"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
First off, I finished a longer story (one I started maybe a year or so ago!) Sent it off to the Saturday Evening Post where I’ve received encouraging rejections in the past. It’s one of a series of stories and I am working on another in the series. (I’ve been lazy but I’ve been working on it!)
Wrote at least one poem and started on another (maybe more.)
Wrote or finished a few of the Queer SciFi columns I’d started last month. I feel better having a few “at the ready” for the next couple of months.
Got ideas for and plotted out (half-assed) a few longer stories.
Wrote the weekly flash fiction stories and the monthly one as well.
I am slipping into that stereotype of the guy who watches videos all night instead of getting the writing done. Need more discipline; I’m kind of slipping.
And as I was readying this post I found the story I sent to the Post was rejected (nicely!) so I sent it off somewhere else!
Got two anthologies by Ardath Mayhar, who I’d heard about but never read (after a post on Keith West’s blog https://adventuresfantastic.com/ for her birthday; he had met Mayhar!) And I’ve been on a Mayhar jag, I don’t know if I’d read her stories before. Read “Aunt Dolly” and “The Creek, It Done Riz.” Both in “100 Menacing Little Murder Stories.” Very dark fun!
Also read two stories out of her collections: “The Affair Of the Midnight Midget,” a Sherlock Holmes (really Mrs. Hudson!) story from “Crazy Quilt, the Best Short Fiction Of Ardath Mayhar.” Mrs. Hudson is perfectly in character; she doesn’t suddenly show Holmes’ deductive abilities. Also read the title story in “Slewfoot Sally And the Flying Mule.” Both great fun! Also read her story “The Weapon,” in the “Best of…” collection.
Also on my Mayhar jag I read “A Night In Possum Holler” which is in “100 Fiendish Little Frightmares.” Those “100 Little…” anthologies are a treasure trove of new/old stories. (Okay, new in the 90s!)
Speaking of the “100 Little…” anthologies, I read some Edward D. Hoch stories for his birthday: “Twine” and “The Man Who Was Everywhere.” Both from “100 Menacing Little Murder Stories.” Also read Hoch’s “Traynor’s Cipher,” “Violet Crime” and “The Spy Who Did Nothing.” Those three in “100 Sneaky Little Sleuth Stories.”
I tried to read some of the non-Dickens stories in his anthology “The Haunted House,” taken from stories in one of his magazines, but I gave up on one and the other wasn’t worth it; just a waste of time joke story where it is all a dream brought about by the Ague. For the record, the stories were “The Ghost In the Clock Room,” by Hesba Stretton and “”The Ghost In the Double Room” by Gorge Augustus Sala.
I probably have the other stories by Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins somewhere and I know I have the Dickens stories in a book.
Much more worthwhile was “The Switchin’ Tree” by Elwin Cotman. From his horror/fantasy anthology “Weird Black Girls.” Excellent!
Read some stories from the 19th Century writer Richard Garnett, from his only collection “Twilight Of the Gods.” Read “The Potion Of Lao-Tsze,” “The Wisdom Of the Indians” and “Abdallah the Adite.” Pretty good!
Read some of Clark Ashton Smith’s stories in “The Tsathoggua Cycle,” a Chaosium (publisher) book featuring Cthulu-esque fiction new and old. Read Smith’s “The Seven Geases,” where he’s having some fun with a fairy tale trope. Not the Smith of the later Xothique-type stories but fun to read! Also read “The Family Tree Of the Gods” (a Lovecraftian essay) and “The Testament of Athammaus.”
The real fun came with Smith’s “The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Gables,” set in a Howard-esque (I say “esque” a lot, don’t I?) medieval fantasy world. A fun caper story! It’s one of Smith’s later stories and I wish he’d written more about this thief.
Read Mack Reynolds’ “Posted,” in a Greenberg/Asimov/Waugh anthology “Flying Saucers. From same book read Thomas Burnett Swann’s “The Painter.” I hadn’t read Swann before I think. I stumbled across his name researching Richard Garnett. Read Swann’s “Night Of the Unicorn” in the Dann & Dozois anthology “Unicorns.” Excellent! A wonderful writer!
