Every day, I encounter people and places, sights and sounds, memories and mementos that are or symbolize the then, now, and yet to be of my life. It is a chronicle of the immediate past, present, and future. At each stage of life, we journey down roads that are familiar and well-traveled, having driven them our entire life. They are the roads taken. The landmarks we pass are beloved and well-known. Although many of the roads are the same ones we've travelled before, we are different. We may pass someone along the way who looks familiar, only to realize that it was, is, or will be us in an earlier, current, or imagined incarnation. Joan Didion, a Central Valley refugee, once wrote that "a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image." I believe that. Modesto belongs to me and the Central Valley is mine. I am a Flatlander. I tell stories that take place here and involve those who live here. Tales inspired by an actual locale, genuine people, and true events - real, imagined, and/or recollected. They have all shaped who I am and how I see the world. They are my personal remembrance of things past. The five senses conjuring déjà vu and the familiar as surely as Proust's tea-dipped madeleines. Everyone is a storyteller, everyone has a story to tell, and everyone appreciates a story well-told. Our lives, our experiences, and our world view are our stories. Each of us tells our stories from that unique perspective, whether it's in a novel, a song, a painting, a poem, the volunteer work we do, or the way we live our lives. The Flatland Chronicles is a collection of stories that highlights the many uncommon threads that make up this amazing tapestry I call home. It is a fictional memoir in the style of the Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Instead of poems, it is a collection of short, short stories about life in California's Central Valley. The world is made up of stories, not atoms. - Muriel Rukeyser, Poet