“Jack hadn’t slept since he drowned Elise. He hadn’t set out to hurt her. She’d just said so many things that wounded him in short order, leaving him no time to recover. The passion and fire in her that first drew his eye quickly left him burned. It left no working patience in him. They had been walking along the shore when she’d brought up Beatrice. Beatrice. Why had he ever given her the time of day?”
I received my copies of Café Macabre II today and they’re gorgeous! This is an anthology of short horror stories and art by women, curated by author and editor Leah McNaughton Lederman. It includes my short story “The River” which is about the terror of death and the horror we face in life. Beautifully illustrated by Keyla Valerio.
If you’d like to purchase a copy, please visit the following links:
Brenda woke in a cold sweat. The gap in her heavy bedroom drapes let a blade of sunshine through the window that fell across her body, bisecting her. She watched the motes of dust floating in the light for a long time, wanting to delay the inevitable reacquaintance with reality. She could hardly remember the past week. Grief sharpened her memories of her father and dulled almost everything else. She kept thinking of when she was a little girl, feeling invincible, running around the park under her father’s watchful eye, wishing she could go back again.
She’d had an incredibly vivid recurring dream the night before and mulled it over, sitting up and gathering the strength to pour herself out of bed. She could remember a darkness, then a whisper. One that questioned her softly but had an edge to it. A hint of barely contained impatience.
“What would you give?” it asked her. She didn’t know how to reply.
You were more than A trail of blood, More than the fires That forged the iron in it. Weak gravity And heavy elements. Eons in the æther Before you came to me. You were more than These filaments, Proton and electron And the atoms they knit, And in that great Undying place, Where we will not Be created nor destroyed, May we one day collide And know we knew And shared The same space, Though you were barely there And I only just.
I spent a whole evening with your names. I know almost all of them by heart. Names are a sacred thing. The sound and the shape of them. I’m honored and I’m glad to know them, to be able to arrange them, to give them a place in a very important part of my life that you helped make a reality. The manuscript for Last Road is in the hands of the printer. Vodka and cranberry to celebrate. Another to toast you.
There are only 8 days left to get a copy Café Macabre II , now fully funded and working on the 5th stretch goal. My story The River, is included in this volume with accompanying art by Keyla Valerio. Café Macabre is an anthology of horror stories and art by women. Check it out here, and grab some Kickstarter goodies.
April 2021 picture prompt challenge image by Rie Sheridan Rose
My April Ladies of horror flash fiction piece Petra’s Journey is live over at spreadingthewritersword.com. These flash fiction pieces are a fun and expressive challenge, and I am grateful for the opportunity. Hope you enjoy!
Get in the Game is a comic anthology which includes my 8 page story Under the Root, Illustrated by Emily Zelasko and lettered by Jim McClain. It’ll be available at Barnes and Noble and your local comic shop starting this Wednesday. Signed copies are also still available from my storefront here.
Last Road to the Backwoods had a smashing campaign on Kickstarter! We fully funded and then some, due to the amazing support we received. If you missed the campaign and still would like to get a copy, we have pre-orders open at my storefront here
Ann Hodges and the hole a meteorite left in her ceiling – Smithsonian
I am still plugging away on Sylacauga. The picture above, the look on her face was the driving force behind wanting to write about the meteor event. The anthology will consist of 3 stories entitled Signs, Wonders, Miracles surrounding the fireball witnessed in the sky that eventually came to rest in Mrs. Hodges’ living room. I will be self publishing it this fall.
Thanks for reading!
“And yet it moves (E Pur Si Muove) is a phrase attributed to the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the Sun, rather than the converse. In this context, the implication of the phrase is: despite his recantation, the Church’s proclamations to the contrary, or any other conviction or doctrine of men, the Earth does, in fact, move (around the Sun, and not vice versa)” -Wikipedia
Michelle Joy Gallagher Soffe 