Category: literature promotion

My Short Story, ‘Cao,’ in the ‘Beast Under Your Bed, Vol. 1’ Anthology, is Published!

Beast Under Your Bed, Vol. 1: A YA Horror Anthology, from Dark Moon Rising Publications, has my short story, ‘Cao,’ in it. The book has been published on Amazon. Because the stories are written for teens, there are no naughty words or other adult content.

My story is about Timmy, a sensitive boy who feels a mystical connection with Cao, the unifying energy field of the entire universe. It keeps telling him it is going to take him away. He’s terrified of it…but will going away really be a bad thing, given his abusive parents and the bullying he suffers at school? Will being taken away be his damnation, or his salvation? Read and find out!

There are lots of other great writers in this anthology, one of whom is Megan Guilliams, the curator of the book. All of us writers are as you can see below:

You can also see other publishers of the anthology, if you don’t want to give Jeff Bezos your money. Go get yourself a copy of this great book as soon as you can! 🙂

The Tanah: Crests–Chapter Two

[The following is the forty-fifth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, here is the thirty-seventh, here is the thirty-eighth, here is the thirty-ninth, here is the fortieth, here is the forty-first, here is the forty-second, here is the forty-third, and here is the forty-fourth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Introduction

This chapter, too, seems eerily prophetic. It seems to predict not only the French Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon (or are our researchers letting their imaginations run wild here?), but also the end of the Commons due to enclosure, forcing English farmers to enter cities to work in factories. We’ll let you decide if our researchers’ speculations are correct.

Chapter Two

The next crest we saw in our visions would be a short one–so short as almost to seem non-existent. Indeed, this crest seemed almost to overlap with a trough, and to overlap almost fully.

Those who wore the bracelets came to hate them, suspecting rightly that it was the bracelets that were the creators of their woe. So when the time came that the bracelets would no longer stick to their skin, and the wearers were to feel compelled to pass them on to be worn by the next generation, the wearers, having finally become able to remove the bracelets from their wrists, resisted giving them to their sons and daughters. They felt a terrible headache from their resistance, but they prevailed all the same, not knowing the Crims or their divine power in the bracelets.

This unwitting disobedience to the Crims–the people’s not knowing that it was to be the Crims who decided when the wearing of the bracelets would end, and not the people to decide–would result in good and ill fortune at nearly the same time. True, the ill fortune of servitude to the lords of the land would end, the curse of wearing the bracelets, but a new ill fortune would creep up on the unsuspecting people, their punishment for rejecting and discarding the bracelets before the time the Crims deemed a fit one.

The people with naked wrists rejoiced at the cutting off of the heads of their oppressive kings and queens. They rejoiced no longer to have to work on land owned by lords who took most of the food they produced. They were delighted that a new state, with men to represent the needs of the common people, was born…almost still-born, they would soon learn.

Indeed, new evils were soon coming to replace the old ones–new evils that followed like toes of boots stepping on the heels of the feet of the old ones.

A great new leader, once thought to be a liberator of the people, would soon call himself “emperor,” and would conquer many nations–though he would be defeated soon enough.

More significantly, while those farmers who now lived off the land in relative peace, without lords to have to give most of their food to, were happy in this state for a time, new masters would come. These would buy off the land and force the farmers off of it, making them move to the cities to find work in filthy, smoky buildings, castles that blew fumes into the skies.

The people would work for a pittance, barely enough to live on, and thus would begin a new trough, the worst of them all.

The Tanah: Crests–Chapter One

[The following is the forty-fourth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, here is the thirty-seventh, here is the thirty-eighth, here is the thirty-ninth, here is the fortieth, here is the forty-first, here is the forty-second, and here is the forty-third–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Introduction

The following is the first of a trilogy of writings of visions of periods of good fortune, this first one for the Luminosian tribe specifically, and the other two for the future of humanity in general, with whom the tribe would be intermarried.

The tribe’s plan for liberation–to make bracelets marked with images of the four Crims personified, and to wear them faithfully–worked gloriously for them, not only freeing them from slavery to the Zoyans, but also ushering in a long period of peace and prosperity for the tribe. The tribe is warned never to lose faith in the Crims as they continue wearing the bracelets, though, lest their fortunes should turn ill.

Such a loss of faith would come one day, though, many generations down the line, and the tribe, by now intermarried with other ethnic groups they’re living with, would then begin a descent into another trough, the “feudal” one described in “Troughs, Chapter Two.”

