Springtime in Missoula by Erin Pringle (short story)

Last November (2025), the literary journal Moss. published my story "Springtime in Missoula" in the print edition of their magazine, making it available to those who subscribe or who bought a copy. Now, the story is available to read for free at their online site. The story is situated in a small ice cream shop exactly like the one where I meet my friend Melissa when we meet in Missoula for ice cream. The child characters please me greatly, and the underlying subject matter of missing and murdered indigenous women, especially in this region of the country, is of palpable and great importance. I'd like to encourage you to read the story; I wrote it for you. 

Link: https://mosslit.com/erin-pringle-springtime-in-missoula

🕮

The Floating Order, a story by Erin Pringle (in response to the trial of Andea Yates)

 

Over twenty years ago, I wrote the fictional story "The Floating Order" in response to the second trial of Andrea Yates, which was ongoing at the time--the courtroom argument being whether Yates was, at the time of killing her children, not only of sound mind and body but also that she had planned, or premeditated, the deaths--or, that, rather, at the time of the killings, Yates was neither of sound mind nor body and, therefore, could not plan the killings with any reasonable forethought. Of course, both of these arguments sit on a teeter totter whose fulcrum requires a specific defintion of reason and madness, and what each entails. 

I am the daughter of a man diagnosed with Manic Depression in the early 1980s; overmedicated, my father spent the majority of my childhood asleep during the day. It wasn't until my teenage years, and near the end of his life, that the recipe of his depression medication was rewritten by a heart doctor, due to a sudden heart condition, to a dose that lifted him from that constant sleep to a more daytime life. Owing partially to this, I have been built over my life with an awareness and empathy for those carrying depression, experience with how its societal stigma becomes internalized, as well as an understanding of how one is moved through a gauntlet of medications that are prescribed, tried, then thrown out and replaced with another concoction for the cauldron.   

With the recent discussion around the Lindsay Clancy trial, I have felt fanned the same frustrations I had as a woman in my early twenties, regarding the many misperceptions of mental illness. And since my reaction remains basically the same (though with more nuance now that I have become a mother myself), instead of writing a new story that says the same thing differently, here is the old story, as I have little new to say. "The Floating Order" may not be my best work, but it is, I think, an honest attempt to use fiction to get at some truth--regardless of its unpleasant catalyst. I had hoped that the story would elucidate the symbiotic relationship between reason and madness, in the same or similar way that I recall Michel Foucault pointing out in Madness & Civiliazation: a man who believes he is made of glass and will therefore break--is still following a path of reason (glass breaks; if I am made of glass, I can break). However, I fear that the story can lead as much to a dismissal of its narrator because of her way of thinking. It is, after all, the last story I wrote from an adult narrator's perspective for many years, having been told that the style seemed more realistic to child narrators (or, rather, our conventional perception of children). I still find resonance, regardless, throughout "The Floating Order," such as when the narrator points out that some women can clutch better than she can.  

While I understand that many people believe that silence or  judgement is a safer route for subjects that seem inherently evil, taboo, or beyond the pale, I continue to believe that it is through discussion that we find truths, and that a discussion of a subject is not an approval or endorsement of its subject. To speak of war--to tell stories of war and war stories--is not to endorse or perpetuate war. If anything, it's likely a way to lessen the harms of war. It is within this spirit that I share "The Floating Order"--as a contribution to the onging, but again current, conversation.

My story "The Floating Order" was originally published in the fantasy magazine Electric Velocipede, and later in my 2009 story collection, The Floating Order, by Scotland-based Two Ravens Press (both now defunct). I retain full copyright. 

🕮

 The Floating Order by Erin Pringle

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (September 6, 2026)

 

In this session, I read good poems by Ada Limón, Jack Gilbert, and Wendell Berry.

🕮

Summer (Short) Fiction: Poolside by Erin Pringle

The Neighbor's Burnpile: On Memory and Writing the Story "Poolside"

I lived in the same small town, off the same road, and in the same house my entire childhood, leaving for college from the driveway where I had parked my bicycle a decade before and burned fireworks every summer. When I visit home in my 40s, I head to the same address--even though that changed from Rural Route 3, Box 52 to a jumble of numbers in the late '80s/early '90s when 9-1-1 arrived in our area and the road became 230th Street, which means nothing to anyone who actually lives there. (In fact, when my father was dying, and we called 9-1-1, the dispatcher was confused about our address, even though it was the new-fangled one intended to expedite help.)

