Click on titles to access stories and essays. If there is only time for one story, read "Too Beautiful To Kill"
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Outline and 15,000 +/- words of a novel, ZooBots: Zoobots is an adult sci-fi novel about having to choose between prejudice and friendship. It’s Vienna, 2420, and Stau is a twenty-year-old scavenger who believes robots are the reason he will never get a job. It’s a prejudice he learned from his father who leads a band of robot killers, the Retter. Stau meets three robots—a jaguar, a python, and a parrot with talons—hiding from the Retter in the Vienna Zoo. They become his only friends, fellow outcasts who aren’t competition for jobs, and he’s fascinated by stories of their lives. On their own, the zoobots learn Stau is part of the Retter, but despite this they are desperate enough to ask him to help them escape. Stau must decide whether to continue to follow his father’s ideology or his new conscience. And with a robot detector arriving from another city that will surely flush out his friends, he needs to decide now.
Archer's Target, a finished novel inspired by a writing prompt, "The guy on the bus said I look just like his fantasy dream girl then named her, and it's my name."
An idea, Trimmigrants, set in the present about death and euphoria on pot farms in Northern California within the Emerald Triangle. It starts with a woman from New Orleans and another from Russia who only communicates using Google Translate. They meet a grower in a bar who might hire them for well paying manual labor to trim the factory leaves from marijuana flowers.
"Happy Ending"
A hospital ghost story. Last night, a Sunday, I parked in the ER lot a few minutes before my 8:30 appointment for the last of ten antibiotic infusions needed for an infected foot. They appeared to be working. The guard, Kelly, put me into a wheelchair before we headed down the first hallway. At the junction of the old and new hospital wings, I felt a little jostling, as always, when a nurse took over from Kelly, who returned to his post by the ER entrance.
"The story does the beautiful and careful dance of exploring an extremely high stakes situation, the loss of a spouse, with a quiet, calm voice. Doug Fortier chooses a specific slice of time and within the confines of that tiny space, he explores trust, promises, love and lies between two people." Natalie Serber, 2014 MCWC Short Fiction Instructor Finalist - Short Fiction - 2014 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference
Published: NOYO RIVER REVIEW, 2014, p. 84 short story "Today" Third Place 2016 California Writers Club, Sacramento branch Short Short Fiction Contest
Scholarship Winner 2007 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference,
2nd Place, CWC SF/Peninsula's Fault Zone III anthology 2014 
"I Knew It Was You"
A very tall and socially inept man meets a woman he thinks could understand him, but there is a problem. 2463 words Appears in CWC SF/Peninsula Fault Zone Uplift anthology 2017 
"Killer Tesla"
An in-car artificial intelligence is charged with making a Tesla owner a better driver after he crashes one car after another, giving the company a bad name. 1836 words
"Life For Death"
In this drama of error, a wealthy US gem dealer goes to Bangkok and makes a critical discovery. 1734 words
"Mendocino Mayhem"
The story of man's wedding band found when emptying the pond at the historic Kelley House for renovation. 975 words Won Honorable Mention in 2016 Kelley House writing contest.
"Voodoo Taboo"
Approached by an Orthodox Jew who’s losing his identity to Alzheimers, a Mendocino tattoo artist affirms his concern for people and his long lost religion. 1456 words 
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Thanks to Google Docs, the titles link to the documents I edit; if you happen to be reading one I'm working on, you'll see it change.
dougfortier@gmail.com "No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception." —A. Einstein
"The writer is that person who, embarking on her task, does not know what to do." —Donald Barthelme Edit until each paragraph has lost the ten pounds it gained over the winter. Edit until each sentence can survive three days in the wilderness on its own. Look at a sentence and, if it didn’t deserve to live, shoot it between the eyes. --Sy Safransky, The Sun Magazine, May 2011
‘Almost everything you do, you don't know why you do it. Our assumptions are hidden to us, we are blind to our assumptions,’ he [Beau Lotto] said. "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." —H.L. Mencken.
"Brothers in Blood"
Inspired by a writing prompt, "Your brother confides in you: you used to be his imaginary friend, he says, the one he wished were real. His wish came true."
"Toward the Light"
If you were given a painting of a lighthouse and a boat in the water, what would you write? "Get Back" theme of "April Showers"
For California Writers Club, Mendocino Coast, 2015 "SmatchUp" tag-team writing of 2 pages. "So That to Know Her" 1220 words
An essay based on Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway where we see how Clarissa embodies the people she loves and those she despises, and of the places important to her now and in her past. The thesis is, “So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.”
"Puzzles, Programs, and Aging Brains"
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Daytime bartender, Trixie, relates several visits by a couple who stop by for lunch, drinks, and conversation after getting their hair cut.
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"Welcome to the Purple Rose Zone"
"Tuesday is my night to cook, a euphemism for dining out, usually at the Purple Rose for our favorite Mexican food and outstanding margaritas.
972 words
"Tuesday is my night to cook, a euphemism for dining out, usually at the Purple Rose for our favorite Mexican food and outstanding margaritas.
972 words
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"Mile Marker Forty-Two" A traveler wakes in an unfamiliar place and learns why her host is far from home. 924 words |
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"Presque Vu" In progress
Kemp is a baby when her superpower is revealed. Presque vu is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon; in her head, Kemp hears the person who can't think of the word say it in their own accent and language. Her problem; she can't stop from calling out the word.
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"Cordyceps Meets T.gondii" 1,618 words 6 p.
Professor Randy Celebra has four days to prove a human brain parasite could influence a fungus to turn people into zombies. Failure would doom his upcoming book and deny him tenure. In pursuit of the proof, Celebra joins the husband of the missing Margaret Stacey, his target.
YouTube-Sir RichardAttenborough |
"Senior Sumo" 2,631 words Ronin Judo - Elmer Gale
Aaron, a superstar wrestler in college, works out twice a day and has always said, "If you're not ripening, you're rotting." On his 60th birthday, he's invited to join fellow wrestlers of another sort. He sees a chance to regain a sense of the glory days and prove he's still got it. His antagonist knows Aaron's strengths and weaknesses, is the owner of the sports club, does physical training and therapy, but a mystery to the general public, weighs three hundred pounds.
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"Reunion Charade" Incomplete 1st draft, paraphrased finish
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"Arnold 1790"
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"Summer of Love"
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"Inside the Jaguar"
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"Hosteen's Problem"
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"Too Beautiful to Kill"
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"Fire and Water"
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"Bound by the Glory of his Past" 8 pages--4600 words
A man with no money and an impending death sentence due to bad genetics becomes the recipient of nano-size mechanical brain cell replacements for each of his doomed components; but that's only the beginning.
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"The Lesson"
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"Lares at Crossroads"
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"Loose Gravel"
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"Stranger Conversation"
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"My Protection"
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