Another English Wednesday

Three of my poems - "Southend's Shroud", "Storm of Words" and "Two Lives" - are now on Staxtes English Wednesdays - enjoy!

Coming soon... Dark Tales of New York City...

Dark Tales from Elder Regions: New York is coming soon from Myth Ink Books and includes my story Beautiful Dreams, which reveals the dark (Yellow) truth behind the writing of Stephen Foster's song, Beautiful Dreamer.

Thirty-nine Chambers Street. The address sounded innocuous when said like that. He remembered it as it had been a few years before, back before the states went to war, a comedy theatre and before that an opera house that had failed to maintain its pretensions. Then, the Federal Government had taken it over and made it into a courthouse. Of course, they’d justified their choice due to its proximity to City Hall, but that was not the real reason why it had closed: he recalled the plays the place had hosted, tragicomedies of shocking content that haunted his dreams yet. The city had done nothing about it, leaving it to the Federal authorities, too many bigwigs had been secret patrons. New York was a city of the decadent and the damned, lost souls that had washed in on the tide.

Shivering in the early morning January chill, he approached the courthouse, the figure of a fine gentleman. He had business here. Not court business like following the Draft Riots that had shaken the city the previous year. No, he was here on a private retainer. There was only a narrow window of opportunity, for the man he was here to see was destined for The Tombs, New York’s notorious prison. There, he lacked the tame guards willing to look the other way for a bottle of gin and a nod and a wink. Here, he could be in and out undetected.

Running amok!

I have been running amok with my pen and paper to produce a tongue-in-cheek tale of porcine rampage, Emperor of Swine, published in Amok! from April Moon Books. The volume, the first in a series of Short Sharp Shocks, is available to order now in paperback from Amazon.

More from the Black & Red Mythos...

My first set of stories of the Black & Red Mythos were made available in a booklet and ebook from Atlantean Publishing. Then my story Red and Black was translated into German on the Pulpcore.de website.

Now, a new story, Treat?, is available in the anthology In Creeps The Night (J.A.Mes Press) in paperback and on the Kindle from Amazon.

In addition, an extended version of my story Tricked? will be available in the Hallowe'en 2014 issue of Siren's Call and another new story, Black Night, Red Light, has been accepted for future publication in the Night Walkers anthology from Horrified Press.

I would advise you to seek all these stories out, or else the joke might just be on you...