Write Brane

Lightning Lady

2012-03-06T07:36:00.000-05:00

It's no secret I like to work with pictures. In fact, I spend time when I could be writing playing in Photoshop, and by "playing" I mean working diligently to produce a piece of artwork that inspires me. Many truly great artists exist out there and a simple Google image search can produce amazing results with only a few key words.

Lightning was crying out to me for a particular piece I was working on. We live in a unique place near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some nights when a storm is raging on the far side of the mountains, unable to hop over and pound us as well, we in the Valley are treated to a starry night above and a lightning show along the ridge. It can be quite a sight. I wish I had the equipment to capture some of what we see.

Working on images for the forthcoming Wicked Bag of Suspense Tales I wanted to make lightning a component in a thus-far undisclosed piece. The results of my search were amazing! I mean, just google "lightning" and you'll see what I mean. Tons of sites with tons of images, of course. Where do you start?

One site I found and couldn't seem to leave until I had looked at every single shot was LightningLady.com. Check out her work. Amazing stuff. Had our timing worked out better, I may have been able to use her work as a component in the image for Wicked Bag. Sadly I had to move on before we touched bases with one another. Very nice lady, Ms. Susan Strom. And that name too. Strom? Anyone else seeing Storm, besides me?

The image for Wicked Bag turned out rather nicely in the end, after some work with one of the many, many tutorial on how to make lightning with Photoshop (one here).

And just for fun, a wee disambiguation. The Lightning Lady mentioned above should in no way be confused with the Lightning Lady shown here. Kindest regards and bountiful attributions to artist Karine Charlebois.

Sowing Seeds

2012-02-29T11:54:00.000-05:00

Helping fill the horrible, horrible deficit of plant-related scariness, I submit for your consideration Sowing the Seeds of Horror. Edited by Lorraine Horrell.

"Just a Little Thing" by Dorothy Davies

"Gull Tender" by Ken Goldman

"Festerton's War" by Caroline Noctar

"The Ruins" by Crystal Connor

"The Lake" by Charles Day

"You Shouldn't have Killed Me" by Jason D Brawn

"Overactive Imagination" by Nicholas Conley

"The Silver Locket" by J. Douglas Stephenson

"Terminal Frost" by George Wilhite

"Snapdragons" by William R.D. Wood

"Crawlspace" by Jeremy Bush

"Scorned" by Emma Ennis

"The King's Forest" by C.A kerr

" The Grass Roots" Joseph Polega

"Dempseys Demons" Rachael Hewitson Dixon

"The Listing Agency"by April Wolak

"Red, White and Black" by Nicola Peacock

"The Night of the Pumpkins" by Lorraine Horrell

"Talking Softly to One Plant" by John X Grey

"The Progeny Host" by Richard Beckett Baron

"Suitable DNA"by Anthony Cicerone

Photoshop is Like Crack

2012-02-21T20:33:00.000-05:00

To me anyway.

And just to clarify: Photoshop truly is my own personal crack cocaine. I hadn't been in the Shop for a purely creative project for many months until recently. Oh, I'm always dabbling on some work-related job - building logos or cleaning up some image for a purchase order or corrective action - but those just don't exercise the same creative mental muscle groups, you know? So a couple of months ago I embarked on a new set of images for the Wicked Bag of Suspense Tales from Wicked East Press and now I've got the bug again. And it feels good!

Since the very first short story I wrote, a zombie piece called "Scrap," I've created at least a rough image to go along with each story. The pictures keep me moving ahead and help me set the tone. I usually have them open in my background as I write and whenever I hit a stumbling block of pause to breathe if its an action scene. They're inspirational. And all this from an ancient copy of Photoshop 7. Imagine what I could with something a little more current!

If all goes well in my writing career, I'll have less and less time to play in the Shop, but it's a past time that I'll never be able to leave in the past for very long.

