So, to the second half of the year which, for me, started in August with regular customers JayHenge taking steampunk tale 'Inktomi and the Skyship', first run by Wyldblood in 2022, for their anthology The Apparatus Almanac. JayHenge work slowly but produce large collections; this one is still accepting submissions, hence don't expect publication any time soon.
Then nada until October, but, like buses... First (and it happened on the first), 100-Foot Crow take my drabble 'Dominoes Tumbling'.
Then three hits in three days. Graveside Press come in for 'Doctor Herzog's Collection', my L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Competition finalist from 2017, for their Tiny Terrors strand. Ten-thousand-word stories are hard to place; having been a near miss several times, it's good that this has finally found a home. No news on a publication date yet, though.
The same day, Story Unlikely, who had already taken 'Snake' to podcast, decide they'll print it as well. The pod is here - good to know someone out there liked it - no news on the words-on-a-screen publication as yet.
Then, two days later, Legiron Press take my Dartmoor-set eldritch comedy 'Too Few Surnames' for their twenty-fourth anthology, Monster. That just missed their Halloween publication date, but given they took it less than a fortnight beforehand, that it's out at all is a minor miracle.
...but it may explain why they didn't ask for any exclusivity period in the contract, enabling me to sell it (for buttons, admittedly) a mere fifteen days later to Three Coin Theatre for Liminal Tales, an evening of performed story readings at London's Water Rats on 12th January. The trailer's here - I think my story is the only one not to be read by its author, being in the far more secure hands of actor Esme Pitman.
The same November day I also get my 70s-set story 'Tip of the Tongue' accepted by Tales to Terrify, only to wake up to the fact that they don't pay for flashes when the contract arrives. As I only write for money - fame optional - I withdraw as quickly and with as much dignity as possible, promising to pay closer attention to the fine print on submission pages. Yes, reader, I was that time waster.
One last acceptance of the year, and a nice one to end on, as it's the return of Steve Capone, this time for sleep depravation horror story 'Second Amendment' for Whisper House's second anthology, Dread Mondays. That makes it 22 for the year.
And three days later it was Christmas.
2084. The world remains at war.
In the Eurasian desert, twenty-year old Adnan emerges from a coma with memories of a strictly ordered city of steel and glass, and a woman he loved.
The city is the Dome, and the woman... is Adnan's secret to keep.
Adnan learns what the Dome is, and what his role really was within it. He learns why everybody fears the Sickness more than the troopers. And he learns why he is the only one who can stop the war.
Persuaded to re-enter the Dome to implant a virus that will bring the war machine to its knees, the resistance think that Adnan is returning to free the many - but really he wants to free the one.
24 0s & a 2
Twenty-four slipstream stories. Frequently absurd, often minimifidian, occasionally heroic.
