A recent prompt for the Sudden Fictions podcast was “femme fatale,” so I thought about my time in Los Angeles and came up with this one: “The Mystery Girl of Doheny Boulevard.” Enjoy!
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Category Archives: podcasts
In which I tip my toe into the noir pool
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Happy (Accidents) and New Year
If you’ve been following along on my fiction journey, you may note my recent appearances on Sudden Fictions, R.B. Wood’s podcast. He likes to toss out a writing prompt every month or so, and ask his fellow writers to contribute.
Well… I saw the prompt (“Celebration”) and came up with I thought was a cool low-key horror story that might work in <1000 words. In reality, I had conflated that word with all the NY Eve prep. The actual prompt was “Champagne.”
D’oh!
So I threw my original idea into the metaphysical drawer and sat myself down on Jan 1 to write something about that fancy wine. A day later, I had “The Last Year of Champagne.” It was a fun idea to play with. The ever-gracious R.B. bought the piece and recorded it later in the week (despite his, ah, disagreement with la langue française).
Enjoy episode 40 of Sudden Fictions.
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Posted in podcasts, science-fiction
Eligibility Post 2023
Want to support an underdog writer? Now’s your chance! Here’s a list of everything I published this year:
Short Fiction
- “Last Cold Beer for 50 Miles” (Haven Spec) – Dec – Near-future SF set outside a tiny town in North Dakota
- “Ruby Throat and Gold (Wyldblood) – Oct – Fantasy flash in the vein of Jack Vance (available online)
- “Krishna’s Gift” – (Stupefying Stories, Vol. 24) – Family conflict and super-rich people in space
- “For Better or Worse” – (Stupefying Stories Showcase) – Jul – Some marriages are harder than others (available online)
- “The Schadenfreuders” (The Science Fiction Tarot) – May – My take on the alien invasion trope
- “The USS Copernicus Sixth (Semi-Annual) Contraband Run” – (Stupefying Stories Showcase) – Feb – Tongue-in-cheek Military SF (available online)
- “The Linen Closet Nexus” (Stupefying Stories Showcase) – Feb – The obligatory time travel flash story (available online)
- “The Poltergeist of Fastini Crater” (Sudden Fictions Podcast, narrated by R.B. Wood). – Nov – A lunar haunting (available online)
- “Come the Waters High” (Sudden Fictions Podcast, narrated by R.B. Wood) – Sep – an island nation faces the inevitable {Text reprinted in Metastellar} (available online)
Novelette
- “The Antidote for Longing – Part 1/3 (Metaphorosis) – Jul – Alternate history fantasy involving assassins and the Swedish Empire (available online)
- “The Antidote for Longing – Part 2/3 (Metaphorosis)
- “The Antidote for Longing – Part 3/3 (Metaphorosis)
Thank you for your consideration. Now I must feed the cats.
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Posted in fantasy, podcasts, science-fiction, writing
November ghost story and a reboot of NaNoWriMo
My latest story, “The Poltergeist of Fastini Crater,” appeared on Sudden Fictions this week. I wrote the flash story based on a prompt (“haunting”) from the editor, R.B. Wood, in what was then a Halloween-themed submissions call. However, mundane reality™ got involved, delaying the project past the holiday. Still, I set out to write a little ghost story on the moon, and it came together in two quick bursts. It was definitely the most fun I’ve had at the keyboard in a while. (For those keeping score, it’s publication #9 this year. Huzzah!)
Unfortunately, my dayjob situation tool an unexpected downturn (i.e., our project was put on hold and all the writers furloughed), so I decided to revisit the ghosts of Unfinished Short Fiction for my version of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is to complete (or revise) 5 stories by 11-30-2023. It may not be as tough as 50,000 words but it’s enough of a challenge!
Let’s see what happens.
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Posted in podcasts, science-fiction, writing
