5 Stories Released; 4 To Go (with 3 thought-provoking links)

We're 5 stories into this year's fkficfest/fkficfest/FKFicFest, with 4 to go!

From the bottom of my heart, I thank first our 9 writers, and then all the wonderful readers who found time to dive into an FK story during this busy work-week. Some people plan to dig into the ficathon over the weekend. I wish them very happy reading! The stories to date have collectively referenced (at least!) every one of the opening-credits cast of characters, and they cross several genres and span all the ratings.

For when you're happily caught up on the fest stories, here are 3 items that happened to cross my radar this week, all of which struck me as FK-related:

• A book about Natalie. I read an engaging, intriguing excerpt on Slate from the new memoir Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, MD, and immediately added the book to my Amazon cart, visions of better-informed Natalie fanfic dancing in my head.


• An analysis about Nick. Also on Slate, I read a Quora answer: "Could Modern Troops Defeat Medieval Knights in Hand-to-Hand Combat?" by Jon Davis, Marine sergeant, Iraq vet, weapons instructor. If I may spoil the ending, he concludes that, all else being equal, a medieval knight would surely defeat a modern Marine in solo hand-to-hand combat; his reasoning covers both culture and technology.


• An essay about all of us. Over in the NYT, columnist Timothy Egan wrote a reflection on Robin Williams's death, and concluded: "My plea here is for people to give the needed space to artists and performers to fail every now and then, and to understand how exposed someone feels when trying something new." That's a profound consideration for everyone, and I'm trying to take it to heart and become better, myself. With my mind full of FKFicFest this week, though, I couldn't help also hearing it specifically in terms of this year's players; with only 9 writers and all FK's diverse perspectives, some of the matches invited bold moves outside of comfort zones. That's hard! And everyone rose to the occasion! There's a lot of "trying something new" in this year's game. I hope we can give each author just the right space.