In this episode, Julia and Ralph are joined by award-winning novelist and Army veteran Nancy Stroer to dissect a short story by Benjamin Inks in which Jack Fleming, a fictional character invented as a joke, becomes a larger than life hero who inspires both American soldiers and Afghan citizens.
Reading: “Jack Fleming Lives!” by Benjamin Inks
They explore how the story’s choices about pacing, world building, and humor create an engrossing narrative with an almost unbelievable and yet totally convincing ending. Their discussion also touches on Tim O’Brien (author of The Things They Carried) and how sometimes fiction is the only way to tell the truth.
Nancy’s first novel, Playing Army, shares some of these themes; in it Lieutenant Minerva Mills struggles with the constraints of military life as she tries to avoid deployment to Bosnia, hoping instead to reconnect with her father who disappeared in Vietnam.
Guest Bio
Nancy Stroer holds degrees from Cornell and Boston University and served as an Army maintenance officer in the beer-soaked trenches of post-Cold War Germany. Her work has appeared in Stars and Stripes, Soldiers magazine, Hallaren Lit Mag, the Wrath-Bearing Tree, Consequence Forum and Things We Carry Still, an anthology of military writing from Middle West Press.
In addition to writing, Nancy is a teacher and trainer, and an adjunct faculty member of the Ellyn Satter Institute, a 503(c) not-for-profit organization that helps individuals and families develop a more joyful relationship to food and their bodies. Her debut novel, Playing Army, was a 2025 Military Writers Society of America bronze medalist for literary fiction.
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Writing in the Dark is co-hosted by Julia F. Green (Substack, website) and Ralph Walker (Twitter, website) and edited by Aaron Fyler, with cover art by Jarmusch.
