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Blog postWell, I never got around to submitting this one anywhere, and I probably won't be around in 2038, so here goes. Enjoy.
The International Year of Same Old, Same Old Welcome back from 2004, you seventeen-year cicada /
the turkeys and raccoons have missed their tasty breakfasts so much /
what kind of life is yours, anyway, as fodder / though I suppose
we were all food back in The International Year of Rice /
two hundred -
Blog postMany people who I deeply respect have extolled the qualities of the series Mad Men, set in the 1960's Madison Avenue advertising world. I tried again this week to catch the drift, but failed for the third and last time. I've come to the conclusion that I simply don't enjoy television shows without heroes, and I could find no one to root for in Mad Men. They seem a collection of sad men and women with virtually no self-awareness. I've had the same reaction to Deadwood, The Sopranos, and other ser
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Blog postWarning- Spoilers ahead.
I finally got a chance to see Tarantino's latest film. From the buzz I had high expectations: perhaps not Pulp Fiction high, but high enough. I felt the film fell far short, however, for several reasons.
1. The character arcs were lacking. Neither of the main characters, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, evolved. DiCaprio's character came to his revelation that his career was in jeopardy early in the film and never moved on from that, while Pi -
Blog postSome time ago I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to up my game in the writing of crime fiction I needed to read as many crime short stories as possible. This week I've been reading through the latest issue of Crimewave Magazine, number 13. I was surprised to find that it was very different from the fiction found in other genre mags such as Ellery Queen, Mystery Weekly or Switchblade.
I found the primary difference in the approach to story. Unlike other genre magazines i -
Blog postI've had this story sitting on my computer for years, about a woman who, after her husband dies unexpectedly, decides to build a wall where people can go to complain to God about his injustices. Antithetical to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, if you will. Imagine my delight in finding a call for stories for an anthology of alternative theologies, for which my story seemed a perfect fit. I was particularly happy when I saw the contributors, many writers whom I have admired for years. It should be
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Blog postMy short story "Family Reunion" will appear online in the September issue of the Scarlet Leaf Review. I'm so proud of this piece; he's gone and found a home.
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Blog postThe stories I write don't seem to fit into the forms that the mystery mags that pay professional rates desire (Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, and the like). They're too edgy (dirty) or violent or lack a true mystery. Having given up long ago the notion that I could get rich with fiction, I now look for venues with a new criterium. Ideally, I'd like my stories to appear in journals that work hard to draw attention and readership (Switchblade Magazine is a good example), a hard sell in a market w
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Blog postThose of you who follow my progress in the crime fiction world, noting the occasional sale, might not quite appreciate the financial side of the business, what it is like to be an author selling short stories, I thought you might be interested in what crime/mystery magazines pay for the stories they run.
There are a small handful of magazines that are heads and shoulders above others in both sales and payment. As you might imagine, the competition for a slot there is fierce. Perhaps -
Blog postI grew up passionate about sports, basketball in particular. I'd like to know how many hours I spent on my home court practicing my jump shot, just so when game time came I would have at least a faint chance of burying one.
When I began to take my writing seriously, I unconsciously adopted the same strategies, and to some extent they have worked for me. These include:Practice: I took a hard look at my writing and had to admit that my skills were very unpolished, so I set about writing with -
Blog postI may have reached a point that I never anticipated. After reading fiction for 60 years, and writing it for 15, perhaps I've seen too many plots, because I'm having more and more trouble finding books which genuinely surprise me. Eeny Meeny by M. J. Arlidge, a crime novel, is the latest book whose plot line seemed easy to predict.
This isn't to criticize the writer, who did his/her best to follow the tried and true thriller progression (things get worse, over and over, until the climax) bu -
Blog postI finished Lee Child's latest Reacher novel, The Midnight Line, and thought it exhibited both the best and the worst of his writing. The best is a great deal of heart, as he deals with a war vet with disfiguring wounds and an opiate problem. It only enobles Reacher when he solves the problem in a very sensitive and compassionate way.
The worst of his writing is the padding that some of his novels contain, stretching a lean plot line over 300 pages. In this work, Reacher's repeated apprecia -
Blog postI'm excited to announce that my speculative fiction short story "Death Is Not the Worst Thing" has been selected for the upcoming post-apocalypse anthology Enter the Rebirth. This anthology is the final volume in a three-book set, beginning with Enter the Apocalypse and Enter the Aftermath, from TANSTAAFL Press. The book is expected to be released this winter.
The title is taken from a quote from Plato. -
Blog postThe wife and I viewed the new Emily Watson/Tom Hanks sci-fi flick The Circle. My reaction? Meh. The central conflict was interesting; how can a company like Google abuse the data bonanza they reap to bring about a world reminiscent of 1984? And the cast was excellent. I was glad to see an old face, Karen Gillen, who played the Doctor's sidekick when David Tennet was Dr. Who.
