Bowery Gothic Reading of Mara (October 30, 2022) - video!

I read my short story Mara for the Bowery Gothic’s Halloween Reading at Von Bar on October 30, 2022.

Let’s go to the video tape! (many of you don’t even get that!)

Throughout my reading, I started to hunch over the mic. I only realized afterwards that the mic stand was falling and as I held onto it and my pages, I started to lean to one side! Ha!

The other contributors were so talented and I loved hearing their pieces. The final reading of the night was of Poe’s The Raven. That was such a funny and unique reading of well know piece. Loved it!

It was so awesome to get back into things, so thankful to have the opportunity.

Please check out Bowery Gothic and have a drink or two at Von Bar.

Hallowzine publishes The Hag

So thrilled to be in the third issue of Hallowzine!

Flip to page 18 for The Hag.

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!

Mara published in Bowery Gothic

My piece Mara was published in Bowery Gothic on September 1st in their Summer Ghosts Edition VII.

This story was inspired by the original nightmare known as Mara and other names in Time Life’s The Enchanted World’s Night Creatures fable. These were books I inherited from my Welsh grandfather. He had such a wonderful odd library, inspiration galore.

Here is a recent article from Atlas Obscura:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/original-nightmare-demon-suffocation-night-terror

I enjoy telling stories from the perspective of the monsters and having the monsters win.

The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781. JOHN HENRY FUSELI

 Please check out the entire issue!

Archived Copy

A little about Bowery Gothic

Inspired by a reading series at a haunted bar on the Bowery, Bowery Gothic is a literary journal seeking to publish the highest quality literature and art. We look for stories—both real and imagined—that exist in that liminal space: between the seen and unseen; between entertainment and fear. We are excited by work that stands at the threshold and looks into the unknown. We are excited by the sublimity of terror.

We are not interested in gore, violence, or perversion. Instead, send us literary work that transcends genre, that scares us and makes us think: Damn, that was fresh. We are drawn to literature that conjures up tales told by our favorite writers—from Henry James to Kelly Link; Shirley Jackson to Octavia E. Butler—stories that entice, amaze, terrify.