Helloooooooooooo!  Yes, it’s been a while.  Far too long since the last time I posted anything on this site.  But I promise that will change here very shortly.  I have a very special announcement planned for next month–something nearly ten years in the making–but for now I have a new story available for purchase.  The Book of Blasphemous Words is now out in trade paperback and Kindle from A Murder of Storytellers Publications.  My flash story “Bust To Dust” is featured among twenty-eight other tales about the dark side of faith.  Admittedly, this story was not originally written for this anthology.  I wrote this over a year ago for a webzine asking for the most outrageous flash story you could write.  I enjoy writing flash and attempted to write something completely over-the-top in five hundred words or less.  I believe I succeeded.  I never did hear back from that site, but I’m very happy it was selected to be a part of this project.  I hope you check it out.

Not so long ago, human beings were cursed with fear. They clamored for hope in a world of boundless suffering and death. They called out to the heavens and summoned gods. They crafted religions that would serve as a candle against the howling night.

That which alights must also burn.

A zealot spits venomous words from his pulpit, his congregation listening and nodding, their disgust with their neighbors boiling into a riotous rage. A girl returns from Bible Camp nine-months pregnant with God’s child–images of a golden flame pressing on her chest, paralyzing her, flood her nightmares. Heaven replaces its angels with automata, dispensing salvation and damnation with callous efficiency.

Book of Blasphemous Words is a weird fiction, horror, and speculative fiction anthology about humanity’s relationship with its gods. When we answer the call for salvation from the bondage of the material–when we believe in gods–we reach a hand into the unknown and risk losing it to something peckish. When we forget the power of the hearth, we risk a conflagration that can return civilization to the dirt whence it has come.