Howdy, howdy! It’s that time again. Time for some shameless self-promotion. If you stalk me on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, you already know, but just in case. My short story, The Water Horse, is out today in Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Volume Silver. You can purchase it from Improbable Press, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble to name a few places. Please do check it out and leave reviews if possible! Until next week.
Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing today? Everything here is about the same as usual. It’s going to be another pretty short post this week, I’m afraid. If you stalk me on social media, you probably know all of this, but I’ll post it here anyway. I have two announcements about publications I have stories in.
First, my flash fiction piece “The Water Horse” will be appearing in the silver volume of Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging! It’s coming out in February, but you can pre-order now at the links above. It will be an amazing collection. I also know at least one of the authors in the blue volume, so I think that one will be wonderful as well. Please feel free to spread the word!
Second, the ebook of Love Letters to Poe: A Toast to Edgar Allan Poe is currently on sale until Friday! My flash fiction piece “Poisoned Honey and Pickled Pigs’ Feet” is in that one. There are some other neat things going on with this sale. I’ll share the details below. Reviews are encouraged if you have a few seconds. And again, feel free to spread the word!
For a limited time only, Love Letters to Poe: A Toast to Edgar Allan Poe is on sale for 99 cents. The price will go up to $4.99 after this Friday, so make sure to snag your copy now! Here.
The editor teamed up with Literarily Illuminating for a special treat – purchase their Poe candles this week & get a complimentary copy of the anthology. Check out their Etsy store now before they sell out! Here.
Win Virtual Tickets to Poe Fest! Buy Love Letters to Poe: A Toast to Edgar Allan Poe by this Friday and enter to win! Additional purchases (buy a copy for a friend!) will count as additional entries. IMPORTANT: Email your proof of purchase to loveletterstopoe@gmail.com to enter.
That’s the end of my announcements! I’ll be back next week with our regularly scheduled book review.
Hello, hello! It’s September 1st. Where has the time gone? How is everyone doing? Other than having to remember all of our doctor appointments, things here are good. This week’s post is just a short one. You remember when my story “Poisoned Honey and Pickled Pigs’ Feet” came out in volume 1, issue 8 of Love Letters to Poe? Volume 1 is coming out in its entirety (all 12 issues in one book) on September 20th. There will be both a print version and an ebook, so there’s something for everyone! Also, there will be a sale for the 20th through the 25th. Look forward to it on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and other stores. For now, I’ll leave you with the recently revealed cover!
Hello, hello! How is everyone this beautiful day? Things are pretty much the same as they’ve been around here. Lots of slacking on all fronts. You know how it goes. Anyway, if you follow my personal Facebook, you already know this, but today’s post is just to let you know that my flash fiction piece “The Water Horse” will be appearing in Improbable Press’s forthcoming anthology. Right now, the only release details I have is that it’ll be coming in early 2022. I will post my usual shameless self-promotions when I know more. But I wanted to let everyone know that writerly things are still happening even though I’m slacking. I’ll be back next week with my usual end-of-month book review!
Hello, hello! I know I already shared this news on my social media pages, but I do have some people who seem to only follow my blog, so I decided to put it here too. On May 28th, my flash fiction piece “Integrate” was released in a story swap between The Centropic Oracle (the lovely people who purchased and narrated the story) and the YouTube channel Let’s Read! You can listen to it here! You can also check out Published Work on my website to find anything you might’ve missed. I’ll be back next week with a proper post.
Hello, hello! Can you believe it’s already May? But the good thing about May is that my flash fiction piece “Poisoned Honey and Pickled Pigs’ Feet” was just released in volume 1, issue 8 of Love Letters to Poe! You can buy a copy here with my story and three other lovely pieces, or you can subscribe to the newsletter to get a free copy of the first issue as well as weekly installments with stories from that month’s release and author interviews (mine goes out on the 6th, so sign up today!). I’ll also share a link to my story/interview on my social media pages Thursday or Friday for anyone who doesn’t sign up in time. And if you miss that, after the 6th just search for Love Letters to Poe wherever you get your podcasts and you’ll be able to listen to me read the story. No matter how you access it, please feel free to leave a review or rating on the GoodReads page!
Sorry for the short post. I’ll be back to our regularly scheduled randomness next week!
Hello, hello! How is everyone doing today? I have nothing to ramble about, so here’s a short post for the sole purpose of shameless self-promotion. As some of you know, I’m one of an amazing team of first readers for the wonderfully horror-filled podcast Pseudopod. In this past Friday’s (Dec. 4th) episode, I was lucky enough to write a review of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: Volume One (edited by Paula Guran). The review is at the end of episode 734, after the delightfully creepy story “Anatomist” by Couri Johnson and a review by Kitty Sarkozy of Couri Johnson’s collection I’ll Tell You a Love Story. I’m not one for reading out loud, so Graeme Dunlop narrated my review. You can listen pretty much anywhere you stream your favorite podcasts or you can go here! My review is near the end, so be sure to listen to the whole episode. And tune into episode 736 on December 18th for another review by me after a great story by Lee Murray.
Hello, hello! I didn’t really plan on putting this out there, mainly because Creative Non-Fiction (CNF) isn’t my forte. But then, I wondered why not? Yes, my life is boring. No, I don’t particularly enjoy writing about it. But, a while back, I wrote a short essay about my feelings toward doctors (one doctor in particular, actually). I’ve been submitting it places with little hope of it finding a home. Anyway, I recently found out that it’s a finalist in the Pen 2 Paper writing competition. It’s called “Wrap Me up and Tie it with a Bow” and you can find it under Non-Fiction in the link above. Names have been changed and I’m sure some of the details are off (who can clearly remember that far back?), but the gist is true. Feel free to take a look. And keep all appropriate appendages crossed for me when they announce the winners.
