Mixed Signals: A Collection of Short Stories

In elegiac and lucid prose Betty Howard captures the spirit of characters struggling with their own natures and the constrictions of society: whether it be a wealthy upper-class housewife in Marin County, California, trapped in a dysfunctional family; or a violent inmate incarcerated in a Colorado jail; or a female rancher coming up against male patriarchs in Custer County, Colorado; or a ditsy Broadmoor widow incapable of making sense of her life. These frail, misguided characters are forced into making choices and often non-choices with tragic but sometimes hilarious outcomes.

Betty Graham Howard took the Creative Writing Program at UCCS in the mid-nineties. As an intern she wrote book reviews and lifestyle features for Springs Magazine. She also wrote mystery book reviews for the Colorado Springs Independent and Denver's Bloomsbury Review. All of this writing about books whet her appetite for becoming a storyteller herself. She studied short story under Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness at the Taos Summer Conferences and also studied under Andrea Dupree, Co-Director of Denver's Lighthouse Writers, and author of multiple short stories published in literary magazines. She lives in Colorado Springs where she is a matriarch of a large extended intergenerational family and dotes on her six grandchildren.