Tuesday, December 31, 2013

12/31/13: The Shining Horrific - Volume II

Sequel to A.A. Garrison's collection of horror stories: The Shining Horrific, Volume II

Blurb:

Author A.A. Garrison continues to showcase his “darkly radiant” brand of horror, by venturing back into the macabre terrain traveled in the original Shining Horrific. Volume II expands upon its predecessor with several stories of a hybrid bent – sci-fi, a dark Western, classic zombie romps, and the bizarre-grotesque  – as well as delivering more of the original collection’s pure-horror fare.

Some choice selections from Volume II:

  • The no-holds-barred hysteria aboard a crashing plane (“Confession”)
  • A delusional man attempting to reformat time using the dynamite strapped to his chest (“The Bad Season”)
  • A zombie-apocalypse survivor risking life and limb for a most precious commodity (“The Gift”)
  • The secrets we harbor and the tangled webs we weave (“The Witness”)
  • Two ill-fated strangers who just can’t seem to keep away from one another (“A Cloud Over The Sun”)
  • A priest who steals cars and runs down his enemies to prove he isn’t insane (“Not Insane”)
  • A serial killer with access to a ghoul that feeds on human flesh, a match made in Heaven (“Hair”)
  • There’s nothing under the stairs, no matter how much they bleed (“There’s Nothing Under The Stairs”)
  • An intelligent robot + a lightning strike = bad news for the child under the robot’s care (“William”)
  • A child-at-heart and his dual-gender imaginary friend, faced with bringing a murderer to justice (“The General”)

There are nineteen tales in all, comprising a novel-length read. With a careful mix of involving novelettes and just-long-enough shorts, there’s something for everybody.

Now, once again come explore that twilight country of the shining horrific ...
 
Get sample stories, read reviews, and buy the eBook from the following vendors:


Get the print version, via Print-on-Demand, here:

Sunday, December 22, 2013

12/22/13: The Shining Horrific

Yet another new eBook from A.A. Garrison: The Shining Horrific: A Collection of Horror Stories, Volume I


Blurb:

Author A.A. Garrison has a knack for horror, as this collection of stories attests. Not fitting comfortably in the realm of “psychological” or “intelligent” horror, his brand of the macabre falls into a subtler niche, one that might be considered “darkly radiant.”

Call it “the shining horrific,” if you must have a label.

Included amongst these 23 tales:

  • Danger and ruin from a “free” gift (“The Briefcase”)
  • A fearful father’s poisonous need (“Need”)
  • Insomniac cat-and-mouse in the Appalachian foothills (“Insomnia”)
  • A social club of the highest stakes (“War”)
  • The predatory love between a serial killer and his demon (“A Kind of Love”)
  • An accident victim and his imaginary friend, seeking vengeance (“Him”)
  • A non-psychotic who finds himself the world’s last hope against “monsters” (“Monsters”)
  • An eight-year-old with a memory too keen for his own good (“Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened Here”)
  • A priest led to divine murder in a heathen city (“One of Them”)
  • A holiday with the darkest past (“Riottaba”)
  • A man awakes to find himself hung in a strange cage in an even stranger place (“The Gibbet”)
  • A downward spiral begun by an innocent beer (“Mistake”)

And many more. Ranging from flash fiction to novelettes, from the quiet to the messy, from the everyday to the fantastic, the stories in The Shining Horrific cover a diverse literary terrain, sure to please any audience.

Now, come explore that twilight country of the shining horrific ...


 Buy the eBook, read reviews, and get samples at these vendors:


Buy the print version, via Print-on-Demand, here:


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

12/17/13: Dark Visions, Volume 2

Find my short story, "Variations of Soullessness," alongside other hand-picked horror stories in Dark Visions: Volume 2, a new anthology available from Grey Matter Press!



Saturday, December 14, 2013

12/14/13: A Conspiracy of HA!: Humorous Tales

A new short story collection from A.A. Garrison: A Conspiracy of HA!: Humorous Tales



Blurb:
“Laughter is a form of redemption.”