There are nine tales in Wicked Bag of Suspense Tales and I created a unique piece for each. I'm pleased with each so I'm hoping my fellow authors are as well.

Noise in Boise

2012-02-06T22:19:00.000-05:00

About 20 minutes outside Boise.

There's just nothing like going some place new to get the creative juices flowing! I dropped in on Boise, ID late last year for a couple of days. A not so little town nestled in the middle of mountain after mountain after mountain. Said mountains struck me as scrub-covered and barren but that could well have been the time of year. Back home in Virginia we'd just seen peak color on the Blue Ridge Parkway so the contrast was out of this world. Which is where my writing jaunt to the City of Trees took me. All the way to a new world or three and even back to the Old West. Aside from losing the sense of scale, the silence out among the hills was amazing.

Capitol Building. Boise, Idaho.

And no trip to a state capitol would be complete without a drive by of the associated capitol building. My schedule didn't permit a lot of sightseeing in Boise, so that picture is about it. No, my focus was the terrain just minutes outside the city. Okay, a half hour. Power lines are the bane of photography everywhere in the modern world.

The Neverending Sunset.

On the way back to the city after traipsing around the hills, the sunset seemed to go on forever in space and time, something I seldom experience living in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Other highlights include Hastings Entertainment. If I were going to be in Boise any length of time, I'd be spending way too much time and money there.

And lastly a nod to Joe's Crab Shack. It truly is electric.

The Twisted Library

2012-01-20T15:31:00.001-05:00

In late October 2011, Dr. Michael West, aka Dr. Pus, posted some bad news over at the Twisted Library forum.

Due to economic concerns, he was forced to cancel a number of anthologies in the Twisted Library Press pipeline. And this coming on the heels of a posting at the Library website a few days before that seemed chipper and optimistic. A lot of authors (and readers!) like myself were bummed, to say the least. Several of my stories were on that chopping block so the pain was personal. At least a couple of mine did made the final cut. "Lest We Forget" squeaked in one of the last anthologies pushed through: Zombidays. Another story should still see the light of day as well. A piece called 'Z Eye Joe" featured in the flash anthology Rapid Decomposition.

There's still a lot of activity going on at Twisted Library Press in the novel area, so Doc is far from out of the publishing game, that's for sure. He's even fired up the podcasts again! If you've never heard one, give them a listen. The latest is # 121 so there's one heck of an archive.

I've had some good experiences at the library--my involvement with The Zombist anthology being just one of them. I tend to be quiet on the forum but I've made some friends nonetheless from among the Library ranks. Doc and the people he surrounds himself with (in true zombie defense posture) are good folks. You can bet, if he ever puts out a call for submissions for a new zombie anthology again, I'll be one of the first in line.

Creepy Crawlies

2011-12-28T23:34:00.000-05:00

Spiders.

Only a couple of things creep me out more than spiders. Naturally the fine folks at Morpheus Tales, deftly accessing my fears by tapping into the collective unconscious, homed in on that little quirk and developed this cover.

[shudders]

13: Tales of Dark Fiction is out from Morpheus Tales containing my story, "Organ Grinder." Originally slotted to appear in the magazine next year, I jumped on the opportunity to have it showcased alongside this list of notables.

As for what creeps me out more than spiders, I'm keeping those little nuggets to myself.

Contributing authors include:

Eric S Brown
Joseph D’Lacey
Gary Fry
Andrew Hook
Shaun Jeffrey
Matt Leyshon
Gary McMahon
Andy Remic
Stanley Riiks
Tommy B. Smith
Alan Spencer
Fred Venturini
William R.D. Wood

American Zombie Guy

2011-12-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

There are so many blogs and forums and websites I'd like to read. Really. So many people have so much to say about so many subjects. Everything from science to politics to how to be a better dad.

There's just too much out there. I face the truth of that every time I look at all the unread books on the various shelves scattered through our home. If there are that many books I've yet to experience in the finite volume of this old house, how many exist in the nigh-infinite volume of the Net? How many blogs? How many books? How many haven't been or never will be translated into English?

