“Collectors” in Separate Worlds Magazine

The January/February issue of Separate Worlds, a science fiction and fantasy magazine, is now available. Inside, you can find my short story “Collectors.” The end of the world is coming, and the fate of the universe will be decided in a Magic-esque card game between Heaven and Hell. “Collectors” is about the “other” demons, sent to do the work no one else wants.

You can purchase the current issue, featuring “Collectors” or pick up a subscription here: http://www.speculativefictionstories.com/products

Also, in case you missed it, my latest Confabulator Cafe post is available. I give my thoughts on my non-fiction writing resume and future opportunities in that genre. You can find that post here:

http://www.confabulatorcafe.com/2013/01/an-assembly-of-greys/

Thanks for reading.

Jack

Piper

Piper

For this month’s flash fiction, The Confabulator Cafe is re-telling fairy tales. I chose The Pied Piper. You can read “Piper” for free at The Confabulator Cafe.

 

From the Shadows

528501_361299633966230_1910819517_nThis week, The Confabulator Cafe asked what drew us to our particular genres or types of writing. Read about the draw of horror and dark fiction in “From the Shadows.”

I’ve been working with an editor at a horror publication interested in another one of my stories. Hopefully, I will have news on that front in the near future.

Thanks for reading.

 

A New Year’s Self-Evaluation

528501_361299633966230_1910819517_nIt has been a big year, as I wrote about in my most recent blog here. With all of those changes in my personal and professional life, there were bound to be changes in my artistic life.

Today, at The Confabulator Cafe, I look back on how I have changed as a writer in the last year.

Read more in “A New Year’s Self-Evaluation”.

365 Days of Chasing Dreams

2012 proved to be a year of transition. Over the last few years, my family has been in flux. After the divorce, my time with my son became much more uncertain. This year, after she moved halfway across the country, I found myself seeing him nearly all the time. It has been great, although I dread the inevitable equalization, when I have to deal with daily life without him.

I began a Master’s Degree program at Fort Hays State University, focusing on Literary Arts. It has been a lot of fun, so far, and I especially look forward to a class on monsters in Gothic literature this Spring. I have academic aspirations to research dark literature in the future. This class should be a great starting point for my study.

The Confabulator Café, the project I began with a local group of writers, celebrated a year online, with no signs of slowing down in 2013. You can find my column there every Monday, with flash fiction published there once a month. I just wrote a re-telling of The Brothers Grimm’s Pied Piper, which will be available there in a couple of weeks. I will post an update when it goes live.

2012 was also a successful year for submissions. According to the good people at Duotrope, I submitted to 55 markets this year. Thanks to that constant stream of submissions, I had writing published in Insomnia Press and Danse Macabre Du Jour. In addition, I have several publications coming out this year. You can see the list and their tentative release dates by clicking “The Work” on the menu above. You can find links to the published pieces there, as well.

What is in store for 2013? There will be a lot of time spent writing literary criticism. I will continue to contribute each week to The Confabulator Café, althoguh I have surrendered my editorial duties there, for now. As for publications, I hope for more of the same, but that is one of those things you can’t control in writing. All you can do is keep writing, keep submitting, and hope someone likes it. Hopefully, I will finish Heaven’s Edge and re-write Kill Creek Road some time in there.

It is an odd thing. 365 days seems like such a long time, yet it disappears so fast, and no matter how much you have done, you never feel like you have done enough. There is always so much left to do. Here’s to the next 365 days, and all the dreams left to chase.

Looking back on a year of the Confabulator Cafe, and an upcoming story in Hungur Magazine

In my weekly Confabulator Cafe blog, I was asked about my favorite assignment this year. See my answer in “Bring me another!

Also, Hungur Magazine, a horror magazine specializing in vampire fiction, has accepted my short story “Bloodline” for publication in their April 30, 2013 issue.

It has been a good year for my writing career, and I am looking forward to  whatever 2013 brings.

 

-Jack