Chapter One

Glory be to the mighty Crims, who in response to our faithful wearing of their bracelets, will not lose faith in us, and who will soon liberate us from the oppressive Zoyans!

The drugs we extracted from the plants and herbs of Drofurb’s earthly body have given us visions of a certain future of liberation from slavery to the Zoyans. We will be free; we will prosper!

In our visions, we saw a pestilence overwhelm our Zoyan oppressors, wiping them out quickly, one by one, until none of them are left…yet the pestilence will not affect even one of us Luminosians! We will all walk out of Zoyan land unhindered and unscathed, free to find a new land to settle in.

When we find that new land, as our visions have shown, we will have the wisdom not to take the land from those who live there, as we had the Zagans, but instead to live with them peacefully and in mutual respect. We will engage in commerce with them, and we will thrive with them, growing from our poverty as wandering former slaves into a wealthy, happy people!

For many generations since that time, we will continue to live well, because we will keep faith in the Crims as we pass the bracelets from the old to the young. We will remember those four of the air–Weleb, the earth–Drofurb, the fire–Nevil, and the water–Priff, who all saved us from servitude, and we will teach the younger generations to have the same respect.

Thus will the land we live in grow in fertility and bounty, giving us plentiful food, good weather for growing crops, and a peaceful coexistence with the other peoples we mix with. We will even marry with them, adopt many of their cultural values and beliefs, and become much more than just Luminosians.

There should be nothing wrong in any of these changes, as long as we continue to keep faith with the Crims as the bracelets are passed down; but over time, as the newer and newer generations are diluted of our Luminosian values and beliefs, they will forget, if not be utterly ignorant of, the importance of believing in the Crims as they wear the bracelets.

O, the new generations will love the beauty of the bracelets! They will not, however, understand, much less appreciate, their meaning. This ignorance will be the people’s downfall, for the good luck given from the bracelets comes only from faith in the Crims. Wearing the bracelets without that faith leads only to ill fortune.

The faithless wearers of the bracelets will see that ill fortune in the beginning of a new trough.

My Short Story, ‘Soil,’ is Published in the Anthology, ‘Life, Death, and Transmutation’

I have a short story, ‘Soil,’ that has been published today, fittingly, on Earth Day, in the anthology Life. Death, and Transmutation: A Charity Anthology of Dark Nature Poetry and Fiction, edited by Alison Armstrong and presented by Dark Moon Rising Publications. It’s a  charity anthology of dark fiction and poetry exploring the life, death, and regenerative forces of Nature, with all proceeds donated to Defenders of Wildlife.

My story is about a businessman who has just died, and while he’s in his grave, his soul must reckon with the divinity of the earth for his sinful pollution of the land to maximize profit. He’ll undergo a painful ego death, which will ultimately be a kind of purgatory for him, leading to his ultimate redemption and blissful existence, being interconnected with everything else in the universe.

Other great writers in the anthology are Alison Armstrong, Pixie Bruner, J. Rocky Colavito, Christina Guldi, Elad Haber, Kyle Heger, Kristi Hendricks, Juleigh Howard-Hobson, J.L. Lane, Basile Lebret, LindaAnn LoSchiavo, Shane David Morin, Irena Barbara Nagler, Margo Pecha, Sacha Rosel, Stacy Schonhardt, Tamara Kaye Sellman, Shawn Scott Smith, David L Tamarin, and Tracy Thompson.

So go get yourself a copy of this great book. You can find it here on Amazon.

The Tanah: Troughs–Chapter Three

[The following is the forty-third of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, here is the thirty-seventh, here is the thirty-eighth, here is the thirty-ninth, here is the fortieth, here is the forty-first, and here is the forty-second–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Introduction

The last of the “Trough” chapters describes a world without any knowledge of the Crims, let alone how to worship them or use the magic of the Tanah. In the eyes of the ancient tribe that wrote these texts and prophesied this future in their visions, it’s a future world that has totally lost its way, with nothing to give its people any kind of moral guidance.

Accordingly, the trough depicted here is a particularly bleak one. Though a corresponding crest is supposed to follow it, as was mentioned in the translator’s introduction to Troughs, Chapter One, there’s an ambiguity as to whether humanity’s salvation will result in physical survival in a better world, or if it will be only a kind of spiritual survival, a nirvana without physicality.