For Jack Kerouac’s March 12th birthday I read his story “Ronnie On the Mound” in the baseball fantasy/supernatural anthology “Field Of Fantasies.” Not much fantasy in the story except it was based on a baseball board game Kerouac invented when he was a kid. Sort of a fantasy league. Story is about pitcher Ronnie who is getting his big chance in a game. Story would probably have grabbed me more if I understood anything about baseball. There is a sweetness to it.
Read Stephen King’s new story “The Extra Hour,” in “Cemetery Dance” Magazine issue . First-person narration of a nightmare that gets bleaker and more surreal. King is still damn good. Maybe even better than when I read “Night Shift” in college.
And I’ve been reading stories in the aforementioned anthology “Flying Saucers.” Read Avram Davidson’s “The Grantha Sighting.” A sweet, funny and very telling story that’s not about flying saucers, it’s about the nature of people. Read Howard Fast’s “The Mouse.” A moving and perfect story from the author of “Spartacus.” (This is one of three sci-fi stories I know about mice and spaceships; I think the other two are by Frederic Brown.)
And I read Volume Two of “The Justice Society,” collecting the stories from the 1970s and ‘80s about the world’s first superhero team. When I was in High School and College I read the original comics (“All-Star Comics” and “Adventure Comics,”) mainly for the fantasy and fun but now I appreciate the stories. They hold up.
And I was floored that one story has a climactic scene taking place atop Gotham City’s Twin Towers. Yes, THOSE towers. A character even falls to their death from one of them. This was about 1980…
And Gay author Felice Picano died this past week, so I’m reading stories in his collection “Tales: From A Distant Planet.”
But I didn’t even read a word of the Henry Kuttner story I started on a month or so ago!
“Wow,” Steve Jones breathed, looking around the small garage which opened onto a side street. “How long has it been since we started hanging out here?”
“High School,” Corby Austin said, sipping a soda. “Remember? We had that school project due and we walked over from school to your house to work on it out here.”
“Yeah, and you guys grabbed me because I had the car and you needed to get that thing you two built back to school,” Horacio Owen said.
“And because you’re my cousin,” Corby said.
“And because Mom told me to,” Horacio laughed. “Wow Fifteen years ago.”
Corby finished his soda with a characteristic slurp, crumpled the can and tossed it into the bucket with the others.
“Two points!” Horacio said.
“Yeah.” Corby said. “It’s one point when I have to go over, pick it up from the floor and toss it in.”
After a moment, Steve took a deep breath. “Sooooo, what do you guys think of Lance?”
“He seems nice,” Corby said.
“And tall,” Horacio said. “And wayyyyy to good-looking for you!”
They laughed again.
“Thanks!” Steve said. “You know, he doesn’t think he’s that good-looking.”
“Yeah, right!” Horacio laughed.
Steve had invited them to lunch with Lance the day before. It had gone well, Steve had introduced Horacio and Corby as “My straight best bros,” and they had hit it off. Steve had been nervous as hell, but everything had been fine, even the burgers.
Steve looked around the garage again and smiled. “I really can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Doing what?” Horacio asked. “Getting hitched?”
Steve looked over, surprised. “It’s written all over my face, isn’t it?”
“You two were holding hands under the table,” Corby said.
“Yeah,” Steve said with a grin. “We got a license and were planning on this coming fall. Big wedding. Reception. All the bells and whistles. But we decided, you know, we’d better speed it up. We wanna do it next weekend.” Steve took another deep breath. “My folks are gone, and my cousins live out in California so would you two be there? Kinda best men, family, standing up for me, witnesses kind of thing?”
“Hell, yeah” Corby said.
“Same here, bro” Horacio said. “Whad’ you think, we wouldn’t want to be there?”
The three twenty-somethings hugged, stumbling awkwardly around the riding mower in the middle of the floor.
“Look, I just want to thank you guys for doing this again,” Steve said.
“Hey, no prob! ‘Sokay” the two others chorused.
“Hey! We can hold the reception here!” Horacio said.
