InkStains January

InkStains is a random collection of stories – fiction and nonfiction of any genre – handwritten daily over the course of a year.

When John Urbancik started this project, he aimed to write a story every day for a year. By hand. He found an inexpensive yet fancy fountain pen, started with a Moleskine notepad, and on 1 January 2013 set to writing.

He took one mandatory day off monthly.

Stories did not have to be fiction. Nonfiction, essays, reviews, memoirs – all genres – everything was open, so long as they were complete.

These are the results: failures and successes both. Everything is included.

He cleaned up grammar and spelling, and spent months typing up the almost 250,000 handwritten words; he did my best to strengthen the writing where it was weak. The author is very happy with a lot of the stories, and disappointed with others, but some are fantastic. (I’m biased. You decide.)