Jim Fraiser’s been stockpiling story strategies forever, but the Tupelo writer hesitated to delve into the short story genre.

“I’ve been putting it off a long time,” Fraiser said. “I didn’t think I could master the short story.”

Until now.

“Your Love Is Wicked and Other Stories” is Fraiser’s first foray into short stories. And he owes a debt of gratitude, he said, to Ernest Hemingway and Israeli author Etgar Keret.

“Reading their work opened my mind to a new way of approaching short stories,” Fraiser said. “Mixing light, short, punchy, historical human interest stories with philosophical, hard-core stories on important issues. Light on description, more meat – getting into the heart of the story quicker with hard-hitting dialogue and action.”

The 30 stories in this collection offer proof that Fraiser has succeeded in doing just that.

Some of the stories are based on real life, while others are total fantasy.

In “Thanks alot, Jack,” a woman interviews one writer while making it clear she prefers the works of another.

That story, Fraiser said, “is based on John Grisham and me.”

The two were in law school together.

“My wife likes his work more than mine,” Fraiser said, laughing.

“Ollie G. Mohammed” is a poignant tribute to a lost friend; while “Mother of the Crime” is the story of a mother begging mercy for her son.

In his stories, Fraiser shoots straight from the heart and pulls no punches. Don’t let the length of the stories fool you – there are some powerful tales told here.

Not a newcomer

Fraiser’s no stranger to writing – he’s published four novels, a book about the football rivalry between Millsaps and Mississippi colleges, and at least five non-fiction books about the Gulf Coast and other regions.

A native of Greenwood, he wrote his first novel as an 8th-grader.

“My father printed it out of his office – he always encouraged me,” Fraiser said. “The novel was based on “Star Trek” and “Lost In Space” as I remember and not any good.”

In high school he rewrote Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and adapted it to Greenwood High School.

“There were words and stories pushing to come out even back then,” he said.

A long-standing family tradition nudged Fraiser on to law school, and with his law career moving forward, he began writing in earnest.

Now the chief judge in the Tupelo Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, Fraiser and his wife Carole are the parents of two teenage daughters, Lucy, 15, and Mary Adelyn, 13, and 6 1/2-month-old son Paul James, to whom his book of short stories is dedicated.

“He’s still perfect, sleeps through the night,” said the 55-year-old father. “I’ll be 73 when he graduates from high school.”