OUTPOSTS, the second installment in the series A Light in the Window ~ Winter Tales , is an exploration of the dark: physical, psychological literal and figurative. In four flash fictions, each one as brief as the snuffing out of a candle, a character who harbors a secret faces a personal outpost. In this telling, the character and his, her, their story, is inseparable from setting - settings that include: - a sideshow attraction on an old boardwalk that hides from sight the burrow beneath, where a homeless woman lives in the sand - a town that experiences a catastrophic storm that tears a community from its moorings - the wheel-well of a jet that becomes a chrysalis - and a library, the only sanctuary in a pre-war building in a city where a pandemic rages on This small collection of tales is intended to awaken, comfort, and most of all, inspire, at this profoundly challenging moment in which many of us find ourselves on an outpost, or several outposts we probably never could have imagined. Like the characters in these stories who share their simple gifts - their song - we find our way through the dark, and move on. For books by Helen Morrissey Rizzuto Visit Amazon.com She may be contacted at helenmorrisseyrizzuto@gmail.com