Pen 2 Paper is the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities’ annual creative writing competition. It has been around for at least nine years now and currently has four categories in which people can enter: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and comics. You don’t have to be a Texan to submit. You don’t even have to be cripple according to the guidelines. But disability does have to be a main theme of the story/poem. The goals of the competition are to give writers with disabilities a forum where they can share their work; bring awareness to disability issues through the arts; and challenge all people of all ages to think, rethink, and express their stories, perspectives, fears, and discoveries about disability.
I think what they’re trying to accomplish is interesting and I’m proud to be a small part of it. With more than 400 submissions this go around, it’s obvious they’ve built a strong competition over the years. Plus, it’s one of very few writing venues where I don’t have to worry about being the token cripple.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at that. Please do check out my essay, “Wrap Me up and Tie it with a Bow.” Feel free to let me know what you think of it here or on my social media pages. Also, check my publication page on my website to look at any of my stuff you may have missed. I’ll be back next week with my usual randomness! See you then!
Howdy, howdy! Can you believe July is already more than halfway over? Neither can I. But I must admit it’s a good month. First and foremost, Dad’s birthday is tomorrow (happy early birthday, old man!), so drop him some birthday love here or on my social media pages and I’ll pass it along to him. Secondly, I recently found out that a piece of mine called “Cracked and Broken” will be appearing in Harbinger Press‘s Flash Fiction Fridays. So, I thought I would take this week’s post as a chance for some shameless self-promotion.
Harbinger Press is a brand new venue that opened in March of this year and was founded by Marie Robinson and B.C. Palmer. It will be running its first round of Flash Fiction Fridays from July 19th through November 29th. My story will appear during this time. I will announce via social media the exact Friday it comes out, plus I will share links to the story in those posts and on my website. In other words, if you haven’t done so already, please stalk my pages all of which can be found off to the side here or at the top of my website. And if you want to see all of the flash fiction pieces in this series (and participate future events like the “best of 2019” contest they’ll be having for their flash fiction selections), subscribe to Harbinger Press’s newsletter, which can be found on their website linked above.
If you’re interested in submitting your own flash fiction pieces to them, their winter call opens on August 1st and runs until November 1st. They’re open to fantasy, sci-fi, and horror according to the submission page. I know I have some friends whose writing could fit in those categories! Harbinger Press pays a flat rate of $25 for stories with a maximum of 1,000 words (so, basically semi-pro pay). You can find their guidelines and the basic rights they purchase on the website I linked above.
I’m extremely happy to be included in this debut batch of flash fiction. “Cracked and Broken” is one of the few pieces I’ve written that I liked even before my writing group gave their approval of it. They helped me improve it a lot, so I have to thank them for the suggestions and critiques. They know who they are. It was also one of the first pieces I wrote after Stonecoast, without the guidance of my mentors, so it was a little scary to send it out into the world. But I’m glad it has found a home!
As I mentioned above, I’ll announce when the story is released on my social media pages, so stalk me or subscribe to Harbinger Press’s newsletter to catch it when it comes out. Next week we’ll return to our regularly scheduled program of trying to figure out this writing life. Or maybe something cripple-focused. I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll see you then.
Hello, hello! How is everyone doing this wonderful day? I just realized it’s National Poetry Month and what better way to celebrate than to announce my latest publication? My poem, “Dear God,” was released on Monday in Breath and Shadow’s Spring ’19 issue. So, I thought I would take a moment to update you on this and on how Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers Vol. 3 is doing.
First, the new one! “Dear God” is a piece I shared on here a few years ago, so if it seems familiar, that’s why. However, the version posted on Breath and Shadow has been edited into a more streamlined piece. It was originally written while I was an undergrad taking an Intro to Poetry Writing class with professor Jennifer Key. One of our assignments was to write a poem speaking to God. Many of the students wrote extremely happy and/or vague poems, so it was a little weird when it came time to read mine. But I’m glad I read it to the class and I’m proud that this newest version is out in the world.
A little bit about Breath and Shadow. It’s a quarterly journal out of Maine that focuses strictly on disabled writers, no matter the disability. It’s a wonderful publication that gives a voice to a vast group that often goes unheard. Normally, I keep my disability to myself when I’m submitting my work because I don’t want to be a publication’s token cripple or fodder for inspiration porn, but Breath and Shadow is a place where I didn’t have to worry about any of that. Why? Because all of the editors and staff have their own disabilities, as well as all of the contributors. It’s simply a neat journal that publishes awesome writing by people who happen to be disabled. Check it out.
And lastly, an update on Road Kill vol. 3. It recently won the North Texas Book Festival Book Award! I’m super proud to be in a collection with such a wonderful group of writers. Thank you once again to E.R. Bills for putting it together. If you haven’t checked it out, visit the link at the beginning of this post and consider picking up a copy. It’s available as a paperback and a Kindle ebook.
I’m wrapping this up a little quicker than usual, since I’m sure you’re tired of my shamelessness. I’ll be back next week with a special book review of a duet (two reviews for the price of one)! In the mean time, feel free to share your thoughts, comments, or recent accomplishments here or on my social media pages.
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