Murky Depths #13

The last of my short stories to be published while I’m off doing other things is available now in UK-based print mag, Murky Depths, Issue 13. 13 - unlucky for some right? Unfortunately, in my case, yes. Due to a complete cock-up (editor’s words not mine) I will not be credited for my story. Though my name appears on the website and the contents page, the story will be credited to another author. Needless to say I’m disappointed this has happened but it’s not the end of the world. An oversight, no more, no less. And as compensation the editor has offered to include in a future issue (15, I think) an interview with yours truly. The story is Clean Until the Final Act and you can purchase the magazine from their website as well as a number of real world stockists.

GUD Cover Preview & update...

So that, friends, is a preview of GUD Magazine's Issue #5 cover, included here with the permission of the issue's editor, kaolin fire. If you like what you see, past issues are still available in print and pdf at their site. Within #5's pages you will find my dark literary horror, Lost Lying on Your Back. My short fiction, Unzipped, appeared in Issue #1 and received an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008. Other GUD stories have likewise been nominated or better still won awards. Lost Lying on Your Back was written around the same time as Unzipped for a writing workshop-within-a-workshop called Alice's Restaurant and it deals with a similar if darker subject than the tortured protagonist of Unzipped. We all, even the worst, live in hope.

Moving on, I began a rather silly incentive scheme this month/year to get me writing seriously again, and so far – touch wood – it is working. I've reached my reading and writing goals (that is, output-wise) for the month and I'm collecting my (small) reward. The aim, he says half-seriously, is to infuse in me a kind of Pavlovian response so that in the future if my muse utters the words, "write, fool," I will immediately and without question pick up a pen or head to the nearest laptop and start doing just that. As I said, we all live in hope.

The Absent Willow Review & update

I keep a short distance between us, watching them sprint up paths, tackle each other on lawns, and hurdle picket fences like they’re back running drills on the practise field they only just left behind. They take it in turns to wail like banshees, scaring cats up trees or under cars, drawing folks to their windows.

In another year or two, these boys won’t be here. I don’t mean like Owen. They will know what it’s like to grow up and lose interest in things. To move on and do what older kids do, whatever that is. I can’t help but feel jealous. I want to move on too.

-The Manny Prior Halloween Show

The January issue of The Absent Willow Review is now online and includes my contribution, The Manny Prior Halloween Show. It's a lot of words (almost 8000) and pretty dark at times, but it's worth checking out. If you do, please drop a comment here to let me know what you think.


Update:
I'm back working on the novel after a two month hiatus and it's moving along nicely again, very nicely in fact. Wrote a scene on Saturday morning that even had me a little freaked out never mind poor Ella Bradburn, my protagonist. The plan is still the same for this on-off project - to have the first draft finished by the tail end of this year, if not sooner. Just gotta keep at it, I suppose.

I won't be submitting any short stories for a while (most of them have already found homes and the rest simply aren't ready to be set loose at this time) but I do have a couple coming up in print, in GUD Magazine and Murky Depths. I've seen the cover art for Issue #5 of GUD and it's certainly eye-catching!

I hope you'll read The Manny Prior Halloween Show or at least give it a try and see if it appeals to your tastes.

All the best.

Sand Between a Dead Boy's Toes at Nossa Morte

The latest issue of Nossa Morte includes my seventieth publication, a dark fiction entitled Sand Between a Dead Boy's Toes.

I remember (as a kid) imagining my bed was a boat and the carpet a sea. The sharks in the tale came to me in a dream. As for the dead boy - he dropped himself into the story... If you want to read the result, pop over and take a look, only please come back and tell me what you think...

The Bug in the Suit available at Electric Spec

The latest issue of Electric Spec is now live and includes my dark sci-fi tale, The Bug in the Suit. Read it here or download the entire issue in PDF or PRC formats. Note: italics seem to be omitted from the online version so I'd recommend the PDF. Comments welcome.

New Short Fiction Coming Soon

Crawl your way over to Electric Spec at the end of June for my six-and-a-half-thousand word science fiction horror tale, The Bug in the Suit...

Finally, a GUD home...

After a difficult four-year journey, my short story, Lost Lying on Your Back, will finally see publication in Issue 5 of GUD Magazine (Autumn 2009). Lost Lying is dark, literary, written in 2nd Person, and deals with some pretty heavy subject matter. A tough, tough sell, in other words. But I always felt it was one of my best and therefore worth the effort. I’m really happy at the moment, and hope to build on this success by finding homes in 2009 for my two science fiction stories, The Bug in the Suit and Clean Until the Final Act. Onwards.

Also, Sand Between a Dead Boy’s Toes, has now survived a painstaking third draft. Minor edits aside, it looks ready to submit. I’ve got pretty high hopes for this story, too (don’t we have high hopes for every one, though?), so watch this space.

Coming soon: my story-by-story review of the Stephen King collection, Just After Sunset.

On The Radio...

...community radio in Burbank, California to be precise.

Pulp fiction podcast site Well Told Tales have a small weekly radio show now, and tonight they're broadcasting the podcast of my supernatural short story, Hear Not the Murmur on the Wind. So, if you're free and looking for something to do on Saturday night around 9pm Pacific Time, why not head on over to 925kyhy and listen to the Internet feed...

Australian author Kris Ashton has this to say about my tale:

Finding a new angle in a ghost story is nigh on impossible, but Steven J. Dines has done it. It's a complex and sometimes confusing narrative (as the comments on the WTT site show) but if you follow it through the pay-off is intense.