In any case, this trough also shows a disturbing, uncanny prescience of our modern, capitalist world, or so do some of the researchers in our group believe. Most people will face appalling poverty, state repression, and social alienation, while a small elite own most of the land, money, and property. There’s a description of money-making that reads like a formula from Marx’s Capital–M-C-M’, meaning money-commodity-valorized money (i.e., money with added profit).

Finally, there is a prophesied man who will usher in the end of the world: Christ, or anti-Christ? The text is unclear. Some will think he’s the former; many will think he’s the latter. We researchers think he sounds like a certain contemporary US president.

Chapter Three

O, woe to those in the future who will forget the Crims! We have seen that the people of the world will lose their way, and the punishment of their sins will be too great for most to bear.

These people will know a new kind of slavery, in which the slaves are given wages (though very little), are allowed to change from one master to another of their own accord (if they can find one to give them money and thus save them from total destitution), yet are slaves nonetheless. Exceedingly few have the most, and almost all have almost nothing. The people seem to know or care little about each other, or about themselves. People are not close to each other.

An oppressive state watches the slaves closely, puts them in prisons to work like even more abject slaves, and kills people in other nations through constant war. Wealth is created by transforming money into a product to be sold, which is then made into money again, yet a greater amount of money than before, most of it to be kept by the masters. If too little of this wealth is made in one’s own nation, one goes out to other nations, steals what is in those other nations, and makes the greater amounts of money in those other nations, all to be taken back to the first nation.

Attempts will be made to overthrow these greedy rich men, to establish just and fair societies, but through the clever machinations of those men, who always trick their people into believing that the makers of those just societies are making unjust ones, these attempts will be thwarted, plunging the world into worse oppression and greater despair.

At one point in our vision, when matters seemed to be at their worst, we saw a man emerge and rise to the highest seat of power. Our vision became cloudy and unclear: we could not decide if he was a righteous man avenging the unjust by destroying the world, or an evil man completing the destruction of it.

Some of the people thought him a saviour; many others thought him a demon. Still others thought him a mere fool raised far too high. He saw himself as a saviour; there were pictures depicting him as such. His face was orange. Whatever his intentions were, he assuredly brought on the destruction of many, leading to the end of the trough.

Arson

A fire is nothing, in an empty building,
compared to that violence of having so
little pay that you cannot afford to live.
David Byrne and his band in the white
suits had the right idea in their old song
and 1980s video. We’re ordinary guys, and nasty weather is coming.

It’s just adventurism, but it’s something.
The fire-starters will just be arrested, so
it won’t in itself be revolution, but it has
started something that has been far too overdue. Build a movement.

We must not just burn buildings; we must
burn the entire system to the very ground.
No longer must the parasites be allowed to steal off workers’ sweat.

With a virgin earth, we can start to build something new, and better.

My Short Story, ‘Scylla,’ in the Upcoming Anthology, ‘Just Beneath Your Boat’

I will have a horror short story called ‘Scylla’ in an upcoming anthology, Just Beneath Your Boat, to be released on May 17th from Dark Moon Rising publications. It’s edited by Thomas Folske, with a foreword by Michael Cole.

My story is about a family going out in a yacht, but the father works in a big company that is polluting the ocean to cut costs and maximize profits. Certain supernatural forces in the ocean, however, want to take their revenge not only on him but also on his whole family, using the plastic dumped in the ocean to construct a huge…abomination…to kill them.

Other great writers in the anthology include the following:

Stephen A. Roddewig
Jeff Parsons 
Lillian Csernica
Rob Tannahill
Claire Davon
LJ Jacobs
Milan Simić
Justin Carlos Alcala
Denise Landry 
Blake Hoss
David McDonald 
CJ Hooper
Pip Pinkerton 
Dino Parenti
Don Anelli
Matthew Chabin
Kasey Hill 
DJ Tyrer 
Miguel Fliguer
Thomas Folske
Michael Mortimer
Margaret Eve

Also, there is artwork from:

Alhiya Hoffman
Amelia Folske
Ben Merk
Blake Hoss
Kelsey Grimmell
Michelle Hanson 
Milan Simić
Olivia Davis
Sidney Shiv 
Todor Gotchkov
Warren Muzak

So when May 17th rolls around, go get yourselves a copy of this great book. When it drops, I’ll post another promo with a link to where you can order a copy on Amazon; but for now, you can per-order it here. It will also be published on Kobo and OverDrive libraries, possibly also even on hoopla. I mention these alternatives for those who’d like to buy the book, but who don’t want to give Jeff Bezos their money. 😉

The Tanah: Troughs–Chapter Two

[The following is the forty-second of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, here is the thirty-seventh, here is the thirty-eighth, here is the thirty-ninth, here is the fortieth, and here is the forty-first–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Introduction

This and the next chapter deal with “visions” of the future brought on by the use of drugs made from plants, local ones of the tribe’s area, presumably. Which plants in particular were used, we can’t be sure of, since they are never explicitly named in the text.

