September News

Honors

 
I’m delighted to share that my cadralor poem, “Haunted Algorithm,” received an honorable mention in the SFPA’s 2022 Speculative Poetry Contest, Long Form category. Many thanks to the judges and congrats to the winners! I’m afraid the poem isn’t available on the SFPA’s website, so it stays unpublished and I can still submit it to magazines. Hopefully, you will be able to read it soon!

New Release

The Queer Weird West Tales anthology has launched! The book is available from Amazon, Smashwords, and other retailer. Many thanks to Julie and congrats to my fellow weird westerners!
 
Synopsis: Frontiers have always attracted the Other - where they find that the Other is always already there. These 22 stories explore what happens when queer characters encounter weirdness on the edge of the worlds they know.
 
My tale, “No Mercy Down in the Mine,” is included. In it, Sally “Bootheel” Doyle, an outlaw on the run from the Sturges gang, gets lost in the desert and stumbles into the mining town of Mobley. There, she finds the population has been decimated by a terrifying alien threat, the remaining survivors holed up in a saloon. She has no choice but to join the people of Mobley as they make their last stand against a pack of man-eating monsters. But then, Emmett Sturges and his boys catch up to her. Among the citizens of Mobley, Sally finds unlikely allies and even admirers. If she can help them survive, maybe they’ll return the favor.

 
Publications

The “Dahlia” issue of Meat for Tea has my short horror story, “Feather and Scale,” as well as three poems, “Sacrum,” “Heart,” and “Crown.” Many thanks to editor Elizabeth MacDuffie. “Feather and Scale” is about a man stranded on one of the US's Outlying Islands who is visited by a mermaid. He’s already mired in a pretty serious man vs. nature situation, and the mermaid is not there to make things better for him.
 
Link to purchase paperback or ebook:
https://meatfortea.com/buy.htm

 
Three poems appeared in Unlikely Stories: “Portrait of an Amateur Roadkill Artist,” “Interdimensional Border Town,” and “Contradiction.” Many thanks to editor Jonathan Penton.  

 
Issue 8 of It Takes All Kinds includes my poems, “Cherry” and “Ghosts of the Great Plains.” Thank you to editor Skaja Evens.

“Prayer for the Excommunicated,” appeared in my literary home-away-from-home, the Rye Whiskey Review. Thank you, as always, to John and Scott.

 
Three short poems were published at Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry), “Hallway” and “The Moon Doesn’t Ask,” and “Fourth of July.” Many thanks to editor and fleakeeper Robin/Roberta Beach Johnson.

Happy Halloween!

In honor of the season, just a friendly reminder that I have lots of good, spooky stories out there for you to peruse. My listing of short horror stories is here. Several of the stories are free to read here on this blog. 

My vampire novella, Our Miss Engel, is available on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and other ebook retailers for only 99 cents.

The Order of the Four Sons series, while mostly fantasy, has a lot of horror elements - monsters, undead serial killers, and dark magic.