My latest publications & announcements

I’ve got an announcement to make! It’s this: “I've been busy, y’all.” Also I’ll take any chance to put on a Halloween mask and make a fool of myself in public.

Here’s a roundup of all the work I’ve been up to so far this year. People sometimes tell me they don’t know where to find my work so I’m hoping this helps with that. My plan is to do more posts like these as I crank out more work over time. Anyway, let’s dive in!

Winter

In January, I was asked to be a guest on my first-ever podcast! Our goal was to promote the October Screams anthology from 2023, which included my story “In the Night, a Whisper.” I couldn’t have been more excited to chat about my story right next to fellow authors Red Lagoe, Gwendolyn Kiste and Larry Hinkle, all of whom are doing solid work these days. If you don’t know these authors, check ‘em out—they’re all making names for themselves in horror lately.

After that, it was time to hit the ground running with my second foray into filmmaking. I wrote and produced my second short film, You Better Watch Out, for a local film competition called Rack Focus. For this particular contest, everyone gets three months to complete the work—which is not a lot of time! It was a crazy few months of work with a lovely group of creative folks. When we were done, our film took home third place plus the Audience Choice Award. I learned a lot about filmmaking and would like to do more in the future—just not right away. Other than several drafts of that screenplay, I got absolutely zero writing done for about three months and really felt it when it was time to get back to writing fiction.

Spring

I’ll be honest—March kicked my ass. I hit a low point creatively and got super-depressed about it. I was lucky to place a story called “Gotcha,” which I wrote three years ago, to Max Blood’s Mausoleum Issue #1. Other than that, none of the dozen stories I had in circulation were selling. More, I felt emotionally unable to produce anything new. It happens to us creative types more than we often admit. Anyway, a talk with a good mentor was all I needed, which came from a writer I really look up to, Wulf Moon. I’d been taking his classes for a while, so I knew he could probably help.  A consultation with him got me back on right path. He knew exactly what to say, having been through similar dry spells himself, and suggested the best cure was to take the bull by the horns. He encouraged me write a sci-fi tale for an open call titled Offshoots: Humanity Twigged from Third Flatiron Press. I pushed back, saying I didn’t how to write sci-fi, since I normally focus on horror. Wulf pressed on, so I sucked it up and wrote the damn thing, lol. I’m so glad I did, because, well — more on that in a bit. If you’re a storyteller and and looking for a fantastic book on craft, I recommend you pick up Mr. Moon’s How to Write A Howling Good Story. Read my review of it here.

In April, I sold a story from 2022 called “Melissa from Tomorrow” to the Calliope story app, which lifted my spirits considerably. This was a fun one for me to write, as the genesis came from a silly slip of the tongue I made while unwinding at a pool with some friends. When that phrase flew out of my mouth it totally stuck in my mind so I challenged myself to turn it into a story. If you haven’t been on the Calliope app, the stories are all illustrated—maybe less than a comic book but more than simple text on a page. You can download the app here and read the story for free. I loved how the story turned out visually, and it gave me a little more confidence that things were moving in the right direction. Not as much as the next news did, though. A few weeks later my humorous horror story, “Dead Presidents” was chosen as a Finalist in the Story Unlikely Short Story Contest. No, I didn’t win, but to make it in the top nine out of 2500 stories ain’t so darn bad. More than that, the publisher liked the story enough to buy it—at a professional rate, to boot. I’m not sure when it comes out, but I’ll be sure to post it when it does, hopefully by the end of the year.

May was pretty exciting, for sure. You know that sci-fi story I wrote? It was selected for publication! You can read “How Billy Adams Destroyed Humanity but Then Found a Way to Make it Right Again in the Offshoots anthology I mentioned above. Shortly after that, I sold another older story called “Close to You” to Bag of Bones Press’s “Skin” Anthology. This is a humorous post-pandemic story about a talking tumor that was just a hoot to write. I like mixing horror with humor and feel like this is something I’ll only do more of in the future. I was also interviewed by the Horror Writer’s Association as part of their Pride Month coverage, and you can read it here.

Summer

In June, I placed a story with the Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers Vol. 9 anthology called “The Moon, the Fields and the Mysteries of the Eternal Grove”. This story was modeled after a real-life LGBTQ-themed campground I visited a few years ago with friends in Central Texas called Rainbow Ranch. While we had a lovely time on our visit to and nothing scary happened, at night when we were sitting around the campfire I couldn’t help but wonder what evils might be lurking out in those piney woods. That collection will be released later this year. This is my second time to work with the Road Kill guys. Last year, they bought my Bigfoot story “Loving the Beast” for Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers Vol. 8 and you click that link to buy.

A goal I’ve been working on lately is to get better at flash fiction, which is story of less than 1000 words or about two pages. It’s harder than it looks with its own set of rules and watchouts. What better way to improve than to enter a contest, right? I wrote an original story for Calliope’s Flash Clash called “Life’s a Glitch”. While I didn’t win, I did make runner up along with two other stories, and I’m darn proud of that. I also entered a flash fiction contest from Death Knell Press, where they give you a topic and you have two days to write a story. This year’s theme was Aquatic Horror and I wrote a story about a sentient killer wave pool from out of space. Yes, you read that correctly — it’s as batshit crazy as it sounds. While my story wasn’t selected, I sent it out the very next day and got a nibble almost immediately from a market that pays professional rates. I haven’t signed a contract yet, so the publisher must remain secret for now, but I’m 98% sure it’s going to happen. Also, my first short film, Trick, which won first place in the above-mentioned contest last year, made it into the Houston Horror Fest along with one of our lead actors, Trevor VanArsdale, who was nominated for Best Actor. Kick ass, Trevor! Hopefully I’ll be able to post Trick on You Tube soon so everyone can enjoy it.

So far in August, I was thrilled when author Angelique Fawns bought my story “Treats” to appear as a reprint for her Horror Lite: Cursed and Creepy collection. She was gracious enough to interview me about the story as well, and even asked me to do a live read of the piece. I’d never read my work for the public before but gave it a whirl—and kind of enjoyed it. You can listen to both of those here, if you dare.

What’s next?

I work a pretty demanding day job, but I’m still determined to get as much work out into the world as I can. I’m always trying to carve out time to work on my stories. For now, I’m focusing on my flash fiction skills, cranking out several shorter works a month for various monthly contests. Pretty sure I’ll keep swinging in this direction through the end of the year then spread my wings and do a larger piece like a novel. I’m also shopping a short story collection around to publishers. Show Me where It Hurts gathers a whopping 25 of my stories—18 that have been published before and seven original works. Fingers crossed this one finds a home very quickly. When it does, I will be a very happy man.

If anything else gets published soon, I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop. Keep reading fiction, everyone. And whatever else you do, keep it spooky.