Table of Contents Announced for New Heroes Anthology

Hey everyone,

I’m really excited! The New Hero anthology Table of Contents has been announced and I’m in it!. You may recall me posting about my short story and Stone Skin Press a while back where I talked about “Fangs and Formaldehyde,” about an iconic vampire. One of the inspirations for this particular story was Twilight. No seriously, it really was. To me, many modern-day vampires have had their fangs removed. Even though they prey on humans to survive and have traditionally been monstrous creatures, they’ve been de-fanged for romantic plot purposes. Mind you, I have absolutely no problem with romance authors or readers. Romance is a popular genre and it does have its place in our wide, wide world of fiction. These authors work just as hard as anyone else does to tell a good story.

When I was working on my story, I wanted my modern vampires needed to have a legitimate reason why they weren’t monstrous creatures that wasn’t just: “Because otherwise people will hunt us.” This was a lot of fun to worldbuild because it was a challenge. Was I able to do something unique? Well, you can be the judge of that.

Standing alongside me are several other fine authors including Rich Dansky, Kyla Ward. Ed Greenwood and my friend Maurice Broaddus. After you check it out, be sure to read Diagramming the New Hero where the editor, Robin Laws, explains how he put the order together.

Table of Contents for New Heroes

    Ezekiel Saw the Wheel, Julia Bond Ellingboe

    Better Off Not Knowing, Jeff Tidball

    Warrior of the Sunrise, Maurice Broaddus

    The Midnight Knight, Ed Greenwood

    The Thirty-Ninth Labor of Reb Palache, Richard Dansky

    On Her Majesty’s Deep Space Service, Jonny Nexus

    Cursebreaker: The Jikininki and the Japanese Jurist, Kyla Ward

    Against the Air Pirates, Graeme Davis

    Fangs and Formaldehyde, Monica Valentinelli

    Bad Beat for Aaron Burr, Kenneth Hite

    Charcuterie, Chuck Wendig

    Sundown in Sorrow’s Hollow, Monte Cook

    A Man of Vice, Peter Freeman

    The Captain, Adam Marek

I hope you visit Stone Skin Press or watch my blog for more updates. This’ll be a fun anthology to read.

February 23, 2011
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Got a Brain? Pre-Order The Zombie Feed Vol 1

The Zombie Feed Volume 1Earlier I posted the Table of Contents for The Zombie Feed, Volume 1. My short story is entitled “Tomorrow’s Precious Lambs.”

If you follow my work, this particular short story will be unusual for you to read because it’s a lot darker and grittier than my other stories. When I was figuring out an angle for this tale, I built a world where the zombie invasion wasn’t completely devastating. Then, I gave my zombies some unique attributes that supported the main character’s story. Told from a cop’s perspective, you’ll find out why he lives day to day, hanging on to whatever hope he can find.

I hope you consider picking up a copy of The Zombie Feed Vol. 1. Not only will you find out why my story is entitled “Tomorrow’s Precious Lambs,” but you’ll also read other sinister tales by acclaimed authors including Lucien Soulban and B.J. Burrow.

To get your hands on a copy just click on the book cover or pre-order The Zombie Feed Vol. 1 and feed your head! The editor will be signing your copy; several of these writers, including myself, will be happy to sign our stories as well.

February 22, 2011
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My Horror Short Story and The Zombie Feed

Hi everyone,

I am thrilled to announce that my horror short story entitled “Tomorrow’s Precious Lambs” has been selected for the debut anthology from The Zombie Feed. This story was a lot of fun to write; the words sounded like music when I wrote them down. If I had to give this one a rating, though…it’d definitely be more on the “R” side.

Anyway, thought you might want to check out the Table of Contents to see some of the other authors.

The Zombie Feed, Volume One

Zombie Anthology Table of Contents

  • Cold Comfort by Nathaniel Tapley
  • This Final December Day by Lee Thompson
  • What’s Next? by Elaine Blose
  • Rabid Raccoons by Kristin Dearborn
  • The Twenty-Three Second Anomaly by Ray Wallace
  • Not Dead by BJ Burrow
  • Tomorrow’s Precious Lambs by Monica Valentinelli
  • The Fare by Lucien Soulban
  • A Shepherd of the Valley by Maggie Jamison
  • Broken Bough by Daniel I. Russell
  • The Last Generation by Joe Nazare
  • Goddamn Electric by Ken Wood
  • Hipsters in Love by Danger Slater
  • The Sickness unto Death by Brandon Alspaugh
  • Lifeboat by Simon McCaffrey

The anthology will debut in February or early March. I’m going to talk to the publisher to see if we can’t post a preview for you to check out on www.flamesrising.com or elsewhere.

More to come!

January 11, 2011
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New Short Story and Stoneskin Press

Hi everyone,

I am pleased to announce that my short story entitled “Fangs and Formaldehyde” will be published in an upcoming anthology from the newly-launched publisher Stone Skin Press. The theme for this anthology is about iconic characters. The idea is so “big” that they’re publishing two of them!

The iconic character I created goes by the name of “Atlas” and he’s a vampire who helps other vampires. In my setting, vampires are not the romanticized kind that well… Glitter. They are the kind that feed (and feed regularly) on humans. To them, we’re food.

If you’ve read any of my other stories, you know I often build worlds for my characters to live in. This story is no different and could easily be part of something bigger. I won’t give any more away, because to tell you what my vampires are all about will spoil the surprise.

Be sure to watch for news about how you can get your hands on a copy of New Heroes or New Heroes Two, edited by Robin Laws. With names like James Lowder, Matt Forbeck, Ed Greenwood, Alex Bledsoe, Kyla Ward and Monte Cook in the mix, I can guarantee that you won’t want to miss out.

– M

December 28, 2010
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To Kill a Story

Tombstone with SaintSome writers refer to their unpublishable work as “trunk novels” or “trunk stories.” For my broken stories, I kill them and then send them to my virtual morgue, which is a folder on my computer.

So what qualifies as a dying story in my book?

Honestly, I think that the decision to kill a story is a personal one that should be left up to each individual writer. Only you can decide whether or not your broken stories can be fixed. (Of course, I’m talking about the stories we write before we submit them to an editor or publication.)

Sometimes, the stories that I kill are heavy on characterization and have little to no plot. A couple of times, I’ve killed stories intentionally after I’ve written them, like my “warm up” stories that flex my fiction writing muscles, or my more experimental works. There was also one story that I killed because of the way it was structured; I felt it would have made a better screenplay than a narrative.

It sucks sending stories to my morgue, but I feel that it’s all part of being a writer. No writer sits down at a keyboard every day and tells excellent stories every time they type. Writing, like learning how to sing or play piano, requires regular practice to keep those skills sharp. Sometimes, your performances will be awesome. Sometimes, they won’t. When they’re not, I review them to see if they’re salvageable. If I feel they cannot be fixed, then I commit them to my morgue, grieve for a few minutes and then start writing the next one.

The good news is that I still use what I’ve created by reviewing interesting concepts or taking pieces of characters or prose that I like. (I literally looting the corpses. Hah!) After all, getting the words onto my screen is only half the battle, because sometimes a page of words doesn’t make a great story, no matter how many times I revise it.

And that, dear readers, is why I have a morgue.

October 8, 2010
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