This is the credo of author A.A. Garrison, applied liberally to these stories in ‘A Conspiracy of HA!’ Under it, anything goes.

Earwax-loving aliens. Eyeball-chewing pets. Instructions on killing your zombified clone. Hypnotized boxers. How to get a free lunch using only creamer and a fork. Stephen King doing battle with a werewolf editor. Bridge-jumping, everyone’s doing it!

See it all and more in this diverse collection of 25 stories, which showcases A.A. Garrison’s quirky brand of humor. The conspiracy is real, and you’re the target!

Buy the eBook, get samples, and read reviews at these vendors:


Buy the print version, via Print-on-Demand, here:

Monday, December 9, 2013

12/9/13: The High Illogical: A Collection of Strange Tales

Now available from A.A. Garrison: The High Illogical: A Collection of Strange Tales


Blurb:

“When I write bizarro fiction, my goal begins and ends with a concept I’ve come to know as ‘the High Illogical’ ...”


This isn’t your everyday weirdness. When it comes to the High Illogical, think David Lynch conducting Beethoven in space. Think sculpting mathematics into a prettier color. How might the Louisiana Purchase taste, Batman?


First appearing in various bizarre-friendly publications, these stories pursue the High Illogical in a whirlwind chase. Call them absurd. Call them grotesque. Call them outright incorrect. Just don’t call them normal, unless you want to see a book frown.


(Note:
The preceding introduction is at least 50% untrue, perhaps more. This book’s true title is 'Dick’s TV,' and you’d do well to heed this, traveler. See prologue for details ...)

Buy the eBook, read samples, and get reviews at the following vendors:


Buy the book in print, via Print-on-Demand, here:

Sunday, December 1, 2013

11/29/13 Synchronicity

Yet another instance of word-synchronicity, this one. It started the morning of November 29th, 2013.

I was going through some old short stories I'd had published over the last few years, is what triggered the incident. About a year ago, I pledged to assemble my published stories into collections to be self-published as eBooks, for the hell of it. Now, all these months later, I'm finally getting around to it, which meant combing my archived stories and assembling them into the said collections.

While I was doing this, one story in particular caught my eye: "Borborygmus."

It was a goofy, lighthearted horror story I'd written on a lark and then had published in a low-key anthology some time ago. But on the morning of the 29th, as I encountered it for the first time since I'd dragged the Word file into my computer's "published" directory, I had the thought: Borborgymus -- what a clunky, obnoxious word. The word, which I'll let the reader look-up at their leisure, thus impressed itself upon my mind, enough for me to absently take notice.

Also worth mentioning: it was the first I'd seen the word "borborygmus" since the anthology my story appeared in was published, years ago. And why should I see it? It's a rigid, non-descriptive medical term probably not used outside of a Bible-thick tome of procedural jargon.

I soon finished up perusing my short stories, and then, less than a half-hour after encountering "Borborgymus," I checked my email. And there, in my inbox, I was met by this subject line: "borborygmus: Dictionary.com Word of the Day‏." The email was sent on the 28th, but I hadn't checked my inbox until the morning of the 29th -- so there's no way I could have known it would be there ahead of time.

A classic, synchronistic recurrence: Within the span of minutes, I'd by chance encountered the same rare, obscure word in two different, unconnected places -- after I'd Noticed it specifically in my folder of short stories, and after I'd been putting off going through those stories for a full year. And, let's not forget, after I'd experienced dozens upon dozens of nearly identical incidents, all fitting the same pattern of distinct, precognitive-like recognition and then recurrence.

Being jaded by past experience, I just chuckled and then opened my synchronicity log to make a new entry. "Borborgymus" will be appearing in an upcoming short-story collection, I've decided.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

11/28/13: The Storms of Pemberton

New fiction from A.A. Garrison: The Storms of Pemberton, a novel of paranormal horror.


Blurb:

Pemberton? Yeah, I been there. Take a right at the light, and you’ll see the sign. There’s not much to it, I’m afraid. Still, they got a right nice hospital, darned if I know why. It rains there, I hear.

Me? I don’t go down there, if I can help it.