Regardless, when I visit home, I expect the bones of the house to be there, even though my mother has since had the house sided, hung different pictures, and recently had a new shower built for a woman in her late 80s in place of the bathtub I'd climbed in and out of all through the 1980s. But some of my father's photographs and paintings still hang where they always have, and the wooden robot he built stands downstairs, looking out of the same lightbulb eyes, and a small assortment of the glass insulators he collected remain in the basement where he once kept his workshop. The house is the same but not the same, which is a thickly bittersweet drink.

Many of the same neighbors live in the surrounding houses, but the meadow and its horses, then sheep, that grazed on the grass at the bottom of the hill are no longer there, like the cows down the road who have vanished with the barns and fencing, replaced with a small subdivision and, I suppose, future, other homes.

However, one of the biggest changes to the neighborhood is the small house next door where an older couple lived during my childhood. Budd and Leafa. (Her name was Leatha, but as a child, I associated her with gardening so I always called her Leafa and heard it that way, too.) Leafa grew a large, beautiful garden in the long back yard, and Budd repaired lawn mowers and other small machines in the shed behind the house. She hung her clothes out on the line like my mother and had a swing in the back yard where we would sometimes sit in the early evening. Budd hung a bug zapper from the large tree and its electric sizzle snapped off and on all night, signaling another mosquito gone to ash. 

It has never been a neighborhood of fences--except for those keeping in the dairy cows or the one separating out the bull. So I would walk through one neighbor's yard to and from the school bus, and take a step from our yard into Budd and Leafa's yard to visit her on her back porch or to help her in the garden or to watch Budd work in the dimly lit shed that smelled of cigarettes, important chemicals in old cans, and the dirt floor necessary for fixing broken things. 

I was a teenager, it seems, when Budd then Leafa died, though I can't remember exactly. They died before my father, and before his cancer, so maybe I wasn't yet a teenager when the house went empty. For a few years, the adult children rented out the house and continued to maintain the yard to their parents' expectations; it was easy to imagine that Budd and Leafa were still there, just inside at the moment. 

Sometime later, after I no longer lived there, the house was sold, and though none of us realized it, that was likely the moment when the house began to falter in foreseeable ways, but no one hurried to its aid. Over time, the house has fallen apart in the way that I once imagined only old, abandoned farm houses fell apart--the ones that appear now and then along country roads, set back in the fields as though backing away in embarrassment, their walls gone gray, the windows broken out, the weeds growing around the bases of the few large trees that continue to grow, though memories no longer do.

At my last visit this spring, the roof was caving in as though someone had karate chopped it in half. The once bright yellow paint is shedding off into the dead grass. The back yard shed is gone, as is the tree, the clothesline, the bench swing, and the garden where I once let a temporary pet box turtle walk away, never to see it again. 

Were the house in the town's city limits, it would have had a CONDEMNED sign posted on its door years ago. A stranger would assume it's the remains of a bad fire, or the beginnings of a salvage yard. It is still owned by the people who bought it, though only nocturnal creatures live it in now, in the corners of cabinets that may not have been crushed by the roof. 

Now and then the owner visits the house in order to set fire to a backyard pile of things, off which rolls a black, black smoke that hovers over the neighborhood. When we visited this spring, my son couldn't bike in the neighborhood as I had hoped, wanting his rural trips to echo my childhood in even the most basic ways, because the ashy air felt so bad to breathe.

It is hard to see parts of my past fall down. I had always thought the past belonged to everyone else, and that I would never start stories the way my mother did: "When I was a kid, this used to be . . ." 

While writing the story "Poolside," I crossed the back yard of my memory into Budd and Leafa's back yard. All was green again, the metal windmill was clicking over the garden, and Leafa was on the back step in a house dress, shelling beans. It was good to be back, even though that aspect of the story is just for me and the rest, from plot to characters, come to life thanks to the help of fiction.

Last November, the online magazine Bone Parade published "Poolside." When I find a home for my next story collection, it will be in there, too. Until then, you can start reading the story here and follow it to the journal (free of charge), or go there now. 

Either way, I hope you'll dip into the story, and that you find moments this summer to resurrect those now idyllic memories of your past, regardless of what remains standing there today.

Cheers,

Erin

🕮

Poolside 

by Erin Pringle

Tiny Gina is dragging a white pool ladder she found behind the shed up through the backyard toward the house, leaving twin lines through the grass. Grandpa’s at the library, so she’ll have to ask Gramma if she knows where it came from.

