Yes! Our Readers Write!
Reader Submissions Welcome
If you have written a short story, and you’d like it given a read by others, send it along as a (Word) .docx file to gure@centurylink.net. Be sure to include your email.
You grant us rights to publish and don’t send anything we have to run through legal, please.
Stories (as they come in) will be arranged by “haircuts ahead of you.” We’ll explain that is a sec. For now, a bit of talc, some Lilac Vegetale, and leave a good tip…
Now, there’s a few haircuts ahead of you, so let’s talk barbering…
Remember the 1950s – 1970s?
Going to the Barber Shop wasn’t just about getting your locks shorn. It was where Community met on a very even footing. The usual mix was one or two customers talking; sometimes sports, maybe some local news. But ideology? Nope. And the barber never said a word.
This was where young men often got their first taste of reading adventures and short stories. Less than Edgar Rice Burroughs, more than a newspaper column. This was before the Splinternet happened and people still traded local to keep money in the neighborhood. Team spending and all before credit cards and color TV pitchmen.
In this Golden Era of Follicles, a good barber took about 15 to 25 minutes for a standard men’s haircut. That covered the full ritual — not just the cutting, but the brushing, edging, hot-lather neck shave, and the splash of Bay Rum or Clubman at the end. For a while, you could tell a man by his scent.
If the customer wanted a flat-top, contour, or razor taper, it might run closer to 30 minutes, especially if the barber was precise about line work and sideburn symmetry. Quick-clip jobs could be done in 10–12 minutes, but that was “two-bit speed” — no hot towel, no neck shave, and no conversation worth remembering. Well, most of them weren’t, anyway.
We’re going to arrange our stories here in barber shop time slices.
One Haircut Read
600–1,000 words
Quick entertainment — flash fiction, a single-scene adventure, slice-of-life, or short humor. The kind of piece you finish just as the barber dusts your neck and says, “Next!”
Two Haircut Read
1,800–2,500 words
A full short story — mystery, western, or speculative twist that unfolds while two customers get their turns. Enough meat for character and payoff but still a one-sitting read with the smell of hair tonic in the air.
Three Haircut Read
3,000–4,000 words
Deeper plot, maybe multiple points of view or a layered reveal. The story you finish just as your name’s called — “Have a seat, pardner.”
Four Haircut Read
5,000–6,000 words
A proper Reader’s Digest-length novella. Substantial, immersive, with an arc that fills a slow Saturday morning at the shop. A storytelling shave and haircut — two bits for the memory, six bits for the craft.
That’s why a full waiting bench and a short-story rack made perfect sense — one story per haircut, two if the barber was telling one of his own.
(This is a slow motion project – updates on ShopTalk Sunday as they come along.)