Good Dirt I was published in Corvus Review Issue 20 Spring/Summer 2023 on July 2nd. My story starts on page 63.
July 2nd was also my mom’s birthday and this story is dedicated to her and hopefully has a little of her magic.
Good Dirt II appeared in Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Feast Contest, coming in fifth. II is a weird horror companion piece.
Good Dirt was inspired by my paternal grandmother declaring that my parents needed good dirt trucked in.
me and my mom looking alike, velour, baby
So thrilled to be in the third issue of Hallowzine!
Love art next to my piece. Candy corn will kill us all :)
Honestly, happening across this cool sugary spooky zine in the interweb just made me happy and my short flash getting accepted and the kind words of the editors, Laura & Lindsay, sent me spinning.
”We loved the pace of this, and you are so right, Hags are criminally underrated. You manage to do a lot in a short piece, and every line is really well constructed and pushed us along so fast to the next line-- I had to read it a few times because I was so excited I just kept breezing through, and I wanted to savor it a little more.”
Every acceptance just keeps me going. The Hag was inspired by a vivid South Carolina Sea Island myth I read about in Raw Head, Bloody Bones by Mary E. Lyons. I like to imagine the monster’s perspective. Especially if the monster is female.
Hallowzine, founded in the belly of a pandemic, is an annual digital zine focused on Halloween.
What a great way to celebrate Halloween!
My story Good Dirt II was published in Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Feast Contest. I got #5 out of 10!
A little taste
“I don’t know what I was before I was born into slow flesh, flawed and corrupting, but I know I will find the answers grubbing in the dirt”
My other submission Good Dirt I got a close-but-no-cigar shortlist shout-outs! Pretty cool and it eggs me on because sometimes writing is a lonely pursuit and you get covered in dirt.
Very excited that Good Dirt II will be included in a future Molotov Cocktail’s Prize Winners Anthology print issue.
Please sink your teeth into the entire Flash Feast issue!
And congrats to all the winners!
PS: a friend of mine said that this story “treads the fertile uncertain line between horror and sci-fi”. So I feel cool now
My flash fiction piece, Morforwyn, was published in The Wild Hunt - Is it safe? Issue # 2 on July 28, 2020.
Look at the fantastic art below. Have to ask the editor who the visual artist is.
The Wild Hunt posted on twitter the following sentiment which I think sums up my reason for writing this story.
Mermaids are not usually thought of as dangerous. Nor is it in the universal folklore that humankind did terrible things to them but of course we did. (That’s if they existed).
I was especially inspired by this cryptozoology I came across about Welsh mermaids. (I am a quarter Welsh and would love someday to visit Wales but who knows now. Some mermaids started out as giants, they diminished as everything seems to do when encountering certain elements of humanity.
My piece Detached was published in Molotov Cocktail on January 31, 2020 in Volume 10, Issue 12. What a way to start the new year!
The cover art for Volume 10, Issue 12 of Molotov Cocktail
I actually wrote this story and submitted it to Molotov’s Flash Monster 2019 contest but it did not make it into their Top 10. But I did receive a "Close But No Cigar" shout-out on the site.
I never would have written this story without that contest. I always wanted to write about the penanggalan but Molotov gave me the push.
I discovered the penanggalan through D&D. Its illustration was always one of more grotesque ones. But it also haunted me. And then I found the Fiend Folio at my childhood home.
None of the origin stories I read completely satisfied me. I fixated on the fact that a penanggalan will remain unnaturally beautiful throughout her life.
I’ve always wondered what made a woman choose to become a penanggalan (and if it was a choice). I examined the physical price of beauty and the extremes some go to attain that irreproachable veneer.
Hope you enjoy!
