Flash Fiction Online!

Flash Fiction Online has published a piece by me called "Cliona's Coat" and to my surprise and delight they've also done an adorable little illustration for it!

These guys have been absolutely wonderful to work with.

Unburied Treasures!

Lydia Kurnia and Erika Wilson have put together a fantastic anthology of stories from myself and several other long time writer friends. It's $2 on Amazon, and it can be yours right now!

Aside from the stories inside from Daniel Ausema, Barbara A Barnett, Nyki Blatchly, Lindsey Duncan, Indigo Dylis, Jonathan Pembroke, Erika Wilson, Lydia Kurnia, and myself, I want to draw your attention to this fantastic cover, which is the fine work of Lydia Kurnia and Armando Barnaba, and contains references and nods to every single story in the book. Seriously, if you're looking here and thinking "hey, I could really use a cover for my next book or magazine" go talk to these people. They're amazing. 

Vignettes from the End of the World!

Vignettes from the End of the World is now out! With the awesome tag-line: "This is how the world ends. Not in a bang, but in a book."


58 individual apocalyptic flash pieces, including one by me. Do go enjoy it.

Podcastle!

With amazing speed, my flash story Georgina and the Basilisk is now up at Podcastle, which has always been one of my aspirational markets, particularly as it's the first podcast I started listening to way back in the day.

Innsmouth Free Press

The stylish Lovecraftian horror zine Innsmouth Free Press is reprinting my story "I Fall to Pieces" which first appeared in the Magazine of Bizarro Fiction! Go check them out!

Beneath Ceaseless Squees!

Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue #114! Woo!

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is another one of my dream markets. Second world fantasy has always been a thing I've loved, and this is a fantastic magazine for it. They also have one of my favorite podcasts, which doesn't hurt either. 

The kindle version of the issue with my story is already up, and it should be up on the website by Thursday. Go! Check it out! Become hooked.

Into the Darkness

Check out that fantastic cover!

The story that gave this blog its name is collected in Into the Darkness, which is now available on Amazon. 

Trespass, an Anthology!

I have officially become an editor as well.

So here's what happened:

A few years back I signed up for a writing site with most of those associates you see over there on the right of the blog. In those days few if any of us were published, but we helped each other out as best we could.

So fast forward a bit, and now all of us are published, and some of us recollected in best ofs and the like. In order to continue helping each other out, we got together and bundled several of our previously published stories. Our hope is that as we make further sales, anyone who goes looking for one of us will find all of us, and hopefully fall in love with the people they hadn't seen before.

The anthology's only 99 cents- perfect try-it-out price. Don't be shy. Go pick one up for your e-book device. 

Escape Pod!

(First off, if you haven't voted yet, go vote.)

The Escape Pod semi-annual flash fiction contest ended yesterday.

I WON!

Actually I both won and took fifth place out of 92 (we were allowed two entries), which was a weird combination of awesome and nail-biting horror for me. I was terrified I would place twice and feel like a total toolbag for making it so there were two published winners instead of the the regular three.

Some of my dearest friends have been perplexed by this reaction. Do I feel guilty about taking first place, they ask. No. Or, well, I do a little, but not enough that I'm not bouncing around like a loon for having got it. The prize is something I've wanted for years: publication on Escape Pod, which is the big bad granddaddy of the fiction podcasts. It's one of those magazines I want to be in because I read it (or in this case listen) and it blows my mind on a pretty routine basis (others include Drabblecast, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shock Totem, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, etc).

So, yes, I desperately wanted to win first place.

But first place is really enough, you know? Anything past that feels uncomfortably greedy.

I wrote the organizer before the finals went up and talked to him about taking the second story out of the running entirely. He talked me out of it, and I'm glad he did, but I still breathed a sigh of relief when that story was coming in a relatively distant fourth, and then got passed up on the last day to come in fifth. It was still a good showing, and it's way better than I showed in the previous competition, with one going into the semi-finals, and one making it to the quarter.

And, speaking of being greedy, this raises a big question.

There are also contests for Podcastle and Pseudopod, both of which I love and would love to be on.

