The audio production of my cyberpunk story A Free Man is now available on the Simultaneous Times podcast by Space Cowboy Books. This episode was done in collaboration with Shacklebound Books, which published A Free Man in their anthology, The Mods: Cyberpunk Stories. The story starts around the 8:00 mark.
My short non-horror story Firefly has been published in the March 2023 issue of Fresh Words: An International Literary Magazine. You can read it online for free or purchase a print copy.
Firefly is 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.
The audio production of my cyberpunk story Set For Life is now available for free from the Dark Matter Magazine Audiolab. As with everything Dark Matter Magazine does, the quality of the production is exceptional.
The story is about a man’s first day on the job picking up bodies for Syntech and the disturbing secret about where they come from. It’s also the prequel to my novella Override (which appeared in Dark Matter Magazine Issues 007/008/009).
My horror drabble In Sickness has been published in Trembling With Fear by The Horror Tree. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…
I like to tell myself I never knew what my husband was doing in the basement.
My horror story Things Are Looking Up has been published by Apocalypse Confidential in their ...LOVE issue. After a man and his wife are in a fatal car accident, the man decides he will do anything to see his wife one more time. Even if he has to dig.
I’ve been in a dark place since the accident.
My sci-fi drabble What It Feels Like to Die is now free to read in Martian: The Magazine of Science Fiction Drabbles. When you wake up in a Rejuvenator, you don’t remember anything about how you died … even if someone killed you.
“Mama?” Madelyn asked. “What does it feel like to die?”
“It’s like falling asleep. Except when you fall asleep, you wake up in the same place. When you die, you wake up in a Rejuvenator.”
My microfiction horror story Before has been published in Dose of Dread by Dread Stone Press. It’s about a baby in the womb who suddenly realizes she’s not alone.
Content warning: PregnancyI don’t know where she came from, or when she appeared. I just know that I’m not alone in here anymore. There is another now. A Not-Mother. A Not-Me. A Third.
In advance of the release of Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol. 1 next week, I sat down for an interview with Matt Blairstone from Tenebrous Press to discuss writing, weird horror, and the ghost outside my bedroom door.
The book is available for preorder in print and ebook formats. Grab your copy today.
My humor piece Wine List for the Apocalypse, Courtesy of Your Olive Garden Sommelier has been selected by Weekly Humorist for their Best of 2022 list. Tonight, our sommelier, Giovanni, reviews the wine list against a backdrop of flickering firelight from our ruined, smoldering Earth.
Our Pinot Grigio? Unfortunately, we’re unable to properly chill it to our satisfaction, mostly due to the lack of refrigeration and basic human sanitation. Without electricity, the closest thing we have to refrigeration is the cold realization that all is lost.
My Christmas horror drabble Trapping Santa has been published by Hungry Shadow Press as part of their Deadly Drabble Tuesday series. If you ever set traps to catch Santa as a kid, then someday your skills may just come in handy…
“You sure this’ll work?” my brother asks.
Warren Benedetto 