Tag Archives: flash fiction

The Last Woman

seedy bar bangkok

Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Harvey couldn’t believe how easily he’d lured his latest victim out of that seedy bar and into an even more seedy motel room across the street. She was a beauty, a bit of a rarity in the places where he normally sought his prey.

The news media called him a serial killer. Seven women between the ages of 19 and 37 all strangled during the act of sex over the past fifteen months. The police couldn’t catch him. They had his DNA but it wasn’t on record anywhere else that would identify him. He moved from city to city, chose different venues to pick up women, a bar here, a concert there. He kept shifting his pattern around so they couldn’t predict where he’d strike next.

Continue reading →

I’ve Just Been Published at “Theme of Absence”

I’m proud to announce that an original piece of my fiction has just been published online at Theme of Absence, which is an online magazine of fantasy, horror, and science fiction administered by Jason Bougger. An original fiction short story and author interview is published every Friday at that website. Today, I’m the published author.

You can go to the site right now to read my story The Anything Box which you won’t find in print or online anywhere else including my own blog.

You can also read my author interview.

This is the first time I’ve had a piece of my fiction writing accepted and published. I’m feeling pretty good about it.

I’m Going To Be Published on “Theme of Absence”

infinity

Image: numbersleuth.org/

Have a look at the site Theme of Absence. As it says on the main page, it’s an “Online Magazine of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction (the lack of an Oxford comma just kills me).

Anyway, the site administrator is Jason Bougger, and along with Betty Rocksteady, and Tim Bougger, they accept previously unpublished submissions of flash fiction and short stories. Here’s a link to their Submission Guidelines.

The reason I bring all this up is that one of my submissions has been accepted and will be published on Friday, September 23rd.

I’ve been published quite a few times before, but those were all technical books, self-study guides, and textbooks.

On September 23rd, one of my fiction pieces will be published online for the very first time (apart from my own blog, of course).

I’m pretty excited.

Jason also offered to do an author interview with me and I said “yes,” so that’ll appear on Theme of Absence the same day as my flash fiction (just a hair under 1,000 words) story.

It’s nothing that I’ve published on my site, so you don’t get a preview.

You don’t have to wait a whole month. Visit Theme of Absence right now and read some of the other stories they’ve published. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite author.

Falling and Bouncing

flat ball

Image: printactivities.com

I recently submitted an original story (one that hasn’t appeared on this blog) to a website that publishes flash fiction of a thousand words or less. Wow! Less than a thousand words for an entire story. That was a challenge.

I took a creative writing class in high school (back at the dawn of time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth), and we called those kinds of stories “short shorts”. You start writing a story as close to the ending as possible.

Anyway, I cranked out my story and it came out to just a few words shy of a thousand in the final draft.

I’ve noticed that when I write something for (potential) publication on another person’s site, I really have to go over the story again and again to shake out all the flaws. I’m a tad more lax when I’m posting my wee tales here on “Robots,” probably because I’m impatient and hey — I’m the site owner. I just want to write and press the “Publish” button.

So, I went over “Killing Juliet” repeatedly until I thought I had it in really good shape. Then I followed the publication instructions laid out on the publishing site I had found and sent it in.

Part of the instructions said it would take up to thirty days for a response, so I figured I wouldn’t hear back from anyone until the end of August.

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to see an email from the publisher. Basically it was “interesting concept but not a good fit for us.”

I clicked “Reply,” typed the one word response “thanks,” and hit “Send.”

But I couldn’t leave it alone.

Continue reading →