Do I enter these, or do I take my win, bow out gracefully, and give somebody else a chance?

And if I do enter, do I risk entering two?

Questions. 

69 Flavors of Paranoia

69 Flavors of Paranoia is running a reprint of my story "Sweepers" in their 18th issue (under the section heading "Ass Meats". No, seriously).  Go check it out. It's high kitsch and very themey, but that's kind of the fun of horror. 

Squeeeeeee!

My story, Wendigo Bake Sale, is out in Drabblecast Trifecta XXI, focusing on families. I got a Norm Sherman reading (yay!), and it finishes out on a really great musical cue. It's a podcast with consistently great audio engineering.

It's really a thrill to hear them say your name on a podcast you've been listening to this long.

Also in this trifecta: Dustin Reade and Brenda Stokes Barron. 

Aoife's Kiss!

My story "I Fall to Pieces" appears as a reprint in this month's Aoife's Kiss! Go pick one up, it's a groovy place that publishes both a lot of writers I love.

Another Notch In My Lipstick Case

I was scrambling around frantically most of December and I missed this post by Ken Allen Wood about authors promoting magazines in which their work has appeared. (Mr. Wood is, by the way, the editor of Shock Totem, which was the first magazine I ever sold to, and currently has all its back issues available electronically for a mere 99 cents each or free through amazon prime.)

I've promoted Shock Totem a couple of times on the blog, in part because they keep letting me write little things for them, and in part because Ken is a really stand up guy who's kept in communication with me this whole time. He didn't just buy my first sale, but he clued me in on the opportunity that resulted in my second one. He also comes by and comments on the blog. He's just generally been someone who I feel has gone over and above, and that's the sort of thing I want to pay back. (I admit, I've also done it because Shock Totem has some of the most gorgeous cover illustrations in all of horror. I mean just look at it.)

I've promoted the magazine less in my personal social media spaces because I've kind of skittishly compartmentalized, and I'm not 100% sure I want my conservative christian relatives asking me about stories where people eat each other next Thanksgiving (though it's going to happen anyway, I think. My mother and father have been pimping this magazine pretty hard).

I guess I'm sort of torn on it. I feel a little strange promoting aggressively if it's something I'm published in; honestly, it's easier for me to tell you Shock Totem is something you should buy when it's not my particular issue, because that feels less like I'm just beating you over the head to pay attention to me. I've also got no problem pointing you at places I haven't been published but I like to read. And I know I gushed like a cat-ear-hat-wearing fangirl when Drabblecast said they'd take one of my stories, but I'd also gushed about them before that.

Ken's question is "are writers obligated to promote the places that publish them?" I guess I kind of fall in the general area of "no, not obligated, but unless the publication has actively dicked with you, it seems like the decent thing to do, whether they publish you or not". Magazines don't necessarily make a lot of money, and most of these guys are alive by the skin of their teeth. We writers and readers have a symbiotic relationship with magazines. The better they do, generally the better they're able to do by us. Sometimes that means buying a digital copy of Clarkesworld instead of a chai latte. Sometimes that just means that when you read a really good story, you point it out to everyone else you know who might like it. Yeah, magazines absolutely can't take either their writers or their readers for granted (or even their potential writers or readers), but that goes both ways. If you want the genre to be healthy, the best thing you can do is buy, give, and promote, especially if it's a magazine you think does it right. Pimp your favorite semi-pro zine and see if you can help it go pro. Help us build a thriving short fiction ecosystem.

Or at least that's how I feel about it. What do you guys think?

Shock Totem Holiday Special

God, this magazine never has a bad cover. Look at how gorgeous that is!

Shock Totem is putting out a holiday e-book special and you should buy it. You should buy it because Jack Freaking Ketchum is going to tell you a story about his Christmas. You should buy it because horror needs a holiday too. You should buy it because, hell, look at it! That's a switchblade snowflake and it's gorgeous.

Yes, absolutely, Skull Honey readers. Get out there and indulge in some holiday cheer. 

Corvus

Issue #1 of Corvus is up, featuring a reprint of "Sweepers". These ladies seem like nice folks. Go read their magazine.

