Two drabbles—one stalker horror, one dark sci-fi—have been accepted into the Drabbledark III anthology by Shacklebound Books.
My short story Firefly has been published by The ManifestStation. It’s a simple story about a young girl who captures a firefly in the back yard to help cheer up her ailing sister.
Content warning: terminal illness of a childMissy caught the firefly in mid-air, cupping her hands around it to form a tiny, dark cave. She could feel the insect’s delicate footsteps tickling her skin as it wandered across her palm, searching for a way out.
“Got you!” she whispered, victorious.
I took a bit of a step back from short fiction in 2023, writing little more than a few drabbles after April. However, I had plenty of stories from 2022 queued up for publication, along with a healthy dose of reprint acceptances. Of the few stories I did write this year, all have been accepted but few have been published yet—I’ve already got 19 stories scheduled for publication in 2024.
If you’re interested in my submission stats, as well as my awards-eligible stories and podcasts, please read on.
Continue reading →
My sci-fi flash fiction story Pop’s Time Machine has been published in Issue #4 of Drip Literary Magazine. It’s the story of a boy whose father insists he has a time machine in his head.
When I was eleven years old, I told my dad I wanted to invent a time machine. He told me he already had one. I asked him where it was.
“Right here,” he said. He tapped his forehead and smiled. “All I have to do is close my eyes, and I can travel back in time as far as I want.”
My dark sci-fi story Just What I Want has been published in Issue #12: Clones, Drones, and Ready Made Meals of The Last Girls Club. It’s a story about what happens when your digital personal assistant understands you so well that it starts doing things for you before you even ask.
My holiday horror drabble Up on the Rooftop has been published in Christmas of the Dead: Krampus Kountry by Wicked Shadow Press. It’s the story of a brother and sister on Christmas Eve who hear someone—or something—climbing on the roof.
There’s something on the roof.
My sister and I huddle behind the couch, our tearful eyes glistening in the glow of the Christmas lights. The house shakes with each heavy footfall thudding overhead. Plaster dust drifts from the ceiling like snowfall. A low growl echoes down the chimney, followed by the metallic scraping of a heavy blade.
My dark sci-fi story Just What I Want is now free to read in Issue 9 of The Stygian Lepus. It’s a story about what happens when your digital personal assistant understands you so well that it starts doing things for you before you even ask.
Amy examined the shipping label. It was addressed to her. “Never mind!” she yelled back. She carried the package into the kitchen and opened it. Her eyes lit up. “Clara, did you order this for me?”
Blue LEDs flickered on a featureless black cube hovering over the kitchen counter. Tiny gray text on the front edge identified it as CLARA: Completely Lifelike Autonomous Robot Assistant. A woman’s voice emanated from within.
“I thought you’d like it.”
My post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror story Die on Your Feet has been accepted by Antipodean SF for both their publication as well as their radio show.
The story is about a group of survivors huddling close to the ground to avoid whatever is lurking in the fog just overhead. It’s an allegory about what happens to people who deny the reality of their situation, despite all the evidence telling them they are wrong.
“It ain’t real,” Grady insisted. “Think! Have you ever actually seen one of the things up there?”
“No, but I’ve seen what it does to people.”
My historical horror story Everything As It Was has been published in Volume One, Number Three of Litbop: Art and Literature in the Groove. Set in the dust-plagued landscape of 1930s Oklahoma, it’s a story about lost hope, lost faith, and lost children come home.
“I prayed that you’d come home, and the crops would come back, and everything would go back to how it used to be. And now, glory be, here you are.”
My holiday horror drabble Up on the Rooftop has been accepted into the Christmas of the Dead anthology by Wicked Shadow Press. It’s the story of a brother and sister on Christmas Eve who hear something—or someone—climbing on the roof.