You've got to be selective. Try to be well-rounded, yet focused, and that's can be a darned difficult balance to strike. Reorganizing the aforementioned book shelves these last couple of days (I've been home with a ailing little one) started me wondering just how well balanced my writing is.

I looked at an anthology publisher's blog (can't remember which one) earlier this year where they had taken all the submissions for a particular project and broken them down by location, protagonist and subject matter. I thought then, what a great idea! I love that sort of statistical stuff. Even more so, though, what a great idea to see your own biases!

With a stockpile of eighty-six stories to draw from, here's mine.

Only surprise here was I had so many female MCs. Go me.

Hmm. Very Americentric. Again, no major surprise there.

Yep. Zombies win the pie but not by as large a margin as I would have guessed. Gotta love hard data.

I do have two works in progress scheduled to be complete by year's end but I don't think they'll skew the numbers even a little. One's a zombie story. The second is a sort of hi-tech fantasy piece set in Biblical times. Guess that would fall under other.

Feeling Flushed

2011-12-07T11:30:00.001-05:00

I received word that “Headhunter” was accepted by Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction: A Tantalizing Collection of Short Stories! Coming in April 2012! I don’t typically risk this, but I’d say this warrants a happy dance…

[streaming video of happy dance removed for matters of national security]

According to their website, they have more than 10 MILLION copies in print of their twenty-something titles! Holy crap. (Sorry. Had to be said)

Quoting straight from the Uncle John’s website: “It was 1987. Uncle John found himself stranded on his throne with nothing to read. That’s when he came up with the idea to launch a series of trivia books specifically tailored toward his fellow bathroom readers. He gathered together the best trivia writers he could find and charged them with the task of combing the worlds of science, history, sports, politics, and pop culture to compile dozens of interesting articles that could be absorbed in just a few minutes.“Every article must be simple to read,” he told us, “and every page must either have an amazing fact or a good laugh—or both.” And with that, the Bathroom Readers’ Institute was born.”

And now I’m going to be a part of it. Very exciting!

All Them Pretty Vampires

2011-12-04T15:05:00.004-05:00

After an endless stream of jabs and jibes at my beautiful wife for loooving the Twilight series and all the pretty vampires, what do I do?

I write a vampire story. [hangs head in shame]

Now, my vampires aren't pretty, so I feel a little better about that aspect, but other than that, I have no excuse. It started off as a flash piece--just to get this one scene out of my head--and blossomed into a 5,000 word hi-tech pursuit of the fangy creeps.

While I have not read the pretty vampire books, I have seen and...[wince] enjoyed the movies. If you haven't checked out the treatment they're given at RiffTrax, you should. Oh, and the same aforementioned beautiful wife has kept me fully informed during her lightning reads of each book. Okay, enough of this. (BTW, in the event Stephenie Meyer stumbles across my little corner of the web here, yes, I am just jealous. More than I can say.)

Breathe. Breathe.

So, the shining light in all this--the one thing that makes it possible for me to rise and face the world--is The Trigger Reflex from Pill Hill Press, freshly edited by Miles Boothe and delivered promptly from your favorite dispenser of fictionally arranged words. Oh, and my story, "Adaptive Strategies," is included in the lineup.

1. Night and Day by Michael McClung

2. Hunting Vengence by Steven Gepp

3. Iron Bells by Joshua Reynolds

4. The Pretty Ones by Angel Propps

5. The Shomer Express by Edward Erdlac

6. Rancho Diablo by John Whalen

7. Blood Red by Thom Brannan.

8. 'Til the Sun is in the Sky by Rob Pegler.