You hear things about Pemberton, if you reckon. My cousin, Annie, she popped a flat coming down that valley last year, and, well ... I shouldn’t say no more about that, with her still in the psych ward.

You know they never did find that mayor that went missing? And he ain’t the only one – are all kinds of people who’ve got gone around Pemberton, if you can believe what you hear.

But, it don’t prove nothing, I suppose. You hear these things; but you hear lots of things. And as for Annie, she’s had her one right hard time, with the doctors talking about ‘post-trauma’ stress and delusions. And, well ... you hear lots of things.

I’ll say this, mister. If you’re heading through them parts, keep your windows up and your doors locked. And take a spare tire. Ain’t nobody should go around without a spare.

 Buy the eBook, read reviews, and read sample chapters at the following vendors:


Buy the print edition, via Print-on-Demand, here:

Thursday, November 21, 2013

11/19/13: Welcome to Ford

Now available: Welcome to Ford, a short story collection.

Blurb:

In this collection of 14 speculative short stories, author A.A. Garrison takes us to Ford, North Carolina, a sleepy little mountain town named after a Civil War deserter. Though out of the way, the town seems to attract an immoderate share of the fantastic and the macabre.

Amongst Ford’s citizens are:

  • Blake (“The Fifty”), who purchases revenge with a fifty-dollar bill
  • Candy Patrice (“Cloyed”), a young woman who adopts a most unorthodox diet-plan
  • Mara Dees (“Additive Free”), the unlikely star in a grisly scheme to appease visitors from outer space
  • Johannes Bitter (“Half Dead”), an undertaker with an exceptional case of lady trouble
  • Kay Barry (“The Minutes”), a woman on her way to a fateful real-estate closing
  • The Doctor (“See Sick”), a roving voyeur who sees more than he bargains for
  • Roy Mitchell (“The Imaginal”), a professional shipper who spends an enlightening night with himself
  • Frank Belmont (“Dead End”), who goes hunting for nostalgia and finds trouble
  • Patrick Timothy (“Hoodoo”), a Charlotte reporter investigating the mysterious Bailer cult headquartered in Ford
  • Brian (“Brian, Destroyer of Worlds”), who becomes the first man to commit murder by coffee
  • Zedok Crane (“The Package”), amnesic serial killer extraordinaire
  • Don Frangipani (“The Gardener”), Ford’s only retired cookbook author, and the victim of a subterranean horror’s malefic horticulture
  • And The Narrator (“The Center”), a man who saw the face of God and forgot his own name

But don’t let them scare you off. The town isn’t all bad. We’ll grab a bite at the Burger Boy and then see the Cado Kid show tonight. It’s really a fine little burg, a place you could settle down. Welcome to Ford.




Buy the eBook, read reviews, and read samples here:


Buy the book in print (via Print-on-Demand) here:


Monday, November 11, 2013

11/11/13: Other

Just released: Other, my new sci-fi novel!

Blurb:

Cross Ghost in the Shell with Alice in Wonderland, and you’ll come to appreciate Hildy’s situation.

What is the mysterious stone column? Where did it come from? And why did she have to find it? These are the questions which confront Ms. Hildy Turner, small-town dog groomer and the stone-column doohickey's unfortunate inheritor. There are no answers, but she knows this: pressing the column's end opens a doorway to another world, which she and her best friend have mistakenly entered. Can they find their way back home? And just what's with the dreamlike nature of the places they end up in?

It's a long, strange trip, with sidetracks into the future, the distant past, and everywhere in between, a journey that can only be described as other.



Buy the eBook, read reviews, or read sample chapters:


Buy the print version, via POD (Print on Demand):

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

10/22/13: Splatterlands

Find my bizarre short story, "Empty," in Splatterlands: Reawakening the Splatterpunk Revolution, a new anthology from Grey Matter Press.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

10/19/13: Eyeball Chewer

Find my bizarre piece of microfiction, "Eyeball Chewer," at Space Squid, for free!

10/19/13: Southern Gothic

Find my dark short story, "A Sleeping Place," in Southern Gothic, a new anthology from New Lit Salon Press.


