Announcing "Story of the Month"

As a writer I naturally have a trunk full of short stories that I've written over the years. Most are horror stories, some are sci-fi, and a few are literary fiction. Rather than have them sitting there collecting dust, I've decided to add a new feature called Story of the Month. Every month, I'm going to pull an old story out of my writing trunk and post it here for everyone to enjoy.

Some of these stories I've queried to a few magazines, but let's face it, it sucks waiting to hear back from fiction magazines. True, the submission process is a hundred times better than it was when I was in high school, but the waiting still drives me crazy. Back in the day, I'd have to print out two copies of the story along with my query letter, stuff everything into a big manila envelope, and wave farewell to it as I sent if off in the mail. From there I usually had to wait between three and six months only to receive a coffee stained envelope with my query letter inside that had a quick "No" scribbled in the corner. Well thank you very much for making me wait forever just to get a scribble of a response. Awesome. But I get it, that's the way the publishing world works. No one said I had to enjoy that part though. And I have to admit, when I did receive my few "Yes, we want to publish your story," responses, you can bet I ran around the house screaming my head off and waving my acceptance letter in the air.

Nowadays, the submission process has gotten faster, and so have the response times thank to this lovely thing called the internet. But even so, it takes a lot of time researching magazines to find the right fit for your story and trying to craft the perfect query letter for your mini masterpiece. However, when I was going on my short story spree a few months ago, the process was easier than it was even a year ago, so I still try to submit on a pretty regular basis, though my shorty submissions were put on hold for a couple months while I was finishing G-157. 

With all that being said, I hope you enjoy some of my "classic" tales of horror that have been salvaged from the depths of the black writing trunk. My first story is called "Fritz," and I must say it's one of my all time favorites. I pulled out a binder of a dozen or so stories I wrote years ago and rediscovered this little tale about a man who tells his pet rat the story of how he "unlocked" the fourth dimension. It was one of my all time favorites then, and it was one of my favorites when I pulled it out a few months ago. Look for it under the Story of the Month tab.

Happy reading everyone!!