the STORIES FROM THE BLUE MOON CAFE series, Jamie and I wanted to call STORIES FROM THE CYCLOPS CAFE, because we are pretty lazy at titles and tend, I suppose, to grab whatever is nearest, speaking for myself, of course - never came to pass. But Jeff's story did, as well as a piece that ended up in my first story collection (thank you, "Find and Replace" function!). As for Jamie, he tried to call his new bookstore "Cyclops Books" until his wife Kelly put her foot down in favor of the slightly more mellifluous Turnrow Book Co. Feel free to submit stories about the Cyclops, care of the "blog." If you want to know how to write a story about a Cyclops, just take an old story (make sure it's one of your own!) and "Find" a particular word, mechanistically "Replacing" it with the word "Cyclops." Just remember, you will never be paid and the anthology will never exist in the real world... only in the mythical land of mystical dreams! One final word of advice: We're talking about a Ray Harryhausen kind of Cyclops (pictured), not the superhero Cyclops, as was the mistaken impression of Tom Bissell, who was on the same sunny porch on the day that the Cyclops anthology was conceived... and forgotten.