9. Alpha by Marc Sorondo

10. The Enemy Within by Liam Cadey

11. Adaptive Strategies by William Wood

12. Gateway by Daniel Durrant

13. With My Vortex In Hand, I Boldy Go Forward by Medina Falcon

14. Our Fields by Paul Salvette

15. Shock to the Corset by T.W.Garland

16. Bats by Derek Muk

17. Emergence by Christopher Nadeau

18. Drawing First Blood by Kevin Walsh

19. Knocking Then Dead by John X. Grey

20. Under Construction by Mike Brooks

21. There's Something in the Woods by Ed Mckeown

22. Intrepid Dawn by Angela Meadon

23. Good Hit by Mark Sual

24. Damned Pretty Woman by Matthew Baugh

25. Groundhog Day by Phillip Norris

26. Coward's Run by H.J. Hill

27. Fallen States by Jason Papke

28. New Fallen Snow by Miles Boothe

Breaking New Ground

2011-11-23T16:39:00.001-05:00

I have a story appearing in Wicked Bag of Suspense Tales, my second story to appear in the Wicked Bag series from from Wicked East Press. Wicked, right?

Suspense was something new for me, at least as a target genre, and I spent a fair amount of my research time just making sure I understood the distinctions. The final draft submitted to editor Jessica A. Weiss was almost thirteen thousand words of pure, relentless suspense. Or was it? Okay, I'll keep working on the suspense thing.

Perhaps just as exciting as the story (title withheld), is my contribution of interior "cover art" for each of the stories within the Suspense anthology!

I was involved in two similar projects last year--anthologies with artwork attached to each story. Aether Age Helios, with editors Christopher Fletcher and Brandon Bell at the helm. Included in that volume of amazing Aether Age universe stories, were several of my artistic offerings. The other project was Eye Witness: Zombie, captained by Todd Brown. I provided none of the artwork in that anthology and, just let me say, the drawings are stunning. Hopefully those two little details are linked only by coincidence. If you haven't checked out Aether Age Helios or Eye Witness: Zombie yet, please do.

So when it comes to having art accompany my stories and the stories of others, the ground isn't freshly broken, but it has remained undisturbed for a bit.

A Thousand Words

2011-10-17T00:31:00.015-04:00

I received word this weekend from Adam Bradley, Editor and Publisher of Morpheus Tales, that one of my stories has been accepted for a future issue of the magazine - probably # 18, which will be available in October 2012.

With me, as with most writers, story ideas come from all angles. An overheard conversation, an accidental turn of phrase, a dream. And, of course, pictures. I'm a very visual guy and that plays heavily into my "sense of creativity," whether the story spins off in a SF direction, horror, or somewhere between. The images are often the beginning of a great tale and often they are what stick with me long afterwards.

How many times have we been told not to judge a book by it's cover, though? We all still do, despite the best efforts of English teachers and well-meaning parents. Major corporations, movie producers and publishing houses spend tremendous amounts of money and time in research just so that they can package their product in just the right way.

Morpheus Tales, billing themselves as "The UK's Darkest and Most Controversial Magazine," doesn't skimp on making that first impression either. Take a peek at some of their truly intense covers if you're so inclined. Be warned, though. Some of them stick with you. That said, if a regular old, run-of-the-mill picture is worth a thousand words, how many words are those pictures worth?

The story accepted by Mr. Bradley, "Organ Grinder," was one of those stories that came at me as a flood of images. And now, even though the tale is told, I still don't feel it's done with me.

A Wicked Bag of Wicked Wickedness

2011-05-10T22:16:00.008-04:00

Fresh from Wicked East Press and editors M. S. Gardner and Jessica A. Weiss is Wicked Bag of Horror Tales.

A few months ago I threw my writing hat into the ring for this project and through a highly secretive process of random selection landed one of the ten much-coveted spots in this anthology. From around the globe, the selectees sent in story prompts, which were shuffled and re-dealt.

Ten authors. Ten prompts. Ten thousand words each.

The result: Wicked Bag of Horror Tales.