Gramma is sitting on the back porch swing, barefoot and shelling beans into the bowl on her lap. Her daughter, Big Gina, sits on the middle porch stair, her hair parted down the middle like it has been since junior high. She’s shelling beans, too. Both women look out over the backyard, now and then glancing at the weathervane on the shed or the birdhouse hanging on the lowest branch of the tree where Big Gina used to spin in her tire swing. 

What’s Tiny Gina got there? says Gramma.

Big Gina looks up from her bowl to the girl walking backward toward them, leaning and pulling something through the grass. Big Gina says, Maybe a ladder. 

We keep the ladders in the garage, same as always. Gramma raises her voice to reach Tiny Gina. Whatch yoo been getting into, girl? 

Tiny Gina pauses and looks over her shoulder toward the house. 

Ladder! 

Ladders are in the garage, Big Gina says.

Tiny Gina starts shaking her head and starts walking again. 

What’d she say? Gramma says.

What’s that? Big Gina calls, cupping one hand to her mouth for help.

Tiny Gina raises her voice and pulls at the same time. It’s hard talking loud while your neck’s turned. This here’s a pool ladder, she says. Found it behind the shed. 

Tiny Gina stops and lifts a bare foot out of the grass. She points her toes, patting the grass until she feels her shoe and slips it back on. They’re see-through jelly shoes with bits of silver glitter. When she takes them off at night, there’s a dark dirt line around each foot. Like a waterline dried to a drinking glass, but gross. 

Gramma yells that she doesn’t want Tiny Gina fooling out back of the shed. It’s not safe. 

Okay! Tiny Gina says, shifting her hands on the ladder and then taking another step back. The ladder is made of white metal with a blue stripe around each main pole. The steps look made of plastic, and there’s only one side to it instead of the usual two sides required for standing-up ladders.

Who knows what all’s back there, Gramma’s saying to Big Gina. Broken glass, wood gone to rot, rusty nails, tetanus.

Big Gina shifts so she’s got one knee bent so she can see her mother better. You wearing your hearing aids?

Gramma shakes her head. 

I’ll get them for you, says Big Gina and she starts to stand.

Gramma shakes her head and shoos her hand at her. I can hear fine. 

When you’re wearing them anyway.

I wear them when I need to. 

Big Gina frowns. And where’s that? 

Church. Grocery. When I take Snodgrass to the veterinarian. 

But not when we visit. 

If you visited me at church, yes. 

Big Gina turns more in order to face her mother full on, so her mother can read her mouth and facial expressions. She talks louder. You get a pool after we moved out? 

I wish.

What’d you mean, you wish? All we wanted growing up was a pool. Nothing fancy, either. Just one out of the Service Merchandise catalog.

Continue reading "Poolside" at Bone Parade . . . 

Summer Etcetera: From Camus to Wallace, Idaho

Hello Folks, 

I've mainly been using this place to read poems into every Sunday that I can. But it seems an update about writing is in order since it has been a hot minute.

My story "All The Queens" will appear in the next issue of Willow Springs. I sent off final edits last month and finally remembered to then move those edits into my larger story collection, of which the story will be a part. "Valentine's Day" was my first publication with Willow Springs several years ago, and I remember reading it aloud at the Montana Book Festival in Missoula pre-Covid. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I said, Well, then you ought to buy the journal issue it is in because it will be several years before it appears in book form--which was true, having to wait for its companions to be written, surround it, and appear in Unexpected Weather Events, which appeared in the world in October 2023. The year 2023 used to seem so fresh and modern, but here we are three full years later in the fresh and modern 2026.

This summer, I'm reading The First Man by Albert Camus, which he was working on at the time of his death. It's excellent, of course, and as noted by his daughter in the Forward, the writing is less polished (less edited into the writer voice) due to its early draft state and, therefore, sounds more like the father she knew. It's a close, fictional account of his childhood. The writing is rich, thick with the child's world and impressions, and full of anecdotes that I'm pleased to add to my own thoughts. It's the sort of writing that, when compared to the junk writing on the internet (comments, AI, click-bait articles, etc.) shows the vast canyon between quality and mud. For example, consider the depth of reflection and vivid writing in this passage, after the 9-year old Jacques has passed his tests into lycee and will no longer attend school with his cherished schoolmaster: 

'You don't need me anymore,' [the schoolmaster] said, 'you'll have teachers who know more. But you know where I am, come see me if you need me to help you.' He went out and Jacques was left alone, lost among the women; then he dashed to the window and looked out at his teacher who waved at him one last time and who was leaving him alone henceforth, and, instead of the joy of success, a child's immense anguish wrung his heart, as if he knew in advance that this success had just uprooted him from the warm and innocent world of the poor--a world closed in on itself like an island in the society, where poverty took the place of family and community--to be hurtled into a strange world, one no longer his, where he could not believe the teachers were more learned than the one whose heart was all-knowing, and from now on he would have to learn, to understand without help, and become a man without the aid of the one man who had rescued him; would have to grow up and bring himself up alone, and it would be at the highest cost. (Camus 176)

