Category: Fiction

“The Quickening” from The Third Bear Story Collection

The Third Bear, my story collection from 2010, is up for a Shirley Jackson Award. “The Quickening” is an original, new story included in the book. The story was posted as a PDF on the Largehearted Boy music site, but kind of got lost in the shuffle there…so I’ve posted it below for your enjoyment. […]

The Third Bear–Music Notes and Free Downloads

Largehearted Boy has posted a music feature about my 2010 collection The Third Bear: At base, it’s a collection that’s about the search for something beyond what we know—a search either forced upon the protagonist or eagerly sought out by that person. It’s also an acknowledgment that certain things will always be beyond our ken. […]

Lovecraft and the Ravens / Bellysnatcher / The Situation

Lovecraft and the Ravens There are a few projects I’m working on inbetween the major stuff. One of these is something I started off posting on facebook photo by photo as a way of keeping my hand in fiction while editing anthologies. As it evolved, it became “Lovecraft and the Ravens” and included Borges and […]

Potential Questions for Book Club Discussion of Finch

UK manifestation US manifestation (1) When did the infection start? (2) Is it localized or has it spread? (3) Do you retain control of all motor functions? (4) Is there a voice in your head? What is it telling you to do? (5) When did the doors start appearing? Before or after the voice? (6) […]

Purging the Past: Ambergris Beta Version, Frag #1

[encoded on the back of the dust jacket photo on the original hardcover of City of Saints:] I didn’t disappear. I tripped through one of the [redacted]. I became Samuel Tonsure, trying forever to return but failing, while my doppelganger, put in place by Dar Sarduce’s people, continued to write about the place: a hollow […]

Excerpt: Finch Presentation, Thrilling Wonder Stories 2 Conference

From Thrilling Wonder Stories 2 (Nov. 26, London) The Occupiers, the gray caps, flood the city. They transform the city of Ambergris through chaos and purpose. And six years later, Finch is stuck within the new order as reluctant collaborator. Is compromised by his mere presence in a police station, his status as investigator of […]

On the Magpie Mind and the (Mis)Uses of Research

This evening I had the weekly write-club session with my writing buddy Peter M. Ball (the man who committed the novella Horn). I went back over the novel, which I’ve not touched for about a month for a multitude of reasons (PhD, proofing short story collections and stories for various anthologies, fear, laziness, etcetera). I […]