Story in Axolotl Magazine

Secret in the Desert is available online now for your spooky pleasure.

I have so many publications on a regular basis, it’s hard to chose which ones to include in this blog, which is for people wanting to read my work, who aren’t necessarily interested in Literary, Experimental, or that side of the Interstitial styles as much as pure straightforward Genre. Pulp. Speculative. You got it.

This story is Paranormal.

It begins:

In the line to get into Parch, we drove past signs along the pale road which ran through the dried-up lake bed that reminded me of a canvas carried through the dust, spat on by the gods, and wiped off with robes made of thorn. In fact, it was just those gods we were each paying five thousand dollars to see. We hoped they would give us a fashion show some time during that week without water, hoped our very eyes would turn to dust enough that we could blink when the dust storms cleared, and we would see the truth.

I didn’t believe in truth.

One sign said: WHAT IS IN YOUR HEAD IS IN THE GROUND.

The next: OPEN YOUR EYES.

YOUR PUPILS GO STRAIGHT TO YOUR BRAIN.

YOU TURN YOUR WORLD UPSIDE DOWN COMPLETELY WITH YOUR BRAIN.

We knew Parch would turn everything we had ever believed on its head.

Speculative Stories

If you’d like to read any of my relatively straightforward SF, Paranormal Fantasy, and Horror stories, many of these below are free to read at online magazines, and others are in anthologies for purchase at these links.

Partly because I like to think outside convention, I’m a lover of Weird Fiction, which originated before genre rules set in. I’ve picked my most traditional Speculative fiction for this post, but still, some of the stories below are on a bit the edge of their genres, and could be labeled Weird as well as the designations I have given them. I have a couple hundred stories published in magazines and anthologies, and a lot are in Interstitial styles, between Speculative and Literary, with elements of both, such as Slipstream, Magical Realism, Surrealism, New Wave Fabulism, and Weird: I link to over 80 of the Interstitial ones HERE. Looking through them might be useful for people wanting to understand those genres better, to get a sense of what they’re like.

I only write to be read, never just for my own enjoyment. A story isn’t a thing until it’s completed by the readers. I always feel gratitude for my narratives’ completion in readers’ brains’.

Ocularity SF

The Coveted General Anzel Smile SF

Origami Mafia Story Unfolds SF

Breaking the Seal SF

Printed People Eaters SF

Eye Poison Horror

Mask of Sleep Horror

Two-Faced Horror

To Explain the Sasquatch Sitter Paranormal

Mirror Tattoo Paranormal

Projection Theater Paranormal

To Explain the Sasquatch Sitter

Hi, there,

I know you probably feel this is not the usual way of going about things. I know it probably does not fit with the usual paper work. But you have to understand that I had no choice, really, but to think outside the box. There was just no one other than me to take care of my father. If I was a healthy girl, a pretty girl, someone who could get a husband, that would be different. But that’s not who I am, and God has dealt the hand He saw fit. There must be some reason for me to exist. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of love to offer.

Paranormal story, To Explain the Sasquatch Sitter, was at 10 Thousand Monkeys.

Mirror Tattoo

Somehow, it looks like water. You approach it, and it waves, it sparkles. More like mercury, liquid silver, something impossible. Something undeniable.

Her secret tattoo artist does very good work. If she let on who he was, he would be killed.

Weird Paranormal story, Mirror Tattoo, at Father Stars Than This.