The prompt I received was a simple one. Ghost hunters enter a house and find more than ghosts. My interpretation is a little piece called "Meat Machine."

Sharing the pages of Wicked Bag are:

Table Of Contents

1. Meat Machine William Wood

2. Two Sides Mark Taylor

3. Blurred Patricia Puckett

4. Dining In Hell Ellie Garratt

5. Armageddon-End Of Days

Robert Cristante

6. Muerte In A Small Town A.D. Spencer

7. Billy Adam P. Lewis

8. Arachnophilia Joshua Ramey-Renk

9. Coming Home Is Never The Same Darren Gallagher

You may have noticed only nine names appear in the table of contents. Our tenth selectee had to bow out leaving one prompt unwritten. A couple of us agreed to take on that twisted piece of inspiration just for fun. I haven't forgotten about you, Darren. Really.

So, if you're falling asleep too easily at night, pick up a copy. It'll cure what ails you.

Down Under

2011-04-27T16:46:00.001-04:00

Who loves Australia? Can you see me with my hand raised in the back of the world? If not, you might need to look a little harder.

I've been captivated by the continent since I was a kid. The exotic animals, the amazing vistas, the untamed areas ripe with stories both real and fictional. A few years back, when I learned part of my Naval service would be in the Pacific, I was sure I was bound for the shores of Perth or Sydney. Sure, we're not talking the Outback here, but I would have been happy just the same. Despite three years homeported in Pearl Harbor, I somehow missed out. I'll make it someday though.

Now, years after riding the gray metal boats for Uncle Sam, my interest is rekindled every so often by a Discovery Channel show, a child's homework project, or even a Men at Work song playing on classic radio. Yeah. I'll make it there.

Keeping the dream alive for me most recently is publisher Keith Stevenson of Kirrawee, NSW. His publishing house, Coeur de Lion, picked up my science fiction piece "Deuteronomy" for their Anywhere But Earth anthology, due out later this year. The lineup of authors included alongside my own looks great and I'm honored to be among them. If you'd like to check them out yourself, you can find the table of contents here!

This makes my second sale Down Under and I couldn't be happier.

Okay, unless I was dropping off the manuscript in person.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

2011-01-09T22:00:00.001-05:00

Last year was a good year for me, writing-wise and otherwise. Over thirty sales, many in print, a few online. The top shelf of the bookcase by my writing desk is half-filled with anthologies featuring my work. That's a great feeling.

About half of the stories are science fiction and the other half horror and like a 1970's Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial I can't seem to keep one from mixing in with the other.

So the question, as I charge forward into 2011, is how much of the short story energy do I redirect to the first novel? My final project for 2010 wraps up at the end of January and should clock in at a record (for me) 10K words. Still 70K or so short of a novel, but my longest work to date except for some fan fiction created for my youngest son about a certain Time Lord who shall remain nameless. Yep, February 1st will be a big writing day!

So, that's looking back and looking forward, writing-wise. The otherwise, I'll leave to your imagination.

Pandora's Box

2010-12-21T20:56:00.000-05:00

Writing groups are great. I'm speaking specifically of the Pandora's Box Writing Group founded by my friend Jeff Narucki. Pandora condensed out of a small cloud of students taking an online course in science fiction writing. The group has fluctuated in membership, never more than a five or six, but the input is invaluable. My ongoing thanks to my scattered buddies: creator Jeff Narucki, powerhouse Janette Lusty, our newest member Carolyn Chang, and the phantom member known only as Jeff Thomas. These guys and gals see my work before anyone else. Why none of them has yet tried to stop me, we may never know.

A much larger group I've been shirking for months is the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. A finer bunch of folks you'll likely never find.

Next month, after a devastating defeat in the Cafe Doom Sixth Annual Writing Competition, I'm going to check out their critiquing clinic as well.

And lastly, though first in every other list I possess, the lovely and talented Christine Wood deserves praise for being my first reader. Pray for her sanity, please, since I plan to write for another sixty years or so.

