Deer Heart

She wouldn\u27t have gone on her own; two hundred miles across the prairie, it wasn\u27t worth it. She\u27d read the embossed invitation immediately as a chance to be with her daughter, not the Queen, to be off with her on a long drive in the car, contained, remote, private

Nipple Man

John McLarty\u27s furniture, in his office in the History building, his old teak desk and the two extra chairs and the filing cabinets and the potted plants, had been placed in every conceivable configuration, and he\u27d changed the drapes, at his own expense, twice. He believed there was a perfect arrangement, something conducive to dear thought, to an overall peace of mind, for himself and everyone who entered his office. He\u27d had some help, initially from his reluctant wife, and then from the others and recently even his daughter had gone up with him on a Sunday afternoon. They\u27d shared a bottle of wine as they hauled things around and argued amicably about what looked good where

Why I Write

I am guilty of allowing myself to become distracted by issues about which I can do very little. The foremost of these issues is practical: the inability to make much money as a Canadian short story writer. Tied directly to this is the extraordinary amount of quiet time I need in order to write anything which holds my interest. By quiet time, I mean the kind of time where, for days and nights running, the world of the imagination takes hold. I would not want (would be afraid of) a life filled with this kind of time, but I do need substantial chunks of it to get to the place where I can make a piece of fiction. All of this is further complicated by a middle class determination to raise my children well (to accommodate their potential, creative and other) and to live in something other than squalor. In short, I want it all. I want enough money to service my middle class family needs and to free my imagination to write, but I need a full time job to get it; a full time job precludes writing. If I were young and beautiful I would marry for money. If I could water down my own puritanical literary code, I would write potboilers full of greed, lust and violence to subsidize the work I care about. The romantic concept of artistic struggle is pretty much lost on me

Citizens' expectations and likely use of a NHS Walk-in Centre: results of a survey and qualitative methods of research.

OBJECTIVES: To find out which groups of people would use a National Health Service walk-in centre that would offer mainly health care advice, staffed by nurses. To understand the circumstances in which people would use a walk-in centre and to ascertain to what extent it would meet patients' expressed health-care needs. DESIGN: A postal survey of 2400 people plus 27 semi-structured interviews and one focus group. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: The study was conducted in Wakefield, Yorkshire UK, and included both white and ethnic minority groups. RESULTS: Most people reported that they would use a walk-in centre. It would be more attractive to young as compared with older people, ethnic minority as compared with white people, people who are dissatisfied with access to NHS services and people with urgent health-care problems. People want a wide range of services, including diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and general information. People also want access to both doctors and nurses, to male as well as female practitioners, to counsellors and interpreters. The type of service planned for this walk-in centre will meet some of the expressed needs. However, patients' expectations of the walk-in centre exceed planned provision in a number of key respects. CONCLUSION: Walk-in centres without GPs and with limited services will disappoint the public. It is important that walk-in centres are evaluated and attention paid to 'local voices' before additional money is allocated for such centres elsewhere