“Yeah, right! We’d have to move the riding mower!” Corby said. “Dad doesn’t allow it to leave the garage until spring.”
“Uh, thanks guys, the rec room at Lance’s apartment building will do fine.”
“Sounds good to me,” Horacio said. “Hey We can ask Corby’s Dad if we can bring the mower”
“Or that old school project,” Corby said. “I still have it in a box somewhere.”
“You’re kidding?” Steve said.
“Yeah,” Corby said with a big grin. “But I’m glad I still have you guys!”
I’ve been listening to a new (and fun!) movie review podcast!
“The Scary Fairies” described as “a trio of long-lost fairy companions” who hold court in a hollow tree (the magic of radio or podcast!) and talk about a horror movie they’ve recently watched.
The trio (Matthew, Hannah and Evan) seem to be having a load of fun doing this, making the podcast enjoyable for the listener as well. (Word of caution, the Fairies’ commentary is sometimes rated PG.)
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
Kenny Briscoe had been a few odd places since he’d fallen in love with an alien sorcerer. But the Australian Outback in the pre-dawn hours beat zipping to the convenience store at two A. M. for a sweet roll. He stared up at the brightening sky and the stars.
Hank Jones, Kenny’s husband was fiddling with a gadget that looked like a TV remote and pacing back and forth. And swearing in at least a couple of alien languages. The gadget would occasionally make a peeping noise and flash a light or two.
“C’mon! Deccha take you, you miserable…C’mon!” Hank muttered.
Kenny smiled. It reminded him for all the world of Dean Stockwell in a scene from the old “Quantum Leap” show. But his tanned, tall, slightly overweight husband looked a lot better to him than any actor.
Here’s a little bit more as Kenny asks Hank (who has been around for centuries) if he thinks we will get through the current troubles.
“If people sit around and do nothing, no. If they lose interest after a couple of weeks or get discouraged because of time or roadblocks in the way nothing will change. But one person can make a difference by speaking out or even posting online, writing a letter to the editor…one person’s effort could be seen by one other person who it changes. Then they go and affect someone else.” Hank looked over at Kenny.
“One person matters.” Hank said.
They kissed for a few moments standing there in the desert.
Sorry if I got a bit preachy, but my literary heroes Charles Dickens and Rod Serling used their work to explore society’s ills and current events so I must too.
Hamlet (Corbin Molina, L) and Laertes (Austin Schwartz, R) are ready to duel as King Claudius (Daniel Graber, back L) and Queen Gertrude (Anna Corbett, back R) look on, in Newman University’s production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
Review by Jeff Baker
William Shakespeare’s ancient but still timely “Hamlet” was performed at Newman University on Friday March 7th, 2025 in a shorter version “designed to tour high schools so that current high school students can see the play come to life before their eyes.” (According to program notes by Director Mark Mannette.) The condensed version has lost none of its power to entertain and captivate the audience.
With painted castle backdrops, black curtains a raised platform and movable crates the production conveyed the play’s famous locations, including Elsinore Castle and a graveyard. Well done lighting and offstage sounds brought the audience to the Denmark of a bygone century. Doing it in modern dress worked in the play’s favor; the suits and ties worn by (among others) Polonius and King Claudius gave the royal family the feel of a family of mobsters. Hamlet wore leather vests, jackets and gloves which somehow accentuated his youth and the violent times in which he lived while Laertes upon returning from his travels was in a brown leather jacket and fedora that smacked of Indiana Jones but somehow seemed perfect!
In a cast full of standouts, many of them doubling (or tripling) up in roles, mention must be made of Daniel Cubias’ mobsterish Polonius and his scene stealing turn as the Grave Digger; Steven Brown’s fine and supportive turn as Hamlet’s best buddy Horatio. Anna Corbett as Queen Gertrude and Austin Schwartz as Laertes.
Abi Oberly’s Ophelia came off as tragically mad as she sang her lines while handing out rosemary for remembrance and Daniel Graber’s King Claudius had a nasty leer which seemed to say “Ha-Ha! They don’t know I poisoned my brother the King!”
