Shock Totem 7

Behold, the fabulously macabre cover art for Shock Totem 7 by Mikio Murakami:

And the full Table of Contents:

TBD (Editorial)
Consumption by Victoria Jakes
Among the Elephants by Amberle L. Husbands
The Four Horsemen of the Parking Lot by Kurt Newton (Narrative Nonfiction)
Untitled: A Conversation with Adam Cesare by K. Allen Wood
The Gates of Emile Plimpkin: The Gravedigger’s Legacy by S. Clayton Rhodes (Novelette)
Smoking, The Old Sergeant by Dominik Parisien (Poetry)
Strange Goods and Other Oddities (Reviews)
The Horror That Et My Pap—And Other Swamp Stuff by William F. Nolan
Shall I Whisper to You of Moonlight, of Sorrow, of Pieces of Us? by Damien Walters Grintalis
Bloodstains & Blue Suede Shoes, Part 5 by John Boden and Simon Marshall-Jones (Article)
The Long Road by Kristi DeMeester
Thing in a Bag by M. Bennardo
Howling Through the Keyhole (Author Notes)

New Short Story in Lightspeed Magazine

My short story, Always, They Whisper, is now available to read free online at Lightspeed Magazine. If nothing else, please visit Lightspeed to see the artwork by Galen Dara that accompanies the story. She is brilliantly talented and the illustration is stunning!

Lightspeed Magazine Issue 36

Lightspeed Magazine's May issue, which includes my short story, Always, They Whisper, is available for purchase in ebook format. Subscriptions are also available.

My story will be available to read online on May 14. As a teaser, here is the opening:

She was not a monster, nor did Perseus cut off her head. The whole Athena and shield bit? Bullshit. Perseus was a self-absorbed fool who barely had the strength to lift a sword over his shoulder, let alone swing it hard enough to sever sinew and bone. 

As far as the rest of her story, the snakes and stone might be true, but not in the way you think. It’s always easy to paint a villain; harder to scrape below the gilt to find the real.

Glitter & Mayhem

Apex Book Company has revealed the table of contents and the cover for the Glitter & Mayhem anthology, edited by Hugo Award-winning editors John Klima (Electric Velocipede) and Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine), and the Hugo-nominated editor Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine).

I'm absolutely thrilled to have a story in this collection and would like to give a shout out to Simon McCaffery, Jake Kerr, Brenda Stokes Barron, and Kelly Stiles for beta reading an early draft of my story. Thank you all so very much. My tale would not be the same without your critiques.

Here is the amazing cover by Galen Dara:

 

And the full Table of Contents:

Introduction by Amber Benson

Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher Barzak

Apex Jump by David J. Schwartz

With Her Hundred Miles to Hell by Kat Howard

Star Dancer by Jennifer Pelland

Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane by Cat Rambo

Sooner Than Gold by Cory Skerry

Subterraneans by William Shunn & Laura Chavoen

The Minotaur Girls by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Unable to Reach You by Alan DeNiro

Such & Such Said to So & So by Maria Dahvana Headley

Revels in the Land of Ice by Tim Pratt

Bess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl by Sofia Samatar

Blood and Sequins by Diana Rowland

Two-Minute Warning by Vylar Kaftan

Inside Hides the Monster by Damien Walters Grintalis

Bad Dream Girl by Seanan McGuire

A Hollow Play by Amal El-Mohtar

Just Another Future Song by Daryl Gregory

The Electric Spanking of the War Babies by Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. Johnson

All That Fairy Tale Crap by Rachel Swirsky

A stellar lineup doesn't even come close to describing it, and if you preorder a copy before August 15th, you can have it signed by all three editors.

Short Story News

While I don't have any concrete details I can share, my short story, When the Lady Speaks, has been accepted by Nayad Monroe for her anthology, What Fates Impose.

As a teaser, here's the first line of the story:

The first thing you need to know is this: She lies.

In addition, my story, Inside Hides the Monster, will appear in the Glitter & Mayhem anthology coming out later this year from Apex Book Company.

Another teaser:

Hidden by the shadows, the dying siren crouches on a rooftop, her wings curled protectively around her body.

I'm very excited about both stories and will post updates when I have them.

New Short Story in Interzone

Interzone 245 is now available for purchase. It contains short fiction by Chris Butler, Melanie Tem, Carlos Hernandez, Antony Mann, as well as my story, Paskutinis Iliuzija (The Last Illusion).
 
Here is an excerpt from the story:

From his bedroom window, Andrius could see the edge of a striped awning at the end of the street. A theater, its stage now silent and dark. He'd performed there a long time ago, but he could still remember the heat of the lights and the gasps of surprise from the audience.

The best magicians could make the people forget they were seated indoors. Could transport them to another time, another place. Lithuanian magic was no mere sleight of hand or game of misdirection, but a gift from the land, born from the spring breeze and the winter chill, the fir tree and the rivers.

Lois Tilton of Locus Magazine has reviewed the issue here.

Short Fiction

Every once in a while, you come across a short story that takes your breath away. If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky, from the March issue of Apex Magazine, is one of those stories. I cannot recommend it enough.