Since 2008 I have been in my creative prime, and since 2017 I have been on fire. These are my collected short works from 2008 to the present.
My fifteenth collection of short fiction and poetry, written from May to December 2022.
Red Mirage
Fiction
Hypocrisy (first published in Meat for Tea)
Short Heartbreak
Peace
A Metropolis Moment
The Terrible Price
Red Mirage
Separation II
Freedom
Abuse or Neglect?
Poetry
“Writer Blockhead”
“Don the Con”
“NEWS FLASH”
“Abortion Poem”
“To Create”
“Failure”
“The Moment of Perfection”
“Tuesday”
“Throwing Stones”
“The Great Clarifier”
My fourteenth collection of short fiction and poetry, written from February to May 2022.
Phases
Fiction
The Twistress
Interview in a Psych Ward
The Ones Who Win (first published in Meat for Tea)*
Social Work
The Dream of Dictatorship
Ruslana (also published in Meat for Tea)
The Face
Playing it Safe
Differences
Violence
*This story, a sequel to Ursula LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Poetry
“Loss”
“Dosvidaniya”
“On Summer”
“On Winter”
“Cookie-Cutter World”
“1984 Realized”
My thirteenth collection of short fiction and poetry, written from September 2021 to January 2022.
“Imaginative and memorable! I really liked it [“Ancestral Home”].”
—Donald C. Johanson
Rochester’s Secret
Fiction
The Game of You
Honor
A Germanic Tale
COVID Convo
Empathy Enforcement
An Abortion Story
The Chosen
A Connection
Allegory IV
War Hero
No Escape
Rochester’s Secret
Allegory V
You Too Can Be a Writer!
The Eyes
Ancestral Home
Poetry
“Depth”
“The True Believer”
“Wag the GOP”
“Cake and Iced Cream”
“The Wrong”
My twelfth collection of short works (fiction and poetry), written from March to September of 2021.
Robotworld
Fiction
The Craft of Fools
Christ’s Christian Academy
It’s a Hard Life
Faulkner and Hemingway Walk into a Bar
The Golden Dragon
NATION’S SHOOTERS FRUSTRATED WITH COVID RESTRICTIONS
Another Banal Story
At the Gate
Contact
Robotworld
The Anti-Semites
My Complaint with Modern Motion Pictures
Editorial Decisions
A Voice in the Darkness
Less of You
The Socialists
Nonfiction: Short Wisdom
Poetry
“The Wasteland”
“Factory Farming”
“For Howard S. Dunn”
“Brennyn Jade and the Wind She Made”
“Maturity”
“You Get What You Pay For”
“I Had a Right-Wing Friend”
“The Cycle of Abuse”
“What the Patriarchy Does to Men”
“Health”
“When I’m Dead”
“Untitled Reflection on the Point of It All”
“And That’s OK”
“For Jeff”
“Poem for the Haters”
My eleventh collection of short works, written from November 2020 to March 2021, previously sold under the title None But I Will Like These.
Wilma and Other Stories
Fiction
Language is Always Changing
Untitled Musings
The Rise of Authoritarianism
Background Story
Wilma (first published in Meat for Tea)
Mechanical Evolution
The Craft of the Wise
A Father on His Death Bed
Science-Fiction Story Idea
The Martian Dream
On a Walk
Poetry
“Moral Relativism”
“Those Who Do Not Understand”
“America”
“January 6, 2021”
“The Twelve Days of Trump”
“Susan”
“Distance-Learning Blues”
“Amanda”
“Conservative Populism”
“Eggs on Face and Sam”
My tenth collection of short works, written from April to November 2020.
X
Fiction
Good Help
Situational Irony
Crossing the River by Barbara Stoner
Poetic Justice (first published in Meat for Tea)
Please Don’t Kill the Spiders
The Spice
An Alternate History
Juneteenth
The Battle of the Smartphone
One-Sentence Fantasy Story
The Sculptor
Allegory III
Blind
Poetry
“For Alanis”
“GOP 2020”
“The Storming of the Station”
“The Creative Process”
“Pandemic”
“A 2020 Irony”
“Words are Water I”
“Words are Water II”
“The Dancers”
My ninth collection of short works, written from December 2019 to May 2020.
“Robert Peate’s Notes from Quarantine is the ideal way to begin, end, or survive a pandemic. It is an enjoyable read: sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny, and always entertaining. I found myself wishing for more when I reached the end.”
