"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
I started out 2024 by telling myself I was going to finish a bunch of half-finished stories I had in my catalog and I amazingly did, especially through the first half of the year.
I also promised myself I would finish this one longer story I had been working on. I sloughed-off on it and it took most of the year but I got it done!
I didn’t really work on a lot of longer stories in 2024, so I’m planning to do more on those in 2025. I have a couple started as well as one idea I want to see finished; another story that’s a sequel to one that got published that is partly started in a notebook somewhere and a longer story set in Wichita which will be a novella if I do it right, or maybe even a short novel.
I have to finish the corrections/suggestions a friend of mine sent me on a mystery I showed him—I got distracted. (Boy! Did I get distracted!) The ms for that one is in one of the boxes I moved to the spare room when I brought the kitties home.
Also, I am planning two books; a long-overdue collection and a collaboration with someone that I can’t talk about now.
So, things look good for the new year. I hope so, anyway!
That’s about it for now, but of course more on the way!
Not a lot on the progress front, other than the usual flash fictions and my end-of-the-year stuff. Did some synopsizing and playing around with ideas. Wrote one column and started a couple of others. Didn’t really do any work on any full-length fiction this period. Nonetheless, I’m proud of that as well as the work on writing I’ve done this month and this year.
I’m probably going to do an end-of-the-year progress post where I also talk about my hopes for next year’s work.
Read John Floyd’s “The Home Front” in “Punk Noir Press.”
Read more of “Sara Was Judith” by Julian Hawthorne.
Read Kaje Harper and E. H. Timm’s online offerings.
Started reading a bunch of Rudyard Kipling: Read “In the Rukh,” a story a lot of people don’t like. I did.
Read “The Return of Imray” (Creepy!) as well as “By Word of Mouth.” Both ghost stories, the latter a variation of the old ghost story about Ticonderoga. Also read another ghost story “The Lost Legion.” A very effective tale of soldiers and ghosts in India. Kipling swore that a lot of this story was true.
Read two of Kipling’s elephant stories: “Moti Guj—Mutineer!” and “Toomai Of the Elephants.” Read his “Red Dog” and The Miracle of Purun Bhagat.”
The above Kipling stories were collected in “Picking Up Gold and Silver,” a fine collection edited by M. M. Kaye.
Got the anthology “A Constellation of Cats,” edited by Denise Little. I love theme anthologies and this one from 2000 combines cats and “celestial influences.” Read “The Stargazer’s Familiar” by Mary Jo Putney, a charming little tale. Started reading “Three-Inch Trouble” by Andre Norton.
During the last several months I’ve been reading through the Barnes and Noble “100” anthologies of things like Vampires, “Hair-Raisers,” “Wicked Little Witch Stories” and the like. A treasure trove of very short genre stories. In “100 Sneaky Little Sleuth Stories,” they reprint five detective stories by pulp writer Leroy Yerxa about beat cop Paddy O’Sheen who comes off at first like the stereotypical Irish cop but has the detective skill of a Sherlock Holmes. Not a lot of character development except for his devoted relationship with his wife Marta. The stories actually surprised me with fairly placed clues for the reader to follow (if they’re clever enough!) including one that ties into something people would have known on the WWII homefront. Yerxa here is almost a precursor to Edward D. Hoch. I had never read Yerxa before and fortunately his stories are available in various places on the Web. He’d be better known if he hadn’t died in his 30s, after selling at least 70 stories in three years.
The O’Sheen stories collected here were:
“O’Sheen Minds the Baby,”
“O’Sheen Is Best Man,”
“O’Sheen’s Photo Finish,”
“O Sheen Sees Red,”
and “O’Sheen’s Sweet Tooth.”
There is one last O’Sheen story uncollected here; “O’Sheen Goes To the Dogs,” which is reprinted online. I found it and read it. Wonderful!
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work that we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets, here; [LINK]https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
So, we hear the story of Solsta, the Solstice Cow and why it’s important to select your Solstice gift early…
Even when you weren’t a kid anymore it was tradition, some said superstition, to ask for some small token gift from Solsta. Better safe than sorry. T’amec remembered what the Sorcerer had said about his Mom.
“You’d better make up your mind,” T’amec said. “Solstice is tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know,” Skid said getting annoyed. “Everybody keeps telling me that.”
“It’s tradition,” T’amec said.
“More like superstition.” Skid said grumpily.
Okay, a little more…
After a few minutes T’amec sighed again.
“Look, I didn’t mean to get on your…”
“That’s okay.” Skid said. “Just everybody keeps asking me. That’s one reason I’m glad I stayed at your place the last few nights. My folks don’t bug me there!”