Wednesday, October 9, 2013

10/9/13: The Medulla Review

Find my bizarre short story, "Bestseller," in Volume 4, Issue 1 of The Medulla Review, for free!

Monday, October 7, 2013

10/7/13: The Kennedy Curse

Find my short story, "Non Compos Mentis," in The Kennedy Curse, a new anthology from Big Pulp!



Sunday, September 22, 2013

9/21/13: Independent Events

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

We've all seen the quote, it's certainly made the rounds -- but that makes it no less true. Statistics are rascally things. They seem to prove an argument or point, when they could, in reality, harbor hidden flaws which render them invalid -- but only if you look closely. On the surface, they can appear every bit sound. And, considering the surface is where the examination of many people begins and ends, we see the potential for abuse.

When I first read of the term "independent event," as used in the context of probabilities, it dug up my grievances with statistics all over again. When an event is classified as "independent," probability-wise, it means that it has no connection to any past events, as to be free from influence on its probability -- but what if there is a connection between these events, it's just not obvious or known? Say, some hidden, unseen force which connects events with no overt connection? Then, the statistical reality will differ from actual reality, because that connection is not expressed within the probability's calculation. This is one way in which statistics can achieve their deceit.

As it were, I was introduced to the probabilistic concept of independent events in a book: This Book Does Not Exist. Though I'd understood the concept for life or close to it, I'd never, until then, been aware of its formal term. So the book was educational for me, however I disliked the concept's rigidity.

I read of "independent events" in the afternoon, finished This Book Does Not Exist that evening, then moved on to another book that night.

My new book was a random investment book sent to me by a friend, in the same shipment as This Book Does Not Exist. The two books are very different, one being about investing in stock-market index funds, the other being about paradoxes and other logical head-scratchers. Yet, this investment book I started contained a paragraph on none other than ... independent events, used in a probabilistic context.

After being unaware of the formal concept of independent events for all my thirty years, I was exposed to it in two back-to-back books, read entirely randomly (and sent to me as randomly by my friend). A classic book-synchronicity, as has happened to me many times.

But here's the clincher: the synchronicity demonstrates the limitation of the traditional definition of "independent events." On the surface, the recurrence of the concept between the two books would appear every bit to be a chance coincidence, though a somewhat unlikely one. Only when the context is considered (that I'd never before known the term, and that I've experienced enough nearly identical "coincidences" involving random books read back-to-back to establish a distinct pattern of phenomenon) do we see the potential for some connection in the term's recurrence, albeit an obscure, hidden, unknown connection.

The recurrence of "independent events" wasn't an independent event, it seems. The irony.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

9/18/13: Dark Visions

Find my short horror story, "Variations of Soullessness," in Dark Visions, a new horror anthology fresh from Grey Matter Press.

Link

Saturday, September 7, 2013

9/7/13: The Alarmist

Find my weird humor short story, "The Job," in Issue #3 of The Alarmist, available now!

Link

Friday, August 30, 2013

8/30/13: Robert Anton Wilson and Carl Jung

On the morning in question, I was working on a new book. The book was about synchronicity.

When I finished writing for the morning, I ended with this sentence: "This would introduce me to the work of prominent psychologist Carl G. Jung, who coined the term “synchronicity.”"

Immediately after finishing with my writing, I felt strongly Compelled to go to Twitter and make a daily tweet, even though I ritually do this only in the evening. Upon going to Twitter.com, however, I was stopped by a new tweet from @Robert_A_Wilson, on my followers list: "Carl Jung got me interested in synchronicity, or maybe synchronicity led me to Carl Jung."

Between my writing of Jung and synchronicity, then reading of them, mere minutes had elapsed. This got my attention. Then, realizing the humor inherent in the incident, I laughed.

8/30/13: Comforting Mrs. Madigan

Find my erotica story, "Comforting Mrs. Madigan," at Forbidden Fiction.

Link

Sunday, July 21, 2013

7/21/13: Structo Magazine

Find my dark humor story, "An Absurdity Dissected," in Issue 9 of Structo, now available online for free!

http://issuu.com/structo/docs/structoissue9online

Saturday, July 13, 2013

7/13/13: Say What?

