Writer
Today my short story “The Artist, the Engineer, and the Sleeping Dog” came out in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #10. This is my first story to hit in a magazine or anthology for 2021 and is a story I am particularly proud of. For one thing, it’s a “big swing” story, meaning I was trying something new. It’s also one of a series of stories that I wrote where dogs feature prominently. I wrote quite …
There’s a pattern emerging with my 2021 releases so far. Just like with last month’s release, I’m taking a short story that is already out there and giving it a stand-alone release. The reasons are the same: I love this story It will soon be part of a series It gives the series a chance to grab readers in a different way. And this story is pretty different. It takes place in 1889 and follows …
It’s a new year so time for a new release. Well… in this case not a new story but a new stand-alone release for an old story. Under a slightly different title, this short story goes back to 2014 where it appeared in an anthology called One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology. And it has appeared as part of two of my short story collections: Creatures Featured: 13 Stories of Monsters and …
Besides continuing to write new stories, 2020 was about publishing, from start to finish. I did a challenge with Dean Wesley Smith he calls “The Great Publishing Challenge.” The challenge was to publish one major book a month for an entire year. That’s what I was up to in 2020 with all the releases; 14 in all, two of them didn’t meet Dean’s criteria. I meant to blog about it, but 2020, you know, so …
There’s a lot to say about this book. Mostly because it’s about something very near and very dear to my heart: the relationship between dogs and people (and cats and people, too). Also because much of this book was written during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the Spring of 2020 and I’ve been fascinated with how this insane year has influenced the art created. But before I get into that, feel free to jump ahead …
This is a happy day for me because Carterville is officially a series! Today the first Carterville novel, Out of a Christmas Sky is out. This is a Christmas murder mystery with plenty of suspects and lots of twists and surprises. It’s also a quarantine novel, drafted May – July, 2020 fairly early during the COVID pandemic. I mention this for a couple of reasons: As I wrote about previously, I’m very curious what kind …
I don’t know if you noticed, but this last week or so the sweet holiday movies started hitting our lists of things to stream. And while late October may seem a little early, that doesn’t feel as true in 2020 as it has some other years. I don’t know about you, but I could use a break from the pandemic, and the election here in the US, and the storms and fires, and the endless …
Sometimes a title makes all the difference. It’s like this sprinkle of magic that makes a project come together and suddenly it all makes sense. And that is true for Unfinished Business: The Cases of Walter Anchor Ghost Detective. Unfinished Business encapsulates the journey of an earth bound spirt (i.e. ghost) perfectly. And especially Walter Anchor as he tries to solve his own murder. As I was finishing up Walter’s stories earlier in the year, …
It’s release day! The Red Arrow Murders is out! It’s been a long journey with Walter Anchor. The idea for a ghost detective came to me when I was working on To Be a Fool, which came out in 2013. I started his first story while that novel was finishing up. I was having so much fun with it that he and Emily have a cameo in To Be a Fool. The initial thought was …
With the series I write, I always think of them in terms of the wider story arc, and in the case of Neutrinoman and Lightningirl in terms of Seasons. I call them “Seasons” for a reason. There is a larger story being told across all the episodes. And, yes, “Season” and “Episode” sounds like a TV show on purpose. It’s the way I think of this. These three books (Off Book, Hard Times, and Elemental …