Oh, HELL Yes!

My friend Sylvia Hiven talks sometimes about dream markets: the places you hope your fiction ends up because of the prestige (even if it's just among a subgroup) or how much you think it would be a perfect fit. One of those markets for me is The Drabblecast, which just bought my story "Wendigo Bakesale". Which, just... I really don't have a lot of words I'm comfortable putting on a searchable blog that adequately convey my elation. This is the Drabblecast! The house that Norm built. In large part the reason I did not go onto a psychotic shooting spree when I had a job where I had to drive five hours a day. The same guys who ran "Rangifer Volans" and "Mongoose" and have bbardles and a sound effect for a rapidly liquifying cat.

When you love somebody this much, there's just nothing more gratifying than knowing they like you back.

Aoife's Kiss

Sold a reprint to the March 2012 issue of Aoife's Kiss! The editor said it was quite possibly the strangest thing they'd ever bought, and that just delights me.

100th Post Extravaganza

First off, I sold another reprint of Sweepers to the fabulous folk at Neon- A Literary Magazine! Do go check out their stuff, and buy from them if you're so inclined.

Also, after much doodling, I finally have a skull I like. I had hoped to have some serious coloring of it done and to be able to post it as a background for my hundredth post. I try not to make a great many excuses to you fine people, but I just recently started a new job where I've been pulling 11 hour shifts at minimum, so that hasn't come together quite as much as I'd hoped. Soon though.

On the writing front, for a given definition each of "story", "a day", and "May", I have completed the story a day in May challenge with 31 pieces of fiction, many of them flash, the last ones finished on June 1st. My plan for June is to go through my catalogue and edit to submission quality one story per day. (I have to admit, I don't think I'll actually achieve that goal, but just trying should put me well ahead of what I had done before.)

I've also passed my 100,000 words written or edited for the year. That puts me not entirely on schedule for 2011, but not terribly behind either, and it's a delightfully round and large number, like a sort of arbitrary milestone Rubens.

The ads have been working out well, I think. They're not terribly obnoxious, or even, I think, too grabby or tacky. My contract states that I may not tell you what I am earning per click, but I am allowed to accurately represent how much money I've made from the program. I've been on them for about two months and I could very likely pay for a fast food combo meal for both myself and a friend. Which, when you think about the fact that I was planning on doing this for no money at all, is a nice little perk.

I admit, when I started blogging, it was with a great deal of reluctance. I was digging my heels in and shouting about how I didn't wanna go. But now that I've been at it a bit, I really enjoy it. I've gotten to say a thing or two, I've attracted the notice of Mr. Tim Pratt, and when I want to say "hang on, I think I had a link to that somewhere!" I can always come back to the blog and click to it quickly, which is really just great for me in casual laptop-out conversation. I enjoy watching the blog stats, seeing where people are from, getting the occasional comment here and there.

I like it. I plan to keep on it.

Goodnight out there, internet, until we meet again.

Sweepers Reprint!

"Sweepers" (originally published in Shock Totem) is going to be reprinted in the anthology "After the End: A Post-Apocalyptic Collection" edited by Mr. Shane Collins over at Static Movement. There's no firm date for the release yet, but it looks like it's filling up fast.

And it has a spectacular cover. Look at that thing.

The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction #4!

The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction is now listed as available both at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so I figure it's as good a time as any to announce it as one of my sales.

John Skipp, who guest edited this one (the werewolves and shapeshifters special!) has been incredibly pleasant to work with, and in addition to having written his own stable of best selling horror, is also a pretty excellent anthologist. I'm currently reading Zombies, Encounters with the Hungry Dead, which starts off, if you'll believe it, with a story from 19th century Russian playwright Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev. It's sad and beautiful and a really fabulous spin on undeath. Gaiman's "Bitter Grounds" is another one I've loved to death. There's also some neat deconstruction of zombies of both the enslaved and horde variety. Also, this book is massive enough that in the event of hungry dead, you'll be both well-read and well-armed. I recommend it highly.

Edit: Verified! You can in fact buy this magazine and I believe you should!