Dark Corner Holiday Trust and Treachery Cafe Bizarre Things

I told you, here and there along the way, that I was working on stories for anthologies. Those anthologies are now out or on the verge of outing. …On the verge of being issued, I mean.

DARK THINGS II: CAT CRIMES is now out and available from Amazon in paper and for Kindle. I’ve put up a page about it here, with an excerpt here (if it sounds familiar, that’s because I posted it before). This was a labor of love on everybody’s part: all proceeds go to cat rescue.

The denizens of the Blog Book Tour Cafe, under the leadership of Drill Sergeant Dani Greer, have (don’t faint) cooperated (wave a burnt feather under your nose and you’ll soon feel better) on an anthology, THE CORNER CAFE: A TASTY COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES. Each story must at least mention the words Corner Cafe. The project was, in part, an exercise to learn how to format for Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) program. The anthology will be issued for Kindle this summer. Then I’ll teach a bit about formatting for Smashwords and we’ll issue it there in a few months. I don’t know if it’ll be up in paper through CreateSpace. We haven’t gotten that far, yet. My contribution is a Bud Blossom story. Bud, in case you haven’t met him, is not the delicate flower his name would imply. I keep telling myself he only exists in my imagination, which is bad enough, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I went downtown tomorrow and found he had opened a restaurant on Big Indian Creek.

TRUST AND TREACHERY: TALES OF POWER, INTRIGUE AND VIOLENCE is due out in late fall, in time for the winter holiday shopping season (YES, I said, “winter holiday,” instead of “Christmas”. So there.) My story in this one is “Short Dark Future”, inspired by a conversation I had with a far-too-trusting person.

The Southern Indiana Writers’ Group will very shortly issue HOLIDAY BIZARRE. We took our out-of-print anthology CHRISTMAS BIZARRE, dropped the stories from past members, and called for stories from current members involving other holidays. The stories will be arranged in order of the holidays. Mine is “Lonnie, Me and the Battle of St. Crispin’s Day”.

This is why writers need to be writing all the time and submitting all the time. You write a story. You send it out. It gets rejected. You immediately send it out again. You read the guidelines for an anthology. If you don’t have a story that fits, you write one. If you do have a story that fits, you send it. A rejected story is just a story you’re free to send somewhere that’s a better fit for it. And then BOOM you have a bunch of publications lined up and you feel as happy as a barrel full of clams. Or something.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write about a trusting and/or treacherous cat in a bizarre cafe on a holiday.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Dark Corner Holiday Trust and Treachery Cafe Bizarre Things

  1. Red Tash

    May 24, 2012 at 9:44am

    So true. I had a rejected horro short immediately accepted as a comic script. That’ll be three comics I’ve written, coming out this year. It is a dream come true.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 24, 2012 at 9:48am

      How awesomely cool! Where do you submit comic scripts? Who is publishing them? Tell, tell, tell!

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      • Leslea

        May 24, 2012 at 11:23am

        The artist who did my Wizard covers is “kind of a big deal,” as the kids say. He decided to matchmake artists and writers for a horror antho, and two comics will be in it. Then, through that project, I was invited to contrib to a steampunk comic antho, and my PIC Axel and I are finishing up a script for that, as well. 🙂

        That doesn’t even include all the other subs this year, and novels…big year!!!

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  2. Jane

    May 24, 2012 at 9:51am

    Let’s see: A cat walks into a cafe, sits down at a table, and starts eating a mouse he’s brought in with him. The waitress says, ‘You can’t bring in food from outside,” The cat replies, “I just caught it in the foyer.” The waitress says, “Oh, that’s fine, Will you have some milk with that?” “Yes, thank you,” says the polite cat as he finishes off his mouse with a crunch.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 24, 2012 at 10:04am

      ~snorting coffee out of my nose~ Not based on reality, is it? At all? ~cough~Vint~cough~

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      • Jane

        May 25, 2012 at 10:52am

        I was just trying out your writing prompt See?? No reality here. (snicker)

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        • Author

          Marian Allen

          May 26, 2012 at 10:27am

          Haven’t figured out email on the Cruz yet so messaging you here. At hospital w Mom. She’s having that pill she huffed removed.

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          • Jane

            May 26, 2012 at 12:47pm

            OMG give the sweet girl all my love! I hate pills. They are sneaky opponents.

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  3. Jane

    May 24, 2012 at 9:51am

    P.S. Congrats on the pubs!!!

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