Jim Shankman

Jim Shankman has published novel excerpts, short fiction and one-act plays with Litbreak, Azure, Poydras Review, Apricity, Lumina and Popcorn Fiction. His novel “Tales Of The Patriarchs” is available at Amazon.com. "The Screenwriter Dies Of His Own Free Will" won a Best Playwriting Award in the New York International Fringe Festival. "Teardown" received a Julie Harris Playwriting Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild. "Billy And The Killers" and "Heartless Bastard" had their world at HERE in NYC. Jim has a degree in philosophy from Princeton University and an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College.

Autobiography of the Bomb: Teller in His Own Mind

The magazines and newspapers were saying all kinds of provocative, beguiling things about the man. He was Prometheus who stole fire from the gods for the benefit of mankind. He was Aladdin who let the genie out of the bottle. To the naysayers, he was the Dr. Jekyll whose potion transformed us all into Mr. Hyde. The guy had press like nobody has ever had press. He was a warrior saint, a holy knight of the realm.

Autobiography of the Bomb: Chapter Nineteen

July 16. Five o’clock in the morning. Teller is a groggy, irritable man. They are twenty miles away from the tower where the gadget has finally been hoisted into place with the plutonium core nestled inside the wired aluminum sphere. There is no hint of sun yet in the sky. He wants to get this over with.

Autobiography of the Bomb: Chapter Eight

He was at a gathering in Berkeley at the spartan home of a man named Peters. The cigarette smoke was mixed with alcohol and the hot breath of conversation. Peters was a physician who had escaped from Dachau. He had seen things. He chose not to speak of it unless someone was being particularly pigheaded or willfully ignorant or smugly uncaring, and then he spoke in such detail that he commanded the room with the authority of a Greek messenger. “I am come from Thebes with news I dare not speak.” “Speak, man, and you shall not be harmed, I vow.”

Autobiography of the Bomb: Chapter One

You may think you know me but you don’t. Our acquaintance only goes so far. You see how I act, but you do not know my thoughts and feelings. You do not know me from the inside. And so I often feel misunderstood and unfairly judged. You can infer a great deal about people from their actions. But literature confers one great advantage over life. It allows you to see a person as if from within. Perhaps this is only illusion.

Jim Shankman

Jim Shankman has published novel excerpts, short fiction and one-act plays with Litbreak, Azure, Poydras Review, Apricity, Lumina and Popcorn Fiction. His novel “Tales Of The Patriarchs” is available at Amazon.com. "The Screenwriter Dies Of His Own Free Will" won a Best Playwriting Award in the New York International Fringe Festival. "Teardown" received a Julie Harris Playwriting Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild. "Billy And The Killers" and "Heartless Bastard" had their world at HERE in NYC. Jim has a degree in philosophy from Princeton University and an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College.

Autobiography of the Bomb: Teller in His Own Mind

The magazines and newspapers were saying all kinds of provocative, beguiling things about the man. He was Prometheus who stole fire from the gods for the benefit of mankind. He was Aladdin who let the genie out of the bottle. To the naysayers, he was the Dr. Jekyll whose potion transformed us all into Mr. Hyde. The guy had press like nobody has ever had press. He was a warrior saint, a holy knight of the realm.

Autobiography of the Bomb: Chapter Nineteen

July 16. Five o’clock in the morning. Teller is a groggy, irritable man. They are twenty miles away from the tower where the gadget has finally been hoisted into place with the plutonium core nestled inside the wired aluminum sphere. There is no hint of sun yet in the sky. He wants to get this over with.

Autobiography of the Bomb: Chapter Eight

He was at a gathering in Berkeley at the spartan home of a man named Peters. The cigarette smoke was mixed with alcohol and the hot breath of conversation. Peters was a physician who had escaped from Dachau. He had seen things. He chose not to speak of it unless someone was being particularly pigheaded or willfully ignorant or smugly uncaring, and then he spoke in such detail that he commanded the room with the authority of a Greek messenger. “I am come from Thebes with news I dare not speak.” “Speak, man, and you shall not be harmed, I vow.”

Autobiography of the Bomb: Chapter One

You may think you know me but you don’t. Our acquaintance only goes so far. You see how I act, but you do not know my thoughts and feelings. You do not know me from the inside. And so I often feel misunderstood and unfairly judged. You can infer a great deal about people from their actions. But literature confers one great advantage over life. It allows you to see a person as if from within. Perhaps this is only illusion.

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