Tag: short fiction

The Electrical Amnesia Machine

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Tenebrous Antiquities: An Anthology of Historical Horror

Editor and publisher CM Muller has announced the table of contents for his latest collection, Tenebrous Antiquities: An Anthology of Historical Horror. This handsome volume includes my story, “The Electrical Amnesia Machine of Doctor Fallow.”

Cold steel encircled Everly’s head and for some moments Fallow fiddled with various adjustments and straps. Finally he said: “Now, Mr. Everly, we are alone. No one can eavesdrop. Please tell me about the thoughts you wish swept away. Different ideas and introspections exist in different parts of the brain and I must know where to focus our efforts.”

“Do I have to say? Can’t your machine determine it on its own?”

“I promise you that as a doctor whatever secret you feel is too onerous is no secret to me. Do not be ashamed.”

Everly shifted in his seat. The helmet or whatever he now wore was heavy and uncomfortable. “The sign outside said something about ‘terrible dreams eradicated.’”

“Ah — you have nightmares.” Fallow flipped and toggled switches on the machine’s trunk.

“I have a nightmare. Just one.”

“The Electrical Amnesia Machine” is set in 1909 during New York’s Hudson-Fulton celebration, which marked the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River and the centennial of Robert Fulton’s demonstration of a commercial steamboat along the same body of water. Fortunately my local historical society possesses a copy of the committee report about the celebration (800+ pages!), which bursts with all sorts of details and data. Because a theme of the story is isolation within the enormity of a big city like New York, those same details were perfect to convey the overwhelming grandiosity of the event.

Tenebrous Antiquities will be published in June 2024. You can preorder the paperback or hardcover at the publisher’s website or preorder the e-book on Amazon.

The Book of Pangloss

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A Darkness Visible

The premiere anthology from Onotology Books, A Darkness Visible, has hit virtual shelves just in time for Halloween.

The anthology is a collection of postmodern horror. Sounds heavy, you say. What is “postmodern horror?”

Put simply, the fiction of A Darkness Visible plays with or overturns the conventions of both fiction itself — how it’s presented or by using nontraditional methods to communicate the narrative — as well as those of the horror genre.

A Darkness Visible includes my contribution, “The Book of Pangloss,” which is a piece of interactive fiction — what’s otherwise known as a choose-your-own-adventure story, complete with numbered passages that end in a decision to be made by the reader.

In the story, YOU are the defense attorney for an accused murderer. But is your client actually guilty? And what do the murders of three women have to do with a mysterious occult volume known as the Book of Pangloss?

Writing “Pangloss” checked off a box that’s long sat on my to-do list. Like other Gen Xers, I grew up on a heavy diet of CYOA paperbacks sourced from B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, with Fighting Fantasy being an absolute obsession that lasts to this day. I’d always wanted to write interactive fiction but could never find an appropriate market for it until the call for A Darkness Visible came around.

To write “Pangloss,” I used a freeware app called Twine and designed the story so that it stretched about 3,000 words long no matter which path the reader took. It was challenging but a blast to create, and the experience whet my appetite to write more CYOA.

A Darkness Visible is available now in paperback or as an e-book.

Write a Ghost Story With Me

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This October I’ll be leading a 90-minute workshop on gothic fiction at the Mystic and Noank Library in Mystic, Connecticut.

The gothic is the past returning to haunt us in the present. Yet like vampires and werewolves, gothic stories can assume different shapes and forms: Bram Stoker’s Dracula involves a supernatural evil unleashed in contemporary England, while the narrator of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is haunted simply by his own guilt. In this workshop, join author and freelance writer Jackson Kuhl for an evening investigating the dark art of gothic fiction writing. We’ll look at some examples of classic gothic literature to inspire us, then brainstorm ideas, sketch a brief outline, and craft a piece of gothic flash fiction to take home.

Interested in attending? You can register at the library’s website. There’s no charge but it’s expected to fill up fast.

Bardot’s Wins Shirley Jackson Award

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This past weekend, Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World won the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award for edited anthology.

The award was presented to editor Eric Guignard at the Boston Book Festival. Eric shared the award with Dave Ring, whose anthology Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness also won.

Bardot’s Travel Anthology is presented as a guidebook edited by world traveler and occult expert Charlatan Bardot. My story, “A Tour of the Ramses,” portrays a guide leading a walk through a former luxury hotel, now fallen into disrepair after a tragic history.

The book is an amazing production. It has incredible cover art. The interior presentation features maps which pinpoint the settings of the stories while pieces of flash fiction serve as palate cleansers between longer works. Even the font choices and all-around deco vibe make Bardot’s Travel Anthology wonderful to behold.

You can order a copy at Amazon or explore other buying options at Goodreads.

Congratulations Eric!

Love Letters to Poe, Volume Won

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Love Letters to Poe, Volume I: A Toast to Edgar Allan Poe won the 2022 Saturday Visiter Award in the category of “Original Works Inspired by E.A. Poe’s Life and Writing.”

The award was presented to editor and publisher Sara Crocoll Smith at the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards in Baltimore this past weekend.

The nonprofit Poe Baltimore presents the Saturday Visiter Awards to recognize a new generation of artists continuing Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy in the arts and literature around the world. The awards are named after the prize won by a young Poe.

My story “An Incident on Mulberry Street” appeared in the anthology, which collected a year’s worth of contributions to Smith’s web publication Love Letters to Poe.

This is the first time an anthology I’ve appeared in has won an award. Eric Guignard’s Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations and Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology were both nominated for Stokers but didn’t win (although Bardot’s is currently up for a Shirley Jackson Award, which will be handed out later this month in Boston).

The second book in the series, Love Letters to Poe, Volume II: Houses of Usher, was published in August and includes my story, “The Last Stand of Sassacus House.”

You can grab a copy of Volume I here and Volume II here.

Congratulations Sara!