It was lunchtime. I was eating at the table while reading. People around me were talking.

Halfway through lunch, the book I was reading reached a chapter on the psychology of abusive relationships.

Meanwhile, the people around me began conversing about the psychology of abusive relationships.

I had not spoken a word about what I was reading, nor could the conversing people have read it.

As I reached the chapter's end, which summed up why someone in an abusive relationship might choose to remain in such a relationship, one of the conversing people asked, "Why would someone stay in a situation like that?" These two coincided so perfectly, I couldn't help but burst out laughing.

(Some fun facts about this incident:

1. It was by total chance I was reading this book at all. I had bought a used Kindle, and it had come to me preloaded with several books. It was one of these books I would be reading when the conversation occurred, and I had just started reading it the afternoon in question.

2. After I made it known to the conversing people that their conversation had just mirrored perfectly the text I was reading at the precise time their topic turned to abusive relationships, one of the people said, "Oh, like Patty Hearst, right?" Seconds later, on the very next page of the book, it mentioned Patty Hearst by name -- not too notable, considering this was on the same subject being discussed, but still.

3. The morning before this happened, I'd been editing a chapter of a book I'm writing, which made repeated mention of the "rose-colored glasses" phenomenon. Then, when I started reading the Kindle book at lunch that afternoon, it made mention of the "rose-colored glasses" phenomenon.)

Friday, July 12, 2013

7/12/13: Pulp Modern

Find my psychological-horror story, "The Common Evil," in Issue #5 of Pulp Modern, now available!


Amazon link

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Inspiration for "Windows to the Soul"

Find a write-up regarding my inspiration for the story "Windows to the Soul," from the Mental Ward: Stories from the Asylum anthology, here, on The Sirens Song blog.

Friday, July 5, 2013

7/5/13: Gold Dust

Find my bizarre humor piece, "Rascally Piss Stream: A Memoir," in Issue 23 of Gold Dust magazine -- for free online!


Link

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Upcoming Anthology

Announcing Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror from Grey Matter Press

Beginning this Summer, Grey Matter Press will release the first in a series of highly anticipated volumes of dark fiction that truly celebrate the spirit of independent horror.

Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror takes readers on a terrifying psychological journey with exceptional tales of darkness by some the most talented authors working in the fields of horror, speculative fiction and fantasy today.

Unable to contain all the visions of dread and mayhem to a single anthology, Dark Visions will be a two-volume release published in both paperback and digital formats over the next several months. All versions of Dark Visions will be available for purchase at favorite online booksellers.
It has been a long time coming, but we are immensely proud to introduce you to Dark Visions...

Dark Visions 1 - Table of Contents (Alphabetical by author)
Revised Tentative Release Date – Mid-Summer 2013
:

The Troll - Jonathan Balog
Collage - Jay Caselberg
Delicate Spaces - Brian Fatah Steele
What Do You Need? - Milo James Fowler
Second Opinion - Ray Garton
The Weight of Paradise - Jeff Hemenway
Three Minutes - Sarah L. Johnson
Raining Stones - Sean Logan
Mister Pockets: A Pine Deep Story - Jonathan Maberry
Thanatos Park - Charles Austin Muir
The Last Ice Cream Kiss - Jason S. Ridler
Scrap - David A. Riley
Show Me - John F.D. Taff


Dark Visions 2 - Table of Contents (Alphabetical by author)
Revised Tentative Release Date – Early Fall 2013
:

Remember Me - David Blixt
Release - Jane Brooks & Peter Whitley
Mister White - John C. Foster
Variations of Soullessness - A.A. Garrison
Last Call - J.C. Hemphill
Dreaming In and Out - Carole March
Moonlighting - Chad McKee
City Song - Edward Morris & Trent Zelazny
Water, Some of it Deep - David Murphy
The Elementals and I - C.M. Saunders
Chapelston - Rhesa Sealy
The First Years - David Siddall
Wormhole - J. Daniel Stone
Acceptance - Kenneth Whitfield


Visit the Site – http://www.darkvisionsanthology.com

Sunday, June 30, 2013

6/30/13: Dark Light 3

Find my speculative short story, "I Come To Teach," in Dark Light 3, a new anthology of dark stories.






