Where Crime, Horror, and Science Fiction Meet – Discussing new discoveries, old mysteries, creepy tales, and dark storytelling
In January I set myself the task of writing 365 100-word short stories. Today marks six months down — or, 182 days down. The halfway mark! Three cheers! Part of me has decided that I’m really, really dumb for attempting this. Part of me has decided that I’ve done well for doing this. Mostly, I’m…
Read more Halfway There; or, What I’ve Learned from 182 Little Stories
Welcome 2016!! New years are for new starts and I’m gonna kick of 2016 with a brand new batch o’mentors. First up, we have Tana French! Tana French is one of my very favorite authors. Based in Dublin, Ireland, French trained as a professional actor at Trinity College. She’s worked in theatre, film, and voiceover.…
As soon as I saw this call for submissions, I thought of how perfectly it fit with our conversation with Alameddine. Wicked East Press is currently collecting submissions for not one, but three anthologies featuring bedtime stories. Check it out. The deadline is June 30th. Happy Writing!
It’s very fitting that, in a month where we’re talking about an experimental author, I find a call for submissions from Blood Orange Review where the theme is Experiment. The part I think is cool about the prompts is, “We have purposefully chosen themes that can be interpreted in many ways, so if you think…
Underwater New York wants you to write a piece in 500 words or less that is inspired by one of the items on their list. Here’s the call for submissions. The list is definitely an eclectic assortment of items and I’m sure you can find at least one that gets your writer brain ticking. Click…
“Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.” – Blaise Pascal Or, translated, it means, “I made this letter long, because I did not have time to make it short.” A perfect introduction to this week’s prompt. I recently found The Postcard Press,…
Art and literature go together like sarcasm and teenagers, so this week, I bring you a call for submissions for the Make Believe Anthology. – Click on the link to see submission details and your inspirational artwork. My favorite part of the call for submissions is this requirement: “However, as it so very obviously looks…
With George R. R. Martin, we talked a lot about world building and genre-blending. What better send off than Twit Publishing’s call for Dieselpunk submissions? “What is Dieselpunk? Dieselpunk is a re-imagining of the diesel-era (the post-World War I era to the early 1950s). It’s gangsters, bootleggers, swing, Mexican revolutionaries, Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde,…
In honor of George R. R. Martin’s complicated characters, this week’s writing prompt is all about character twist. One of the my favorite characters that I love to hate is Jamie Lannister. He starts off as a total creeper and then you see a few more things that really make your skin crawl. I mean,…
This week’s Saturday pages is all about figurative language and taking leaps. I’m also going to offer you different levels to try your hand at – depending on whether you a lighter writing exercise or if you’re game for some heavier lifting. The most important thing about today’s exercise is that you shut up your…
Other Worlds, and This 