This chapter includes visions of a future many hundreds of years past the time of writing. The uncanny thing about this chapter is how, at least in the opinion of a few of the researchers in our team, it seems to be describing a feudal society, long before any of the tribe could have known what such a society would be like! It uses the language of someone trying to depict such a society, while of course not being able to describe it properly and accurately, all the while describing it in a way that the people of his or her own world could understand.

The chapter begins with a vision of how the tribe got liberated from the previous trough of slavery to the Zoyans as dealt with in Chapter One. Apparently, the tribe made a set of bracelets, one for each member, each decorated with personifications of the four Crims of the elements. So, Weleb has the face of a man blowing to represent air, Nevil has a face of fire, Drofurb a face of earth and rock, and Priff a watery face. These are mere suppositions of ours: we cannot describe how such bracelets looked for sure, having not yet found even one among the texts and relics.

In any case, it is the magic power of such bracelets that it is believed helped liberate the tribe, with the understanding that they would wear them with bedrock faith in the Crims. A lack of such faith in the future would result in a reversal of fortune. The liberated tribe passed on the bracelets to the next generation, warning the wearers to keep their faith in the Crims strong. The admonition worked, it seems, for many generations. At some point, though, the new wearers of the bracelets must have thought of them as little more than pretty jewelry, for the people soon enough found themselves in a new kind of servitude.

Chapter Two

Glory be to Drofurb, Crim of the earth, from whose plants we may extract drugs that give us signs of the future! From these visions, we Luminosians now know how we can liberate ourselves from the oppressive rule of the Zoyans!

We must make a bracelet for each member of the tribe; of what material each is to be made, we do not know, but we will try many kinds until we know which is correct. The bracelets are to be decorated each with an image of the four Crims, presented as if men. Weleb’s face will huff and puff and blow air; Nevil will have a fiery face; Drofurb, a face of earth and rock, with plants for hair; and Priff will have a wavy, watery face.

The most important thing of all, upon making and wearing the bracelets, is that every member of the tribe have an unshakable faith in the Crims and their ability to sustain a happy life for us all. If ever the wearer’s faith should falter, ill fortune will come back to us.

Our visions have shown that when we finish making the bracelets with the correct material, all of the tribe, fully motivated in their hatred of slavery to the Zoyans, will wear the bracelets with perfect faith. The visions show that we will be liberated; furthermore, many generations in the future will wear the bracelets faithfully, and so will continue to live well in a long, great crest. Bur our visions also show that one day, when the tribe is self-satisfied, they will grow proud, lose their faith, and treat the bracelets as if mere adornments. Then will come the next terrible trough.

Our vision of the trough to be endured was as follows. We saw wide, flat, grassy fields with men and women living off the land. Their crops yielded much food, yet the people were often hungry, for they had to give most of this food to the men who owned the land, those far richer than they.

These poor, wretched workers descended from us Luminosians, who after our liberation from the Zoyans would marry and mix with other peoples. None of these people could read or write; they were all filthy and often suffering or dying of disease at young ages. Many had few teeth, with little to eat or to grin about.

We saw no hope for any of them to rise out of their poverty and squalor. They could only raise crops and give most of the yield to their wealthy lords, who gave hollow promises of protection in exchange for food so desperately needed to fill their bellies with.

No kindness did the lords show their drudges: only an insistence that they know their place, and never try to rise from it, for pain of violence from the lords’ standing armies. We also saw the bracelets on the people’s wrists, never to be removed until passed onto the next generation, for until such a time, the bracelets were stuck to their skin; attempts to tear them off would be intolerably painful, until the Crims forced them to give them to their sons and daughters.

In time, though, one generation would rise up, conquer the evil lords, kings, and queens through bloody violence, which included the severing of heads with devices that had dropping blades. The people would then be free…if only for a short time, for the next trough would be soon to come.