This week we present a second story from the third volume of Fiction River: Time Streams, which releases in print and ebook on August 20, for our story podcast. We’re happy offer the audio of “The Elevator in the Cornfield” by Scott William Carter for the next week.

Publishers Weekly called Scott William Carter’s very first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, “a touching and impressive debut.” The judges of the Oregon Book Award agreed, granting him that prestigious award in 2011. Since then, he’s published ten novels and over fifty short stories in a wide variety of genres and styles. His latest novel, Ghost Detective, has hit print.

He writes that “The Elevator in the Cornfield” started with the title. He begins a lot of stories that way. “I like to juxtapose images that don’t belong together and start asking myself questions. Why is that elevator in a cornfield? Who finds it? What do they do?”

He answers all of those questions and oh so much more in the touching story that follows.

This podcast was available for one week only. If you missed this one, our current free story podcast is linked in the sidebar on the right above. We post a new story every week.