Amazon link

Friday, June 28, 2013

6/27/13: Communication

So, I'm writing a new book.

A few days ago, I started a chapter called "Communication." Around the same time, I started reading the book Alive, a non-fictional account of people who survived a plane crash in the Andes mountains.

Yesterday, toward the end of Alive, the book mentioned how the survivors found a flight manual which contained in it a chapter entitled "Communications." The chapter's number was thirty-four, mentioned specifically.

"Huh, that's about the same name as the chapter I'm writing in my book," I said aloud (not nearly as dorky-sounding as it reads).

Chapter thirty-four, I thought afterward. If I wasn't mistaken, my "Communication" chapter was in the thirties. I made a mental note to check it out.

That night, I checked it out: my book's chapter was exactly thirty-four, just like that in the flight manual mentioned in Alive -- which had the exact same title except for the addition of an 's.'

I laughed out loud.

(It bears mentioning that I am not writing one book, but three, the original having run on long enough to be split up. I had made the decision for the split while writing the "Communication" chapter, but decided to finish the chapter before going through the logistical work of splitting the text into three separate files. As it so happens, I finished the chapter last night, so this morning, on the 28th, the day after I read the aforementioned passage of Alive, I finally got around to splitting the text, so that chapter thirty-four became chapter ten of the third book. Had I read that part of Alive today, less than twelve hours later, there would be no synchronicity to speak of.)

Friday, June 14, 2013

6/14/13: Hello Horror

Find my suspenseful short story, "Confession," in issue three of Hello Horror. Read it for free.

Link

Thursday, June 13, 2013

6/13/13: Brief Grislys

Find my short horror story, "Need," in Brief Grislys, a new anthology of flash horror.


Amazon link

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

6/11/13: Mental Ward: Echoes of the Past

Find my short story, "Windows to the Soul," in Mental Ward: Echoes of the Past, a new anthology from Sirens Call Publications.


Links:

Amazon

Createspace

Smashwords

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

5/1/13: Jersey Devil Press

Find my bizarre short story, "The Puzzle," in Issue #42 of Jersey Devil Press, available for free.

Link

Saturday, April 27, 2013

4/27/13: 'Cosmic Trigger,' Part Two

First, the context: last fall, I read the book Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. This triggered (no pun intended) several remarkable synchronicities, detailed in this post.

Now, the latest: the synchronicities involving this book did not stop there.

For starters, there turned out to be several subsequent synchronicities related somehow to Cosmic Trigger in the week after 11/15/12, when I made the original post on it. The first were some striking similarities between it and the next sequential book I read, Neuromancer, where there were various concepts shared between the two (floating space colonies, amongst others) even though the books couldn't have been more different and were bought separately and read in completely random order. Also, there was the classic: I learned a new term in Cosmic Trigger, having never seen it before in my life, and then read the exact same term in Neuromancer (when the books were bought and read randomly, etc, etc). Similarly, I was introduced to a Zen proverb in Cosmic Trigger ("There is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is"), having never before seen it in my life, etc, etc -- and then, in the second sequential book I read after Cosmic Trigger (11/22/63 by Stephen King), it contained the precise same proverb, this happening within the space of a week.

However, as notable as these recurrences were, they were nothing compared to the latest.

This new wave started last month, when I decided to eBay a bunch of books I'd bought and didn't see myself reading again. One of these was Cosmic Trigger. It took a month and several re-listings to sell, but sell it did, earlier this week. When I fetched the book to ship off, I looked at the cover artwork, and in doing so noticed the Sirius constellation there (because Sirius, and the author's real-life synchronicities surrounding it, is an integral part of the book). Except, I didn't just notice it, but Noticed it, in a loud, distinct way, as if the cover were blank but for it. I've come to associate this phenomenon with things I'll soon be seeing again.

I wasn't wrong: just an hour later, I encountered Sirius again.

