With apologies to our readers in the southern hemisphere: Summer is here!! Double exclamation mark, swimming pools, vacations, the sun in your eyes, hot sidewalks, summer. My first summer tradition is already taken care of. I’ve read Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine for the umpteenth time. I’ve walked the ravine with Douglas Spaulding, fumed over never-mown grass with […]
Chin up. Breathe through your nose. Raise your eyebrows slightly, focus on a point in the darkness. Roll those shoulders back. Show off your good genes, prove that it was only bad luck that landed you here. Tighten your ass, stretch your neck as if you’re suspended from the ceiling by an invisible thread. But look natural, never forced. And for […]
“What do you do?” is a normal question that is now a pain to answer. When people find out I’m a military historian, crime and horror and fantasy novelist and short story writer, graduate school adjunct, freelance non-fiction writer and writing teacher, and professional (insert laugh here) improv actor and sketch comedy writer/actor who is […]
Fast as greased weasels, two decks of cards flew from Knox’s scarred fingers and blurred before the crowd into a fifty-two page flipbook. Knox smiled, the breeze from the furious cards waving his Mohawk. “Lads and Ladies,” Knox said, “any dime-store magus can stretch a balloon into a giraffe, but how many can make a […]
The morning after the storm, Carlotta climbs onto her roof with a mug of orange tea and looks over Hialeah Bay. It stretches, glittering, to every horizon. The waves swept the flooded yards and streets of chemical slicks and litter. The winds blew away the stench of moldy homes and rotting plants. And the rain […]
Money The fifty-pound notes are pink and crisp, straight from the cash machine. They still feel warm as I hand them over. The man I’ve come to see slips them straight into his desk drawer without counting them. At first, I think I must have a trustworthy face, but then I remember he’s an empath. […]