This anthology is coming out in September but is already available for purchase, and includes a ton of fantastic fiction, all based around the concept of the 1980s movie theater. I and my co-writer, Josh Viola, both grew up in a conservative Christian environment. For me, that meant Kentucky during the Satanic Panic of the late 70s and 80s, where we were constantly told the devil was trying to steal our souls through backward masking in songs and subliminal messages (or outright messages) in movies. That background very much fueled what happens in our contribution, "The Devil's Reel." Look for the anthology later this year!

I am trying to update my own website more frequently than once every 6 months or so. Not that I have a fanbase that cares about any of this, but here goes:

I managed to catch Covid-19 at some point in late March or early April, and started showing symptoms on April 6th. I won't go into the situation in detail, but I'll say that the whole thing lasted about 21 days and it was the sickest I've ever been in my life. It got to the point where I just left the front door unlocked at all times in case I had to call for an ambulance. Fortunately the breathing problems never quite reached the point where I had to call 911, but I went a few nights clutching my cell phone and thinking I was on the verge of needing to go to the hospital. I got lucky.

In Mid-March, I'd started writing a new novel tentatively called Confessions. I'd reached the halfway point when the disease struck. Halfway for me is almost always 40,000 words. I was at 45,000 words, so I was writing at a really good clip, about 2,000 words a day. I'm at about 55,000 words now, which shows you how slow my writing pace has become in the aftermath of the illness.

The novel is a reflection of where my personal interests are now focused, which is writing non-genre realistic fiction. It's about a gay funeral director in his late 40s who has returned to the small KY town he fled from as a youth after a terrible incident in high school. Why has he returned? What does the town think about his return? Maybe the novel will get published one day and we'll see these questions answered. Hopefully I can finish the first draft by the end of June.

(Hey, I still write a bit faster than George R.R. Martin, so there!)

If you check out my Bibliography page, you'll see some links to a series of stories my friend Josh Viola and I have done for Birdy Magazine. Josh hooked up this arrangement with Birdy, which is pop culture serial. You can find physical copies of it in Colorado, New Mexico, California and in the UK, but I believe all stories are published in full-text online.

I have a new short story called "The Jarheads" available in this great anthology. You can buy the book here!

I did an interview with an online magazine called Voyage Denver. You can read it here.
Wow, I sure don't blog much on my own site, do I? I didn't realize almost a year had passed. What's new with me? Well, right now I've committed myself to getting a literary agent. Will that happen? Who knows. But I've got six manuscripts floating around, and a few agents have expressed interest. It's a waiting game.

In the meanwhile, I've got a few stories in forthcoming anthologies that I'll have more information on soon. Happy Halloween to everyone!

I have a new short story up online at Words from Hex Publishers. You can read it here! I wrote this story late last year and gave a reading of it at Denver's Book Bar for an Horror Writer's Association event earlier this year. Hope everyone enjoys it!

My friend and publisher, Josh Viola, have been collaborating on quite a few projects lately. We finished a three novel FBI series last year; those manuscripts are braving the void known as Literary Agent Submissions. In the meanwhile, we've been hard at work on several short stories. So far, about 75% of these short stories have found a home, which is a far better track record than my solo work, to be sure. Most recently, a story we did called "Our Hero" has been published in an anthology called False Faces, which is published by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. The editors, Warren Hammond and Angie Hodap, are two wonderful, talented people, and I'm pleased they accepted the story. "Our Hero" has its genesis in a question I've often asked myself: "What if Superman's alter ego was Diana Prince? Or what if Wonder Woman's alter ego was Clarke Kent?" It's also a tale of a detective's resentment toward a superhero who flies overhead, getting all the accolades, while he does the dirty work of tracking down criminals, pedophiles, and the like. 

The second story, forthcoming in October, is called "Many Carvings." Josh and I were discussing story ideas and he had a notion for a tale involving witchcraft and pumpkin patches. Josh has explored witches very effectively before--see his story "Scarecrows" in the Nightmares Unhinged anthology--and I wanted have a go at it myself. 'Many Carvings" is a historical piece, set somewhere in early 19th century America, and I hope it captures the right mood and cadences. Anyway, be on the lookout for it in an anthology called Doorbells at Dusk.

Kirkus has a very favorable early review of a crime anthology I'm participating in. It's a very large anthology--close to 100K words--and split into two parts. One features realistic crime, the other supernatural. I wrote a story called "The Guessing Game" for the realistic crime portion. 

More importantly for me on a personal level is the essay I wrote to close out the book. It's a tribute to Ed Bryant, who has two stories in the anthology--probably the last two pieces of original fiction that will be published anywhere (his estate is working on a massive compilation of his writing, however, and it may include some unpublished, unknown work.

Having the opportunity to write the essay was a real gift to me, but I've been fretting over the quality of the finished piece for months. I hope people will overlook its flaws and see the love and respect I had for the man. I wish to God he was still with us in the flesh.  

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Out in Print has given Seventeen Stitches a pretty good review. Check it out here if you'd like. The book comes out on June 3rd.