—Ken Shelton
Fiction
Horror Hospital
Ancient History
A Sun Children Side Scene
The Big One
All the World
The Day I Went to the Store
The Power of Words
Allegory II
The Vi-Race
Solitude II
Isolation
Dad’s Night
Pandemic Problem
Poetry
“Birthday Poem”
“Cimate Poem”
“The Force Field”
My eighth collection of short works, written from November 2019 to January 2020. This book contains my first story not suited for those aged 17 and under, “Coming Forward”.
“’New Dawn Academy’ is brilliant.”—Howard McCord, author of The Man Who Walked to the Moon
Fiction
The Power of Joy
Two More Shorts (Universal Basic Income, The Talking Dead)
Coming Forward (TW: sexual assault)
‘Seventies Spy Movie
Philosophy Book
M. Night Shyamalamadingdong Story
The Shining with an Editor
New Dawn Academy
Elpa Test
The Accident
The Starved, or the Great Window
Poetry
“The Impartial”
My seventh collection of short works (fiction and poetry), written from July to November 2019.
“It’s a cultural counterpoint in prose.”— Jan Williams
Fiction
We Had to Destroy the Village to Save It
Sleep
The Rainbow
Killer Movie
Training
Greta
Four More Shorts
The Creature
The Tour
The Beast
Revolution
Poetry
“Opposite Day”
My sixth collection of short works (fiction and poetry), written from September 2018 to July 2019.
“Besides relating tremendously to much of the poetry, I must compliment you on your style, your observation, and on your imagination. ‘The Black Book’ and ‘The Pen and the Sword’ are particular favorites, but I really like the themes of strange realities and unfortunate (or not) circumstances that ring true if slightly not right [in other pieces as well].”
—Phil Potestio
“WOWSERS! This collection of short stories and poems is terrific. I particularly enjoyed the titular story, a cool paranormal thriller, as well as the vampire tale ‘Marsa’. I wholeheartedly recommend this book and give it my highest rating: 5 bowls of steaming hot pho 
.”
—John Wessner
Fiction
Marsa
The Item
Allegory
Phone Fantasy
The Black Book
Cathy
The Mission
The Pen and the Sword
My Dream
Poetry
“Traumas at Fifteen”
“The Choice”
“Crisis Actors”
“Pollution”
“Poem in Two Acts”
“Yankee Donald Dandy”
“One Moment”
“On the Norm”
“Classic Power Struggle”
“Teaching Poem”
“Lesson Learned?”
“Reading Too Much Into Things”
“Same Student, or I Wish I Had Time for Teaching”
“Local Celebrity”
“I’m from New York”
“Sunny Weather”
“Classroom”
My fifth collection of short works (fiction and poetry), written from July to September 2018.
Increasingly Incoherent Departures from the Norm
Fiction
Increasingly Incoherent Departures from the Norm
A Great Story
Masterman’s Revenge
Stories
Poetry in Motion
Justice
Poetry
“I Hate Everybody”
My fourth collection of short fiction, written from December 2017 to July 2018.
“Thank you for the creative and empathetic portrayal in ‘Sisters’. . . . I think you did a great job crafting the scenes.”
—Nkechi “Rachel Doležal” Diallo, author of In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World
Fiction
The Fountain of Youth
Perpetual Motion, Inc.
A Fresh Beat
The Mistake
Sisters
Education II
The Time Before
The Penalty
Expedition Notebook
The Society of Sensitives
The One
Equilibrium
Shooting Day
The Network
My third collection of short fiction, written from September to December 2017.
“A compelling and frightening book written in a spare style. Words dance on the page like bones above the grave. The words tell of love in death, cold wind, and endless war.”—Howard McCord, author of The Man Who Walked to the Moon
Fiction
The War
The Attack
Perma-Rest (first published in Better Than Starbucks)
Education
Separation
Four Shorts
My second collection of short fiction, written from 2012 to 2017.
Mister Positive and Other Stories
Mister Positive
Roy (Blade Runner prequel)
The Vegans
Asking Why
Compromises
Libertarian Bed & Breakfast
Three-Paragraph Story
Solitude
My first collection of short fiction, written from 2008 to 2012.
“I saw a bit of myself in him. It’s straight bourbon right out of the bottle.”—Marshall DeMott
Mister Negative and Other Stories
Fiction
Chasing Kerouac
Neighbors
A Perfect World
The Deity
Mister Negative
The Creeps
Amazon (Paper and Kindle) || B&N (Nook) || Kobo || iBooks
You may ask your local independent bookstore to order any work on this site for you.
Robert Peate, Author 