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Short story analysis

A short story I recently read

Tiptoe, by Laird Barron Read it here in 15 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… This story mixes the everyday with the creepy. From the first paragraph, we have a mixture of comics (normal), playing catch (normal), and shadow puppets (moving towards creepy). The shadow puppets are made up of standard animals (normal) and…

Short story analysis

A short story I recently read

Where Memory Meets the Sea, by Laia Asieo Odo Read it here in 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… This story intrigued me from the beginning, as it opens with a description of a group of characters who routinely go to the sea shore and stand in the waves in order to remember…

Short story analysis

A short story I recently read

The Funeral, by Mahreen Sohail Read it here in 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… This story is set in Pakistan (the author’s home country) – a country I’ve never been to, and a culture I’ve don’t know much about – this means there are elements that I don’t recognise, such as the…

top 3

My top 3 of 2025

After a long hiatus, I restarted blogging about my favourite short stories half-way through 2025. Here are some of my favourite novels from my 2025 reading, to join those short stories: On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle (trans. Barbara J. Haveland) This novel is the first of a series, which will eventually…

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About Me

My name is Mina Ma. I’m an English teacher, and a writer of short stories and short creative nonfiction.

I blog about short stories (etc.), because analysing what other writers do helps my own writing.

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