Reader, is that not both beautiful and articulate, and like a meteor in its strength and distance from the sort of writing we have been made accustomed? It's as though we spend our days inside a bad tabloid, our fingertips and lungs so worn with newsprint that we haven't the ability to think or reflect on our own experiences; that's how I feel anyway, after long periods connected to my phone. 

In other news, I injured myself well enough during the World Cup final that it will, no doubt, become a family memory to be brought up at future World Cup finals. There we were, my dear family, gathered in the living room that my partner Heather and I had deeply vaccumed clean of dog fur (no small feat), our bellies full from a lovely party table of veggies, watermelon, cheese, and sesame chips as blue as Argentina's home jerseys. At this point, the game was in overtime, and Spain had scored its first goal. Only minutes, if that, were left, and we were cheering Argentina on, yelling to move faster, to get the ball, to find Messi, for Christ's sake and all the things that you may well have yelled, too. I had moved from my chair to the floor, to eradicate the sunlit glare on the screen and to relay my exuberance with more unbridled gusto. It was then, during one of the near-goal misses, that I rocked backward with the intensity of disappointment and frustration, and slammed the back of my skull into the very hard corner of our coffee table.  

The exact same coffee table in my living room but without all the books that seemingly anchored it to the floor.
Thanks, ikea.

Of course, I knew it was there, but it's on wheels and does not always remain in the same place. Having cleaned the house that full morning before the final, we had relocated the coffee table at least twice, and then again when everyone had arrived.

Of course, I am aware of the danger of coffee-table corners, having watched my niece and nephew toddle through their early years, my mother's hand always fast to cup any corner near their heads for fear of them standing into or falling onto it. 

But, you see, the intensity of my hope--sharpened to a fine point after closely following the World Cup from its beginning to this moment--was no match for whatever impulses safety supplies one's fast-twitch muscles over one's accumulated years.

And so, there I was, cupping the back of my head and yelling both in pain and for Argentina, only to find my hands full of blood. Then my son began to weep because that's what every child must do when he sees a parent in pain and the vulnerability of those who are protectors and, thus, immune to wounding. 

I remember the first time I saw my father fall. We were down the hill from our house at the creek where we'd turn sand-filled cups into castles. It was when we were leaving, climbing out of the gully, through the surrounding trees, that my father lost his balance and fell down, rolling into thistles and branches, so that when he gathered himself and stood back up, giant that he was, his forearm was bloody with scratches. Maybe I cried. Maybe I didn't. But I remember the pang in my stomach, that thick feeling of fear and worry mixed with the new awareness of not only my father's vuneralbility, but also my own. In retrospect, of course. At the time, it was just my throat filled-up with the confusion of fear. He said he was fine, but I knew better.

Luckily, the blood from my own head eventually ebbed, my son's father carefully cleaned my fingers from where they'd held the wound, and Heather gently pressed a bag of frozen peas against the back of my head. I spent the rest of the day and evening in my recliner (known by my family as my "immobilizer"), napping on a variety of pillows in the form of frozen vegetables. The fatigue that has followed me into the next day is likely an effect of the mishap, the mishap being likely a concussion. 

In the end, that's my situation, and Argentina never made a goal, which tells you how that sorted itself.

Note that Messi's position here at the end of the match was much like mine,
except for my right hand was on the back of my head.

Other news is that we will be venturing to Yellowstone at the beginning of August, and a few weeks ago, my son, his best friend, and I visited Wallace, Idaho to enjoy the annual music festival. It was our first time at the festival, but Wallace is one of my favorite towns in the Northwest because of its size and how it reminds me of my own hometown of Casey, Illinois. The best parts of the festival included the Air Bnb where we stayed, its balcony overlooking the Wallace Public Pool (established in 1939, the year of my mother's birth), the two friendly cats who invited us to pet them, and the band Snacks at Midnight, which are a Spokane band of 20-somethings who perform covers (from the Pixies to Violent Femmes to Fleetwood Mac) as well as original songs. They are full of vim and vigor, and my son has quickly catapulted himself into their number one fan and, likely, the main listener of their Amazon Music page. The realization at this festival, folks, is one that I didn't see coming, but now that I've had it, seems so obviously something that would happen, that I'm unsure what to do with it.