It came in the form of another book, Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins. I had started reading Frog Pajamas just the evening before I went to ship off Cosmic Trigger and noticed the Sirius constellation on its cover, so I was only several pages in when I sat down to read Frog Pajamas the afternoon in question. On just the second page I read, there it was: Sirius, mentioned for the first time in the book. And, not only did Frog Pajamas refer to Sirius, but it referred to the mystery surrounding the African Bozo tribe's unexplained knowledge of Sirius -- when this was also mentioned in Cosmic Trigger. This was notable in itself, considering that 1) I read this section of Frog Pajamas just an hour after packing up Cosmic Trigger and Noticing its Sirius constellation, and 2) I'd been sitting on Cosmic Trigger for nearly five months before deciding to sell it, and, similarly, been sitting on Frog Pajamas for over a month after I bought it. Yet, these two completely unrelated occurrences coincided within the space of an hour.

Of course, these two books were bought randomly and read randomly, etc, etc. Likewise, I had no prior idea what Frog Pajamas was about, and had never heard of the book until I bought it randomly at Goodwill because it was a Tom Robbins, and the book had no external indicator of anything regarding Sirius or Cosmic Trigger. Etc, etc.

But, still, it was not over. Far from it.

As I read more of Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas, I would find that Sirius was a central theme of the book -- exactly like Cosmic Trigger, the book I packed up just an hour before I came to Frog Pajamas' first Sirius reference. As it were, I actually sold Cosmic Trigger on the very day I started reading Frog Pajamas; I just wasn't able to ship it that day, therefore having to wait until the next, therefore enabling me to see the Sirius constellation just before I got to Frog Pajamas' first Sirius reference, etc, etc, E T C.

Seeing this, I thought: At this rate, the damn book's going to mention Robert Anton Wilson [Cosmic Trigger's author] by name.

The next day, Frog Pajamas mentioned Robert Anton Wilson by name.

I laughed madly when I saw it, feeling like a combination Nostradamus and Woody Allen. Not only did Frog Pajamas literally, explicitly name Robert Anton Wilson, it also mentioned Timothy Leary and a couple other people who were featured in Cosmic Trigger.

There's more, actually. But do I really need to say any more?

Monday, April 1, 2013

4/1/13: Songs for the Raven

Find my horrific flash piece, "Life Is Good," in Songs for the Raven, a new horror anthology.

Amazon link


Saturday, March 30, 2013

3/30/13: Seizures

You put a wallet in the jaws of a seizing person, if you didn't know.

I, for one, was ignorant of this trick -- until last week, when I read the Chuck Palahniuk novel, Invisible Monsters. I'd heard of putting sticks or other hard objects in there, but never a wallet. Makes sense, considering not everyone keeps a stick on hand.

Immediately after finishing Invisible Monsters, I started reading a new book: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (because in 1962, I wasn't alive). And, wouldn't you know, this book also mentioned putting a wallet in the jaws of someone having a seizure.

After going twenty-nine years without knowing of this practice, I'd read of it in two sequential books, bought separately and read in random order.

But that's not the kicker: not only did the respective books each depict a wallet in the mouth of the seizing person, they depicted sex with said seizing person. Yes, sex with a seizing person. One book had the wallet in the mouth before intercourse rather than after, but still.

Probably the world's only two books involving sex with the seizing, and I read them back-to-back. Where's my prize?

(Wait, hasn't this happened before?)

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

3/12/13: Plastic

"But people don't eat plastic!"

I read this in John Berendt's book, The City of Falling Angels. The quote was from a Venetian rat-poison manufacturer. Don't ask.

All that matters is, I read the passage just before lunchtime.

That day, lunch was rice and frozen vegetables. Yum. I made it as I've made it a thousand times before, with the expert touch necessary to boil rice and steam vegetables. It was a tough job, but I somehow ended up with a bowl of rice and veggies. Phew.

Then, when I sat down to consume this culinary masterpiece, I found something in it.

A little greyish triangle, it rested amidst my bowlful of white and green, contrasting the rice like a black sheep. Carefully, I excavated it by way of fork, as one might delicate surgery. I plucked the triangle from the tines, squeezed it speculatively in my fingers, and then set it down.

