Not the kind you eat. The kind you read.
Hi reader. Today I’d like to share my newest book with you. It’s called Hecatontagonal Stew, and it’s out now in ebook, paperback, and soon, hardcover. Let me tell you a bit more about it.
The Gimmick
Hecatontagonal Stew is a short story collection. However, it’s unlike most—or perhaps any—you’ve ever read. That’s because it has 100 stories, and each story is exactly 100 words long.
With so many stories, I had the unique opportunity to explore all sorts of genres, styles, approaches, and more. I divided them into 10 parts of 10 stories each. Speaking of which…
The Parts
Are as follows…
- Tales & Tails (Fairy tales, Shakespeare, folklore, animals, and more)
- Who Are You? (Stories about identity—but sadly, none about The Who)
- Consumption (Eating, drinking, buying, etc.)
- How Creepy (Horror, but mostly funny horror)
- Selective Memory (History, reminiscence, and period pieces)
- Please Be Professional, Please (Work stories)
- Surreality (Stories based in fact, or at least not fiction)
- Sporting (All about sports)
- Circles (Anything with a circular narrative)
- Crime & Reward (Because sometimes, crime pays off)
Hopefully that gives you a decent idea of what’s floating around in this stew. But why did I even cook it? I’m glad you asked.
The Inspiration
I began writing this book back in 2022—though I didn’t know it yet. I answered an open call for drabbles from a site called Black Ink Fiction. (A drabble is a story that’s exactly 100 words long.) The theme was “snow,” which put me in mind of snow days, which made me wonder what might be the weirdest way to get one.
Easy, I thought. Ragnarok.
That’s basically the Norse version of the Apocalypse, only instead of fire and brimstone, it begins with snow. So, I wrote a 100-word, two-sentence story about Ragnarok beginning in New Jersey, of all places. And Black Ink Fiction liked it enough to publish it.
I planned on including that story in a future fiction collection, along with a few other brief pieces. But once I started writing them, I found I couldn’t stop. And each one came out around 100 words.
It felt like a gimmick. And I can’t resist a good gimmick.
The Gimmick Earns Some Titles
My initial goal was 50 hundred-word stories, so my initial title was 50 x 100. Knowing that wasn’t very catchy, I forged ahead with the more important part—the actual stories.
The initial burst was prolific. I remember writing 20 stories in one day and thinking, This is easy! At this rate, I’ll have this book done by May.
That was in April. Of course, I didn’t. Progress slowed from there, though never entirely. It was satisfying to sit down every day and pump out a few complete stories. At just 100 words each, it didn’t take long.
In fact, by the summer, I decided to double my goal. Why not 100?
That changed the title, too. My book was now called 100 x Hundred, and I’d even mocked up a cover for it.
The Covers
Here it is…
Pretty bland, as you can see, but the joke is, it’s a 100 by 100 grid. Hoping for something a little more flavorful, I brainstormed some new titles:
- 100 Unblessed Sneezes
- 100 Splatters of Ink
- Hecatontagonal Microseconds
I enjoyed the 100-sided polygon thing, and a stew seemed like an apt metaphor for whatever I was putting together. That meant I needed a new cover…
Yes, I designed this one myself (using elements from Canva, of course). And now it’s here!
Try My Stew
Head on over to the Stew landing page by clicking here. Hope you enjoy it!
Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include six books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.