Aether Age: Helios

2010-12-15T20:39:00.002-05:00

The Aether Age: Helios is finally out! Two weeks ago now, actually. Paperback and hardcover. Beautiful book. These pictures are shamelessly reproduced from here, the Aether Age website.

Zombie Farmer

2010-12-13T22:04:00.003-05:00

For a guy who claims to be a science fiction author, I sure do have a lot of zombie story credits. One title long overdue for a mention, is Eye Witness: Zombie, the brain child (pun intended) of Mr. T. W. Brown and his ilk at May December Publications. My story, "Childish Things," found a home there and chronicles the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a would-be news channel field reporter who just happens to be stuck in a kids' show Orca costume. Eye Witness: Zombie, in addition to collecting some darn good stories, provides each with its own introductory / summary artwork. If you're looking for 350 pages of zombie goodness, do like the back cover says. "Tune into your local stations for the latest updates or stay here and follow the story as it unfolds on...Eye Witness: Zombie."

Thanks, Alva!

2010-10-02T00:23:00.006-04:00

Mr. Alva J. Roberts of The Guy Who Wrote That Thing fame, in his nigh-infinite wisdom, named me in something called the Creative Writer Blogger Award. Why he would do such a thing? I wish I knew. I could ask, I suppose. Or I could just go with it.

Hmm.

Part 1: I have to supply 6 funky lies and 1 weird truth, or 6 weird truths and 1 funky lie and it's up to you, dear reader, to figure it out.

Part 2: I have to nominate 5 more victims.

My Part 1:

I was spotted in San Diego and Honolulu at the same time.

When I was 32, my mother accidentally told me I was adopted.

I once jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

I was surrounded by cops in Libertyville IL for carrying an automatic weapon at a bus stop.
I was spokesman for Cline's Boiled Peanuts from 1995-1996.

I used hypnosis to improve a client's aim in archery.

As a child, after a particularly bad nose bleed, I briefly forgot how to smile.

My Part 2: (My apologies. I blame my newness to the blogging world. And hamsters.)

Jeff Narucki - JeffNarucki.com

Janette Lusty - JanetteJots

Beckie Tetrault - Spookiez Spot

Matt Nord - My Undead Brain

Jessica Weiss - The Writers Side of the Looking Glass

Next time? More catching up.

Catching Up

2010-09-26T22:37:00.001-04:00

That's a bold title up there and not just in font style. And I'm sad to say, once this post is done, I will not be caught up. Not even close. Consider the title more of a goal. Yeah. A working title.

Last time, I mentioned returning from vacation to the excellent news that The Zombist was out from Library of the Living Dead. What I failed to mention was the also-excellent news from the very first day of said vacation.

A little backstory. Eric S. Brown and David Dunwoody, zombie fiction masters that they are, held a Zombie Flash Fiction Contest, hosted by Corey Graham of the Midnight Corey Podcast. Hearing the call, I'd entered a couple of pieces of my own.

Vacation Day Zero arrived. The contest was over, the results posted (no names), but I'd received no word. I was bummed, of course, but you learn to cry in private and move on. It's the manly thing to do. So, my lovely wife and beautiful children departed in Vehicle One as I packed the last few things in my car (Vehicle Two) and burned the podcast for private listening during the first leg of the trip, a 3-hour drive before ditching Vehicle Two (a NASA-esque move that requires a lot of technical explanation and a few charts and graphs) and therefore the only chance for me to properly crank the podcast.

And what to my wondering ears should appear, but second place in the contest for a little piece I called "Z Eye Joe!" My thanks to Eric, David and Corey and to James Melzer for his excellent reading that, I must say, makes my story orders of magnitude better on the ears than I was ever able to make it on the eyes.

The winner of the contest was editor and author, Stephanie Kincaid, whose mastery of flash and, well, zombie stories is evident. Rounding out our winner's circle, was Keith Gouveia. To check out the podcast with the readings from our stories click here. To check out Corey's podcasts in general, here.

