Elizabeth Diehl
Bio
I am a self-taught writer, wife, and mother with a past in public health. I have one completed novel that I'm working on a query for, a blog I need to pay more attention to, and a handful of short stories here on vocal!
Stories (7)
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Marianne. Honorable Mention in Everything Looks Better From Far Away Challenge. Top Story - August 2025.
Glinting on the railing, Marianne’s ring rivaled the sun hung midway in a cloudless cerulean sky. Oliver Swenson squinted tired eyes and swirled half melted ice cubes in his bourbon while water rippled in opalescent veins of turquoise and sapphire before a lush mound of trees and brush. A real generic paradise. Not one mile away throngs of tourists clamored for a piece of shade in the heat, but in the small lagoon, all was quiet. Surrounded by a fortress wall of jagged volcanic rock, it was unspoiled. Clandestine. A honeymooner’s dream. The same as it was all those distant years ago when they were young and in love. Young and dumb was more like it. Still, they’d given it a good go. Thirty years and three kids later the island was the only thing unchanged. Lazy puddles of surf drifted ashore, washing the most delicate shells back to the ocean. Seagulls guffawed like Marianne’s laugh overhead. No, that was then, not now. Now it was silent. Too silent. Heavy with the silence of being completely alone on his perch.
By Elizabeth Diehl5 months ago in Fiction
Full Circle
I had been driving since dawn, at least, and now the last bit of daylight was fading behind the hills of Mark Twain National Forest. My phone rang again. I let it go to voicemail. Maybe in a while I’d call my daughter back, just to let them know I was okay. But Hal? I couldn’t even hear his voice yet without melting into a rage. Sure, it wasn’t all his fault. He had known about the letters from the bank, and he had kept them secret, but I should have checked our accounts too. I shouldn’t have left it all to him, assuming he was keeping everything afloat. I knew business was slowing all year. I bore some guilt too. And maybe that’s what I was most angry about. After all, I lost more than he did. He had grown up in a stable home. Me? I was a typical army brat, moving every year or so and having to rip up and regrow tender roots in so many different places I’d lost count by the time I was in fifth grade. As a child, there was just one place I ever felt at home and that’s where I was going.
By Elizabeth Diehl5 months ago in Fiction
Can we Talk?
I know, this is late to the game. It’s not that I haven’t noticed, believe me, this is just the first time I’m publicly sharing my opinion on this very divisive topic within the writing community. And that’s why. It’s divisive. I am, of course, talking about the use of AI.
By Elizabeth Diehlabout a year ago in 01
Cabin Sixty-Three
One thousand and one. One thousand and two. George Frohmer counted along to the sound of the clickety clack playing in his head. A stiff jostle shook him, and his eyes flashed open. He held his wristwatch to his face. Six thirty a.m. again. Monday, the twelfth of August. His gaze shifted to the seat before him. The same blonde woman with paper dry skin sat in it. The fox fur trim of her mauve coat wrapped tight around her neck as she stared ahead. Unmoving and silent. The conductor in his blue and gold uniform hovered above him; arm outstretched holding a ticket stamp. Frozen in time. The other passengers: the baby screaming on its mother’s lap, the balding man, shoving a suitcase in the overhead compartment while papers hung mid-air where they’d slipped from the space, the old woman in the straw hat and flowered shawl, and the bright yellow parakeet in the little gold cage on her lap; all were soundless and still. The only thing moving, living besides himself, was the eternally changing landscape through the train window. It twisted and turned until his scrambled egg breakfast forced its way up his throat. A bright sunny meadow in full spring bloom here. A narrow, sleet covered bridge spanning a black bottomless pass there. All changing in the blink of an eye or the flip of a switch, like his slide projector for the history class he taught. He’d lost count of the times he’d closed his eyes; certain when they opened, he’d be back safe in his four-poster bed while his wife, Betsy, snoozed peacefully beside him. Every time, he found himself on this train. In this seat, while the vehicle careened along its everchanging track.
By Elizabeth Diehl3 years ago in Horror
I Believe in Santa Claus
I was in the fifth grade when I learned the truth about Santa. Well, I thought it was the truth. I remember my mother had to sit me down and tell me because I was getting too old to believe in Santa Claus and I was a super believer if you will. You see, when I was very young, probably about three or four my dad went out on our deck on Christmas Eve and stomped around with jingle bells. My older sisters were in on it and woke me up so I could hear Santa’s sleigh on our roof. You might think this would make me angry or resentful as an adult, but it’s one of my most cherished memories of my young childhood. I will admit, though, that when my mom sat me down for that talk some of the magic of Christmas was gone for me. For what I thought was forever. I had a younger sister who still believed for a few years; and nephews and a niece so it was always a joy to see the wonderment in their eyes on Christmas morning. Still, in every Santa movie I found myself wishing that the big reveal moments (You know the kind. When the reindeer fly, and everyone sees that Santa is real.) would happen in real life. It wasn’t until I reached adulthood and saw something someone had posted about how to gently break the news to your kids that I realized. I was wrong. We are all wrong. Santa does exist.
By Elizabeth Diehl4 years ago in Confessions
The Family Tree
Shades of cold gray and blue painted the sky. Tiny wet snowflakes spat in the bitter morning air. Kristin Beckett sipped her morning dose of caffeine as she peered out the window to the city outside. They say you can’t go home again, and maybe that was true. Or rather, maybe it should be. Of course, you can always travel to the physical location you called home growing up, but it was never really the same. For better or worse. Kristin clutched her plush floral bathrobe tighter about her neck and padded in stocking feet to the couch. She stared blankly at the pictures in the old album as she thumbed through it. A chubby-faced toddler standing beside a pear tree, newly planted, adorned the black and white photograph. Her grandfather. Her lips began to curl up in a bittersweet grin. If there was anything she remembered about her grandparent’s farm, it was that old pear tree.
By Elizabeth Diehl4 years ago in Fiction
One Night in Appalachia
There was something vaguely familiar about the intermittent blinking. The green, fluorescent pulsating just within view of the eye. It was familiar, but not recognizable. The blue gray eyes closed slowly. Memories were beginning to fade. Melding into one giant ball of being that could no longer be separated into past and present. The smell of wet leaves filled the heavy air and a strange tingling dampness bit at the fingertips of the girl.
By Elizabeth Diehl4 years ago in Fiction