Corbin Molina’s Hamlet bounded and stalked through the role as the now-obssessed young Prince who must come to grips not only with his father’s recent death and his uncle’s marrying his mother but with the charge by his father’s ghost to avenge his death at the hands of King Claudius. Molina conveyed the Prince’s inner agony and conflict without any hand wringing.
And in a very fitting touch, the ghost (Luke Jones) is made up with his beard to resemble Molina’s Hamlet.
Staging was not just actors standing around saying “To be or not to be,” there is a convincing near-brawl where Hamlet and Laertes must be physically restrained and the climactic swordfight, (very close to the audience!) which does not go well for any of the characters.
All in all, a marvelous evening of live theater from a Newman University Drama Department that is still thriving.
“Good night, Sweet Prince…”
Further productions of Hamlet at the Jabara Flexible Theater, Newman University, 3100 N. McCormick, Wichita will be March 8th at 7:30pm and April 3rd, 4th and 5th also at 7:30pm.
“It’s a hot rod,” Riley said. “Besides, we’re going the speed limit.”
“And we’re going round and round on this racetrack!” Patrick said.
“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Riley said. “Besides, we’re the only ones here. No traffic!”
There was no top on the yellow 1929 Roadster so they enjoyed the wind whipping through their hair and Patrick glanced up at the bright blue Kansas sky. He was from New Jersey.
Riley Abuthnot and Patrick Zither had been together for about six years, married officially for two when Riley inherited a share in the family business; a local racetrack just outside of Millington, Kansas. It had been closed for a couple of years but they had decided to re-open it along with Riley’s cousins who owned a share in it. The half mile dirt oval with a grandstand had been a fixture since about 1956 and shut down when Riley’s Great-Uncle died two years ago.
Riley took another lap around the track and slowed the car to a stop by the closed snack bar.
“You aren’t going to be racing are you?” Patrick asked.
“Hell no!” Riley laughed.
“Good! I’d divorce you if you did!”
The two men laughed. Then they sat in the car silently, enjoying the warmish Spring weather.
“You sure you want me to do this?” Riley asked. “Take this place over?”
“I’m sure.” Patrick said. He grinned broadly. “I’m very sure. Because it’s not just what you want, it’s what I want too.”
They kissed there in the car.
“It’s what we want,” Riley said. They kissed again, lingering this time.
“You know, I loved that internet headline: Local Gay Couple Re-Opens Local Speedway.” Patrick said.
“Yeah, except I’m Bi not Gay,” Riley said. “Don’t know how all the locals will take it. This isn’t Grove Street back in Jersey.”
“I know that,” Patrick said. They sat there another minute. “You know, we may make most of our money from customers at the snack bar. So we’d better hire somebody really good to run it.”
“Yeah,” Riley said.
“Hey, let’s drive around the track again,” Patrick said. “Maybe this time slower so I can get a good look at everything.”
“Okay,” Riley said, starting the engine again.
Their apartment in Millington had been home for about two years but the speedway was starting to feel like home to them too.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the March 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were for a Paranormal Story, involving a set of Stereo Speakers set in the Australian Outback. This is what I came up with.
Kenny Briscoe had been a few odd places since he’d fallen in love with an alien sorcerer. But the Australian Outback in the pre-dawn hours beat zipping to the convenience store at two A. M. for a sweet roll. He stared up at the brightening sky and the stars.
Hank Jones, Kenny’s husband was fiddling with a gadget that looked like a TV remote and pacing back and forth. And swearing in at least a couple of alien languages. The gadget would occasionally make a peeping noise and flash a light or two.
“C’mon! Deccha take you, you miserable…C’mon!” Hank muttered.
Kenny smiled. It reminded him for all the world of Dean Stockwell in a scene from the old “Quantum Leap” show. But his tanned, tall, slightly overweight husband looked a lot better to him than any actor.
Hank had explained it again to Kenny as they had flown around the world from Wichita in a conjured “sphere of transport.” (“Invisible to just about everything, including radar!” Hank had said.)