Kris has a story called "The Pothole" coming soon to Well Told Tales. Check it out!

'Hear Not..." review and First Acceptance of 2009

Over in The Fix’s From the Podosphere section, Paul S Jenkins has this to say about my short story, Hear Not the Murmur on the Wind, which appeared on pulp podcast site Well Told Tales last month:

This is a ghostly revenge story, told from the viewpoint of the ghost, which is a common theme, but here given arresting atmosphere by good writing, complemented by J. B. Goodspeed’s reading. A man returns to haunt the wife who murdered him, but finds not what he expects. Short and effective.

In other news...my first acceptance of 2009 - the good folks over at Words and Images magazine have expressed an interest in publishing one of two flash fictions I submitted to them in November. We’re still finalising details at the moment, but I should have definite confirmation soon.

(Going Going) GONE

This year's special publication from Not One of Us, (Going Going) GONE, featuring my short story, In the Cage with Ghosts is available now from Genre Mall (scroll down).

CONTENTS:
Stories:
Patricia Russo: Claude’s Ghost Story
Eric Del Carlo: That Season
J. Michael Shell: Too Cute
Steven J. Dines: In the Cage with Ghosts

Poems:
J.C. Runolfson: Kumiho
Sonya Taaffe: The Golem in Flight
Sonya Taaffe: The Road to Volodny (Partisan Song)
K.S. Hardy: Shy in the Sky

Art: John Stanton (cover), Aunia Kahn

Listen to...the Murmur on the Wind

My gothic-esque short story, Hear Not the Murmur on the Wind, is available now from pulp fiction podcast website
Well Told Tales. J B Goodspeed reads.

Drop by, listen to my tale online, or download the mp3. Either way, I hope you enjoy it...

Not One of Us & GUD News

My latest short story, In the Cage With Ghosts (mentioned elsewhere in my blog and one I struggled with for the longest time) has been accepted for publication by John Benson, the editor of the respected small press magazine, Not One of Us. No update yet about what issue it will appear in, but I'm looking forward to seeing the story in print. Thank you, John.

And then yesterday I was reading Wikipedia's entry for GUD, a magazine that published one of my short stories in its second issue, and noticed the following under "Awards":

Stories from GUD Issues 0 and 1 received 3 honorable mentions in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Awards 2008

Steven J. Dines's 'Unzipped'
Sarah Singleton and Chris Butler's 'Song of the Dead'
Leslie Claire Walker's 'Max Velocity'

It was the first I knew about it! I have made some enquiries since, and it seems Wiki have got their facts right - Unzipped received an HM!

Good news indeed.

Satirica available to buy & 3rd appearance at Well Told Tales

Speculative fiction anthology, Satirica, featuring my story, All for One, is now available to buy from online book sellers. Visit your local Amazon and pick yourself up a copy for the equivalent of just under ten pounds...

Amazon UK
Amazon US

If the gorgeous cover art doesn't sell it to you, let me have one final push...
...24 Stories that hold a mirror up to mankind. Before reading this book, make sure to take your medications as directed. These stories take no prisoners. They are direct, frank, and most skillfully blunt. They are not designed to be politically correct. They are not designed to pamper. They are designed to make you think. Prepare to learn a great deal about yourself... Fasten your seat-belts....

Sadly, print horror mag, City Slab, which was due to publish my short story Lost Lying on Your Back, has permanently closed for business. After three years of hunting for a good home for Lost, I am right back, square one.

Some good news, however - I will soon be making my third appearance over at Well Told Tales with a ghost-slash-revenge tale entitled Hear Not the Murmur on the Wind. Podcasts of my previous two stories are still available, just look for the links at the side of this page.

Satirica

Hardcover anthology, Satirica: An Anthology of Satirical Speculative Fiction, can now be Pre-Ordered from Cowboy Logic Press and should be available soon from Amazon.

For your money you will be getting 110,000 words or 24 stories from the likes of David Thorpe (author of Hybrids ), the ever-prolific Lawrence R. Dagstine, and yours truly.

My contribution, All For One, was previously published in the now-defunct Darker Matter (#2) and received the following review from SF Crowsnest:

...a futuristic outlook of Britain where things haven't gone entirely to plan and something approaching a police state exists. Prime Minister Greengrass is in charge of this political satire which is somewhere between 'Yes, Minister' and 'Children Of Men'. A story and an author to look out for.

In other news...despite making the shortlist, Manny Prior's Halloween was turned down by GUD Magazine, though the editor of issue 4 said it was "nicely twisty" and "really draws one in." I'm disappointed, but at 8000 words I always knew it would be a tough sell. Pity, because I believe it is up there with my best work...

Grasslimb Journal

My literary flash fiction, The Fifth Friend, appears in the latest issue (Vol.6, No.1) of the San Diego-based Grasslimb Journal.

On a personal note, it is an honour to appear alongside author Ralph Robert Moore. Drop by his site, read some of his work, you'll become a fan too.

Touching the Monkey: The best of www.tqrstories.com

TQR celebrates three years of total quality reading with its first "Best Of" print anthology available direct from iUniverse here.

Inside you'll find ten stories, including my contribution to proceedings, Sunrise in Coat City.

Oh, and the title's an eye-catcher, I'm sure you'll agree!

City Slab

I am thrilled to announce that pro horror mag City Slab have accepted my short story, Lost Lying on Your Back, for publication in a future issue.

More details when I have them.