Two sharply satirical short stories about ordinary people caught in extraordinary government absurdity.In Mabel Has an Elephant Problem, Mabel Sanger is under surveillance-her every word recorded by a malfunctioning humanoid assigned by the New Government. As Mabel fights to keep her privacy and dignity. Scrambled circuits lead to a hilarious battle of wit versus wiring.In The Cicadas Have Landed, Bunny, a Texas-bred lobbyist with towering hair and even bigger morals, meets her match during a buggy lunch break in D.C. As cicadas swarm and friendships fray, Bunny learns the hard way that Washington isn't kind to women who think with their conscience.Witty, weird, and just a little too close to real, Insects and Elephants explores the strange friction between personal integrity and the systems that try to squash it. Charles W. Harvey is a native Houstonian and a graduate of the University of Houston. At UofH he studied fiction under the guidance of Rosellen Brown and Chitra Divakaruni. In 1987, Charles was a 1st place prize recipient of PEN/Discovery for his short story Cheeseburger, which went on to be published in the Ontario Review. In 1989 Charles Harvey was awarded the Cultural Arts Council of Houston Grant for Writers and Artists. Also in 1989 he was a finalist in the MacDonald's Literary Achievement Awards. Charles has been published in Soulfires, Story Magazine SHADE, High Infidelity, The James White Review, and others. He is the author of the novels The Butterfly Killer, The Road to Astroworld, and Antoine's Double Trouble. He is also the author of several story and poetry collections. He also writes for the stage and screen.