More catching up to come.

The Zombist

2010-08-10T20:28:00.003-04:00

We returned from a two-week vacation a few days ago and I've been slowly working my way through the epile of ejetsam that accumulates when you drop off the grid for even a few days. Lot's of gems this time, the highlight being a little email announcing The Zombist: Undead Western Tales was released for public consumption on 7/30! If you've got the resources and the inclination (heck, even if you don't), check out this 458-pg monster from Library of the Living Dead Press' main man, Dr. Pus (aka Dr. Mike West), and editor Bill Tucker. Story number 9 is mine. A little tale about "Hands."

Amazon's product description:

This huge tome contains 29 stories by 29 authors for a huge anthology about zombies in the Old West. You'll find cowboys, indians, miners, gunslingers, settlers, sheriffs, marshals and of course zombies. All of them in the Old West. Over 450 pages and over 160,000 words of the weirdest, strangest, most unique and downright cool as hell stories about zombies in the Old West. Yeeee Haaaaw!

Elwood: What kind of stories do you usually tell here?

Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got zombie and western.

The Last Man Anthology!

2010-08-10T12:28:00.007-04:00

I'm proud to be aboard this project from Executive Editor Hunter Liguore at Sword & Saga Press. And in case you're wondering, mine is the story about the teddy bear mentioned in the description. Didn't know I had a softer side, did you?

Description: The Last Man Anthology takes inspiration from Mary Shelley’s novel, The Last Man, and showcases short stories and poems that build on the theme of finality—of being last. From experiencing the last snowmelt to taking part of the last day on Earth, The Last Man Anthology propels catastrophic literature into the twenty-first century while staying true to Shelley’s timeless themes of chaos and isolation. How would it feel to know you were experiencing your last day on Earth? What would the end of the world look like to the Greek gods, the last bookstore owner, or the last philosopher? The story settings range from the fringes of Outer Space, to the last museum, to New York City the day before September 11, 2001, to Brighton Street with the last teddybear, and many more.

Features: Includes veteran writers Ray Bradbury, C. J. Cherryh, Barry N. Malzberg, along with such classic sci-fi authors as H. G. Wells, Edgar Allen Poe, and Jack London, and an assortment of contemporary writers from four continents. We’re also honored to have a third grader make the cut!

To order: Available through Amazon.com, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, LSI, on or before the official release day, October 26, 2010.

Check out the Sword & Saga Press site for more about The Last Man Anthology and lot more. www.swordandsagapress.com/

PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Contest

2010-07-08T00:22:00.005-04:00

I received word yesterday from Ann Cecil, the contest coordinator, that I won the Fifteenth Annual PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Contest! I'm still shaking my head and grinning like a fool. If I tell my wife one more time, she's going to...well, it might not be pleasant.

What an honor!

My thanks go out to all the folks at PARSEC and authors John Scalzi, Paul Melko, and Karina Sumner-Smith for judging the contest. Special shout-outs to my beta reader, the lovely and talented Christine Wood, and my writing group buddies, Jeff Narucki and Janette Lusty. Thanks, guys!

And here's what I had to go on:

Theme:
"The Color of Silence"
Use this as a metaphor, literally, or anything in between for your genre story. As this is a themed contest, your interpretation of the theme element must be integral to the story. Only an incidental mention of the theme will count against you. Please remember, though, that Confluence attracts many families, and the story will be printed in the program book. A certain restraint and subtlety is called for.

Check out PARSEC. I'm sure glad I did!

Book trailers

2010-07-03T17:35:00.001-04:00

Book trailers are great, especially when you have a story in the book!

Check out the Aether Age: Helios anthology and read my story "Margin of Error." Some of the artwork is mine also. My thanks go out to Chris Fletcher and Brandon Bell for making this happen.

Aether Age: Helios book trailer