Plastic. A scab-sized triangle of grey plastic. But people don't eat plastic! I thought, in answer.

The best I can figure, I snipped it from one of my bags of vegetables while opening them, and it thereby migrated into my lunch. As it were, I've never before discovered any denomination of plastic in my food, in my twenty-nine years of eating -- and then this, not an hour after reading that prophetic statement.

Being a person, I did not eat the triangle of plastic.

Monday, March 11, 2013

3/11/13: The Witness

Find my psychological horror short, "The Witness," in The Darkness Within, a new anthology from Indigo Mosaic.

Link


Sunday, March 10, 2013

3/10/13: Birthday Gift

Find my humor short, "Birthday Gift," for free at Feathertale.

Link

Friday, March 8, 2013

3/8/13: Intangible

Begin reading my fantasy novella, "Intangible," in SQ Mag, released as a six-part serial -- for free!

Link

Saturday, March 2, 2013

3/2/13: Ciao, America!

My friend and I like thrift stores. We like them so much, in fact, we've made it ritual to visit them when we meet. Invariably, Things Happen when we visit these thrift stores.

Namely, things tend to repeat themselves.

Take, for instance, my friend's February 4th visit. We first went to a Goodwill store, in which we both noticed a book for sale: Ciao, America! Why did we notice it? There's no saying, but it stood out enough, for each of us, to have recorded it mentally.

Then, an hour later, we hit another Goodwill, located some twenty miles away. Interestingly, this one also had the book Ciao, America! My friend and I, both attuned to these recurrences, both noted the book being there also. We got a laugh from it.

But then, a month later, it happened again.

This time, it occurred some hundreds of miles away, in North Carolina's Outer Banks. It was my friend's next sequential meeting, and so we'd undertaken our usual sweep of the area's thrift stores, starting with a non-Goodwill. Well, it had the book, Ciao, America!

Three in a row. We laughed more.

Then it happened a fourth time.

Another Goodwill, now. We went there immediately after leaving the day's first thrift store, some miles away -- and it had the book. We marveled at it. Four in a row, a month and hundreds of miles apart.

Still, neither of us bought it. The book just didn't appeal to us.

(Note: it bears mentioning that Ciao, America! was only one of several recurring items between these and other thrift-store visits, to uncanny levels. If it was just Goodwills, I would say they got a stock of certain items and distributed them. But it's not just Goodwills ...)

Friday, March 1, 2013

3/1/13: Used Gravitrons

Find my bizarre short story, "Not Insane," in Issue #11 of Used Gravitrons, for free!

Link


3/1/13: Urban Occult

Find my paranormal-horror short, "A Kind of Love," in Urban Occult, now available for pre-order from Anachron Press. Order before March 4th to get special bonuses.

Link

Thursday, February 28, 2013

2/28/13: The Museum

Find my bizarre horror short, "The Museum," in Issue #10 of Bete Noire.

Link

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

2/19/13: New Stories

Find my sci-fi short, "Immaculate Conception," in Issue #4 of The Realm Beyond, available soon!

Link

Also, find my Appalachian romper-stomper, "Henny Comes Home," on The Story Shack, for free.

Link

Thursday, February 14, 2013

2/14/13: Passion for Weird Tales

Find my bizarre story, "The Hand of God," in Passion for Weird Tales, a new anthology.

Amazon link

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

2/6/13: After the Apocalypse

Find my literary short, "Roommates," reprinted in After the Apocalypse, the 2012 prose collection from Scars Publications.

Link

Monday, January 28, 2013

1/28/13: Structo Magazine

Find my satire piece, "An Absurdity Dissected," in Issue 9 of Structo Magazine, just released today.

Link

Saturday, January 19, 2013

1/19/13: Fever Dreams E-Zine

Find my short horror story, "Claustromania," in Issue #1 of Fever Dreams, available for free.

Link

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

1/1/13: Morpheus Tales

Find my bizarre short story, "The Ouija Board," in Issue 19 of Morpheus Tales, available now.

Link