“The Day It Came from Beyond Outer Space”: An Excerpt

I'm excited that my story, "The Day It Came from Beyond Outer Space," is a part of Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2021, currently funding on Kickstarter! This is the second volume anthologizing a wide spectrum of genre stories in homage to the pulp magazines of yesteryear. I love classic sci-fi of the forties and fifties, so …

Writing/Editing Update, September Edition

As I wrapped up a crazy late August, I had to dive straight into a super-busy September. I'd taken on a number of overlapping gigs after estimating the number of hours each one would take, how many pages I'd be able to do in a day, and so on, carefully totaling the hours per day …

“The Ghosts of Glenmirror”

Available for preorder on Kindle, Castle of Horror 4: Women Running from Houses, including my story "The Ghosts of Glenmirror," has a publication date of October 13, and will also be available in trade paperback. "Women running from houses?" you might be saying. "What's that about?" If you Google the phrase, you'll see for yourself, …

Writing/Editing Update, August Edition

The last half of August got a little crazy with a number of deadlines rushing at me, and all month I had a feeling like it was a week earlier than it really was, so the last week was particularly frantic. I'm dropping a few things without any real updates out of the post this time …

Writing/Editing Update, July Edition

Even with all the craziness in the world, I'm trying to make this year a return to publishing for myself, working on three pieces for anthologies and on three more things for self-publishing. Part of the original inspiration for the PODs was to have new print books for convention appearances . . . of course, …

From the Vault: My Battle Against Plagiarizer Frank X. Harris

Jim Kjelgaard (author of the famous Big Red and Irish Red) published the novel Fire-Hunter, the stone-age story of Hawk after he is expelled from his tribe, in 1951. It went through several paperback reprintings throughout the 1960s before going out of print. In 1991 it was republished, with the blessing of the Kjelgaard estate, in an expanded edition …

Boldly Going Into Star Trek Adventures

I've been working on the Star Trek Adventures role-playing game with the fine folks at Modiphius for some four years now, after being "drafted" by Jim Johnson. My role has primarily been as the canon editor, meaning I review the narrative text to ensure the details are consistent with the filmed canon across the multiple …

Writing/Editing Update, June Edition

When I posted last month the Twin Cities were on fire. Things have calmed down on the burning front, but BLM protests are ongoing, as they should be, and people seem to be wearing their masks. Corona cases are steady here in Minnesota, not declining, which would be great, but not rising as in states …

Writing/Editing Update, May Edition

Already under a pandemic lockdown, now we have a curfew as well; I'm typing this month's update after a weekend of protests following the killing of George Floyd in police custody, with an officer's knee on his neck as he pleaded that he couldn't breathe. A pharmacy just a mile and a half from our …

Writing/Editing Update: April Edition

Oof. Another month of shelter in place. But now I can take the laptop onto our patio and work while getting some fresh air and watching the rabbits in our backyard. To keep from going too stir crazy, I've been doing a lot of video calls with friends across the country and even across the …