“Yeah,” T’amec said. But Skid had been sleeping over a lot the last few months. Even though they’d said they were taking it slow.
For the record, the picture of the festively-draped cow sculpture is at our local dairy. Awwww! Santa Cow! Isn’t that sweet? I thought it looked creepy and demonic. And the story came from that.
Again, I wish you all the best for the season, and remember the best gift you can give is YOU. Take time to be with those you care about or those who think that no one cares. —jeff
There was a festive air in the mall that season. Green and blue garlands were draped on the walls, storefront windows were festooned with blue lights, even the window in Mrs. Du Pass’ Scrying shop, The Orbuculum, displayed a fake crystal ball with glittering lights around a miniature cow.
Cows, of course, were everywhere.
Little replicas for sale, cow balloons the kids were carrying, more expensive cow sculptures of course and the virtual shrine with the big cow standing in a pile of gifts to one side of the Food Garden Court.
An old man with a grey beard shook his head as he paid for his veggie roll.
“Disgusting! All this commercialization of WinterRite. Makes you want to scream.”
“Yeah, it does,” T’amec said, playing agree-with-the-customer to the hilt. Behind the grey bearded man the young Sorcerer who worked in the Augury shop there in the mall was grinning and pointing to the cow emblazoned on his tunic. T’amec tried not to smile or laugh until the grey bearded man had walked off and T’amec served the Sorcerer his usual morning cup of broth.
“Some people just don’t understand the season,” the Sorcerer said, glancing down at the cow on the front of his tunic, emblazoned with the words HAVE YOU ASKED YET?
“Yeah,” T’amec said. “I sent out my note as soon as the season started.”
“Same here,” the Sorcerer said. “My Mom didn’t get around to it one year, back when I was in school. We had no end of trouble for the next few months. Car broke down, furnace got clogged, household spells misfired.”
“Yeah, I try never to even cut it close,” T’amec said, handing the Sorcerer his broth. “Skid on the other hand always waits ‘till the last minute.”
“Yeah, we got a guy like that down at the shop,” the Sorcerer said. “He puts everything off. Hey, what did you ask for?”
“A couple of new discs for my old player,” T’amec said. “How ‘bout you?”
“Another cow tunic, what else?” He grinned at T’amec. “Comes in handy; did a formula wrong last week and it zapped my other tunic down a size too small.”
T’amec grinned as the Sorcerer paid for his broth and walked back to the Augur’s shop. He glanced around at the decorations in the Mall and smiled, remembering one of his earliest memories, going shopping at the old shopping center where they lived around WinterRite time and his pointing at all the decorations and mooing like a cow. His Mom had explained to him about Solsta the Cow and how she had no children of her own so she was granted the gift of giving gifts to other children on the Winter Solstice which heralded the beginning of WinterRite Season. His Mom also said he had to select what he wanted in time or Solsta would be unhappy.
T’amec sighed. That was a story for little kids he had thought but as he got older he realized the necessity of selecting a Solsta gift each year even if you never got anything. In school, they’d learned the old rhyme about Solsta coming around “When the Solstice Bell tolls.” T’amec had never heard a Solstice bell as far as he knew. Little kid stuff.
“Hey, T’amec!” The voice was Skid, coming through the kitchen doors into where the counter was. “A little help here?” Skid was balancing two big pans of sliced meat on a tray. T’amec grabbed the edge of the tray and helped Skid put the pans in their slots on the counter. He noticed wryly that one was sliced beef. Cow meat.
“So,” T’amec said. “You picked out your gift yet?”
“No,” Skid said. “I don’t think I’m going to. I don’t really have to, you know.”
Even when you weren’t a kid anymore it was tradition, some said superstition, to ask for some small token gift from Solsta. Better safe than sorry. T’amec remembered what the Sorcerer had said about his Mom.
“You’d better make up your mind,” T’amec said. “Solstice is tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know,” Skid said getting annoyed. “Everybody keeps telling me that.”
“It’s tradition,” T’amec said.
“More like superstition.” Skid said grumpily.
After a few minutes T’amec sighed again.
“Look, I didn’t mean to get on your…”
“That’s okay.” Skid said. “Just everybody keeps asking me. That’s one reason I’m glad I stayed at your place the last few nights. My folks don’t bug me there!”
“Yeah,” T’amec said. But Skid had been sleeping over a lot the last few months. Even though they’d said they were taking it slow.
“And I think you’re going to like what I got you for WinterRite,” Skid said.