It sounded simple to hear Hank say it as they had soared through the sky:
“You know how there’s the North Pole, the True North Pole that points at Polaris? And then there’s the Magnetic North Pole, where the Magnetic Field of Earth is centered? Well, there’s a mystical pole too, and this is it. The Uluru Rock has been sacred to the native people in the Outback and they have no idea why. It centers a bunch of ambient mystical energy that swirls around Earth. And it has to be checked and maybe calibrated every now and then.” Hank said.
“Every couple of hundred years or so?” Kenny said, casually dropping the fact that Hank was at least three-hundred-and-something years old.
“About every eight months,” Hank said, “basically whenever the rotation of the Earth aligns with…well, I have a gadget to check it with.” Hank looked at Kenny with a broad grin. “Remind me to tell you about our class field trip to Polaris sometime!”
They had soared invisibly over the night side of the Earth with daylight behind them and the ocean below. Kenny thought he could pick out a few lights in the darkness.
“And if we’re lucky that’ll be all I need to do.” Hank said.
“And if we’re not lucky?” Kenny had asked.
“Then a bunch of us will have to come out here and work a calibration field ritual and that would be…”
“Ah! Got it!” Hank said, snapping Kenny’s attention back to the present.
“Got it? All done?” Kenny asked.
“No, but I just had to set this for the right frequency. Give me a few minutes and we’ll be all done.”
“Hey, can’t you handle all that with a spell or two?” Kenny asked.
“Would take too long and there are too many tourists,” Hank said. “Besides, this jury rigged revulator is a lot more efficient and it has a little display screen. Okay. Here we go.”
Hank held the device at arm’s length and walked along the stone side of Uluru which was imposing even in the deep shadows of night.
“Uh, you don’t have to walk around that all the way do you?” Kenny said, wondering if he should say anything aloud.
“Nope,” Hank said, looking at the little screen as he walked. “Y’know, tourists are always mailing little chunks of Uluru they pick up back here saying it brings them bad luck. They have no idea it’s all the focalized mystical energy that they’ve…aha! Okay, bring that thing over here.”
Kenny picked up the big cloth shopping bag with the MP3 player and large speakers.
“Push the speakers right up against the rock. I need to measure a sonic vibration and then we’re done.”
“What sound do you need?” Kenny said, pushing the speakers up to Uluru.
Hank looked up, the sky was getting lighter. He grinned. “How about ‘Here Comes the Sun?’”
Kenny nodded and keyed it up from his playlist. In a moment, the muffled strains of the Fab Four were heard over that small section of desert.
“Annnnnd…yessss! Perfect!” Hank said looking up from the screen. “Good for another few months.”
“Want me to turn this off?” Kenny asked, pointing at the speakers.
“Naaa. Let it play out. Let’s just stand here and watch the dawn on Uluru.” Hank said, stuffing the gadget in his back pocket.
The two men stood arm in arm as the massive rock was tinted with the light of the sunrise.
“Hey,” Kenny said. “You’ve been around on Earth a few years, right?”
“A few hundred, yeah.” Hank said.
“The stuff that’s going on right now. Back home, I mean.” Kenny said. “You think we…the country will make it through it okay?”
“Depends,” Hank said, staring at the rock. “If people sit around and do nothing, no. If they lose interest after a couple of weeks or get discouraged because of time or roadblocks in the way nothing will change. But one person can make a difference by speaking out or even posting online, writing a letter to the editor…One person’s effort could be seen by one other person who it changes. Then they go and affect someone else.” Hank looked over at Kenny.
“One person matters.” Hank said.
They kissed for a few moments standing there in the desert.
Here’s the draws for the March 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Followed by my usual long-winded explanation:
A Paranormal Story
Involving A Set Of Stereo Speakers
Set in The Australian Outback
Now, on to the details.
Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.
Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!) on the blog.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Eight of Hearts (a Paranormal Story), the King of Diamonds (The Australian Outback) and the Jack of Clubs (A Set Of Stereo Speakers.)
So we will write Paranormal fiction, set in the Australian Outback involving a Set of Stereo Speakers.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday March 10th, 2025.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2025 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!
And have fun!
——mike
Here’s the list:
Flash Draw Sheet for 2025 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
authorjeffbaker 