So what's not to love? The story was predictable, some of the character's most crucial actions were unmotivated, and -
Blog postI'm delighted to learn that my story "The Anvil" will appear in the summer issue of The Sonder Review, a lovely journal. This literary story explores the relationship between a man who needs a heart transplant and his suicidal sister, who has a perfectly good heart. It's not a comedy.
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Blog postI've been on quite a roll recently: my sales this year include-
"The Youngtown Tune-up," Mystery Weekly Magazine, February 2016
"The Jackpot," Thuglit Magazine #22, March 2016
"The Art of Addition by Subtraction," Ekphrastic Review, March 2016
"No Loose Ends," Dames and Sin Anthology, Spring 2016
"Empathy," Stories from the Near Future Anthology, Spring 2016
"Second-hand Monkey," Best of Ohio Antholog -
Blog postMy short story "The Youngstown Tune-up" is now available in the February issue of Mystery Weekly. Back in 1959, when this story is set, the tune-up was slang for a car bomb, so you can imagine what happens.
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Blog postHow the dog should be dressed photo by Arnold GatileoMy friend Ron and I continue on our quest to find the best Chicago-style hot dog in Columbus. To that end, today we tried out Daredevil Dogs in the OSU campus district. This very tiny restaurant must do a resounding business in carryout and delivery to the bar next door, because there isn't enough seating to pay for the operation. It makes Dirty Franks downtown look cavernous.
Our conclusion? The all-be -
Blog postIn my continuing search for the best low-budget sci-fi films I watched 2013's Coherence. It was entertaining if imperfect, with a talented cast and a story line that would amuse those of us who enjoy films such as Memento, Mulholland Drive and Inception.
This and other genre films made on a pauper's budget show what can happen with a good story, as opposed to films that rely heavily on special effects (I'm thinking Pacific Rim and the Transformers series, among others). People are interest -
Blog postI recently had a conversation with young-adult fiction author Suzanne Goldsmith ("Washashore") about finding actions for characters that suggest emotions, to avoid the need to directly name the emotion a character is feeling and thereby fall into the trap of telling rather than showing. Too often, I resort to a few physical manifestations; drumming fingers for nervousness, pinched eyebrows for suspicion, dodging eye contact for deceit. Over the years, I've tried to expand my collection
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Blog postMy story "Even Steven" is now available on Expound Magazine, Issue 3. It's a bit of magical realism exploring the healing of old family wounds. And it's free!
Expound's mission is to bridge the gap between writing from the African continent and the rest of the world. Accordingly, my story is surrounded by some very exciting content.
The handsome magazine is formatted as a PDF download. -
Blog postDaniel LoboAre you a fiction writer or poet? Do you submit your work? Then, if you're like most of us, you receive rejections. Do you sometimes wonder if the polite note you receive is the magazine's boilerplate or something that indicates a higher level of rejection? Then there's a wiki you might find fascinating, the Rejection Wiki. It shows the standard rejections text and higher-level rejections text from hundreds of journals.
Don't let those rejections get you down; rejection i -
Blog postAlphadesignerOccasionally I'll run across a story concept that I unabashedly envy and wish I'd conceived. Such is the conceit behind the novel The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. This mystery, winner of an Edgar Award a few years ago, is set almost in present time, but in an America that has just learned that a planet-killing asteroid is on a collision course with Earth within the year.
Against the backdrop of societal anger and resignation, of the decay of essential services, the -
Blog postMy crime short story "Honor Among Thieves" is now available on Mysterical-e.com, for free. Enjoy!
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Blog postMy friend Ron and I have reserved no expense in pursuing our quest to find the best hot dogs in Columbus. Today we tried the city's oldest (over 100 years) and most revered coney dog palace, Phillip's Original Coney Island. Once a staple of the north side when High Street south of OSU campus was very iffy, it now occupies a large and comfortable building with plenty of parking on West Broad Street near the old Cooper Stadium.
Ron had been a regular at the old Phillip's 50 years ago, -
Blog postJon SeidmanI'm not one to read reviews of movies beforehand, as I find my tastes are not those of the general public. Sometimes this works to my disadvantage, as it did with the recent release, Mr. Holmes. I had the general impression that the critics had viewed it favorably, but had no idea about the plot except for the notion that it dealt with his last case. Given that, I expected a mystery story along the lines of the Jeremy Britt television episodes, but with better acting, since Ian McKell
Titles By Tom Barlow
Stories from the Near-Future
Sep 25, 2016
by
Bud Sparhawk,
Jeff P. Jones,
Tara Campbell,
Arthur M. Doweyko,
David Castlewitz,
Natalie Nikolovski,
Jenna Gordon,
Dale L. Sproule,
Jill Hand
$2.99
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THUGLIT Issue Twenty-Two
Feb 29, 2016
by
Rob Hart,
Matthew Hockey,
Tom Barlow,
Joshua Moyes,
William Powell,
Jon Zelazny,
Nolan Knight,
Robert Hart,
Todd Robinson
$1.99
Other Formats:
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