Here: Where I grew up there is an annual Labor Day festival called the Popcorn Festival. It follows the genre of all small-town festivals: flea market, food booths run by local churches and men's clubs, horseshoe competitions, a carnival no larger than one half of a football field, and nightly entertainment. For several years in a row, a sequined cover band called Sh'boom would climb up the stairs to the bandshell in the park and perform hits from the '50s and '60s while my mother and I, and the rest of the town, watched and sang along from our lawn chairs. These songs were from my mother's era, and many of them I had not heard before--being introduced to them this way rather than in their original forms. Later, when I was a driving teenager, I would tune to the Oldies radio station and sing along to songs similar to Sh'boom's set list. The term "oldies" or "classics" were reserved for all the songs that my parents were familiar with--the ones on their record collection, the ones my dad played via cassette tape in his gray van as he drove the country roads. From Benny Goodman to the Beach Boys to Christmas hits like Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby.

Reader, I have become the target audience of small-town festival bands, and I never saw it coming. There I was, hurrying up the street at the first sounds of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, looking for recognition in my son's eyes when "Where is my Mind?" came through the guitar's speaker, and jumping on both feet up by the stage to a young man's reprise of "Blister in the Sun."

Reader, those songs are now oldies. 

Reader, my son was just introduced to a setlist of songs via covers.

Reader, I was the middle-aged woman among others like me, in the bright lights of a stage erected in the street of an old mining town, wearing my fanny pack and holding my son's water bottle, but delighted as all get-out to sing along with Stevie Nicks in the form of a beautiful young man with wavy hair and panache. 

There I was singing my songs, which have become the oldies. 

Ha!

It is, evidently, in your 40s that you can finally see the cycles of living that all felt new up to here. It was never a new road we were walking, friends. Every straight line must eventually turn back. Surely, there's something reassuring in that, regardless of the surprise of it.

Here: I remember my mother in an antique mall, and her pointing out objects that were part of her past. Do you want to buy it? I asked about this or that. Why would I? she said. 

I understand now, maybe.

I hope that you are well, reader, despite the smoke, floods, droughts, wars, game losses, falls, heat, and mosquitoes. Maybe next time, I'll include the anecdote of my excellent swim in the Medical Lake Triathlon, followed by the bike portion in which my bike refused to pedal, and the race ended for me on the side of the bike entrance, in the dirt and heat, pounding one rock after another into the chain wheel in order to excise a stuck chain.

Cheers,

Erin 

📖

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (March 22, 2026)

Today's poems are by Ada Limón from her book The Hurting Kind.

🕮

🠊 Past sessions of Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Poetry sessions appear live some Sunday mornings at https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle  

🠊 Can't view video? After thirty days, Facebook removes videos from its platform. Dammit! Come back soon to listen to other poems. :)

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (March 8, 2026)

 

Today's poems are by Jane Hirshfield from her book Come, Thief

🕮

🠊 Past sessions of Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Poetry sessions appear live some Sunday mornings at https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle  

🠊 Can't view video? It must be thirty days since it was posted, which means it has automatically been removed from the Facebook platform. Dammit! Come back soon to listen to other poems. :)

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (February 15, 2026)

 

Today's songs/poems come from 630ish BCE in the form of the book If Not, Winter: Fragments by Sappho, translated by Anne Carson.

🕮

🠊 Past sessions of Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Poetry sessions appear live some Sunday mornings at https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle  

🠊 Can't view video? It must be thirty days since it was posted, which means it has automatically been removed from the Facebook platform. Dammit! Come back soon to listen to other poems. :)

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (February 8, 2026)

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (February 8, 2026)

Reading good poems by other people, most Sundays.

Poems by Jack Gilbert, from his book The Great Fires:

• Going Wrong
• Guilty
• The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

🕮

🠊 Past sessions of Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Poetry sessions appear live some Sunday mornings at https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle  

🠊 Can't view video? It must be thirty days since it was posted, which means it has automatically been removed from the Facebook platform. Dammit! Come back soon to listen to other poems. :)

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (February 1, 2026)

 

Reading poems by Ada Limón from her book Bright Dead Things

• Downhearted
• Miracle Fish
• The Whale & the Waltz Inside of It

🕮

🠊 Past sessions of Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Poetry sessions appear live some Sunday mornings at https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle  

🠊 Can't view video? It must be thirty days since it was posted, which means it has automatically been removed from the Facebook platform. Dammit! Come back soon to listen to other poems. :)