T’amec almost blushed. “You didn’t have to,” he said. Last WinterRite they had barely known each other.
“I know,” Skid said grinning. “Just don’t nag me about Solsta or if I’m asking for anything, okay?”
“Okay,” T’amec said.
Skid looked up, startled. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“A sound…like rushing wind and a cow mooing.” Skid said.
“Must’ve been from one of those decorations,” T’amec said with a grin. “And it may not have been wind. But I didn’t hear anything.”
They went back to work as the day stretched on to late afternoon. T’amec noticed that Skid looked lost in thought.
They’d had a rush, serving a line of customers who were doing last-minute shopping when Skid stopped what he was doing and banged on a pot with a broth ladle.
“Okay,” Skid said. “Can I have everyone’s attention please?”
Customers stopped what they were doing and stared at Skid behind the counter.
“I’m probably way too late to send a note so I’m doing it this way. I didn’t think I wanted anything this year, but you have to ask, right? I mean, this past year, well, I realized what I want more than anything in the world.”
He looked right at T’amec, standing by the broth pot.
“I want you,” Skid said. “I mean, I know we said to take it slow, not risk screwing-up what we’ve got but I’ve been realizing all year that this is what I want. I want to spend my life with you. I want to sit around the apartment and listen to the radio. I want to snuggle together in bed. I want you with me always, even if you’re not there. If we have different jobs I want you to be the guy I come home to. I think about you all the time. Even if we never do an official binding or anything, I don’t want to ever lose you. You’re what I want for WinterRite. And every day. I want you.”
The two of them kissed right there and several people applauded. In that moment, Skid thought he heard a deep bell chiming and the low baying of a cow.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I worked in a mall in the late 1980s-early 90s and have fond memories of Christmastime there, back when malls were a big deal. I had been wondering what kind of “Christmas” they celebrate in the magical world of Food Garden Court when I saw the picture of the Christmas-dressed cow sculpture at a local dairy. It was probably meant to look sweet. To me it looked fairly demonic and menacing. And the story came out of that!
We’re taking a break posting the pictures for next week, and I’ll post a pic on January 3rd, 2025.
Whatever my readers celebrate, I wish you all the best for this Christmas Season and for the New Year. To me, your readership is a priceless gift all year ‘round.
“Gosh, Wonk,” Benjy Baxter said to the small, scruffy looking dog by his feet. “I know we’re in this TV studio a lot but I’ve never done a telethon before!”
The dog looked up and seemed almost to smile.
“Let’s just try to stay out of everybody’s way until it’s our time to go on,” Benjy said. looking at his watch. Only seven-thirty in the evening. A week before Christmas and the annual Christmas telethon for a local charity had been going on for over two hours already. He glanced around; from backstage he could see the big sign over the phone banks with the glittering words; WUBG CHRISTMAS TELETHON 1993; GIVE BIG.
Benjy and Wonky walked around behind the people answering the phone banks and glanced over at the big Christmas tree glittering with tinsel and lights, and fake wrapped presents underneath.
“And Wonk, don’t get any ideas about the tree, okay?”
Wonky wagged his tail. Benjy had been in on Wonky’s training with his uncle but sometimes he was sure Wonky understood everything Benjy said.
Benjy spotted a familiar face; Billy Gander, the station security guard, who Benjy thought looked a lot like Burt Mustin.
“How’s it goin’?” Benjy whispered, even though he was pretty sure they were away from any microphones in this back corner.
“Pretty good, Benjy. Hi Wonk!” Gander said. “Got it easy tonight. The station hired extra security guards for the telethon.”
“Why do they need extra security?” Benjy asked. “It’s just phoned-in pledges isn’t it?”
“Nope.” Gander said. “People drop by the station and drop off money and not just checks. There’s a whole lockbox with the cash in the office over there.” He pointed down the hallway and Benjy saw a uniformed guard standing beside the office door.
“You guys goin’ on?” Gander asked, pointing over at the stage where a man in a tuxedo was juggling what looked like bricks.
“Yeah,” Benjy said. “In another twenty minutes.”
Another uniformed guard walked past and Wonky suddenly looked up and growled. He jumped up, barked and started running after the guard who ran.
“Hey! Wonk! Hold it!” Benjy called out, running after the little dog.
The three of them raced past the Christmas tree, ran across the stage knocking over the juggler and the guard ran into one of the black curtains at the side of the stage, and Wonky jumped on him.
“Wonky, come back here!” Benjy yelled, running after the dog into the curtains. There was a ripping, popping sound and the curtain fell on all three of them.
When it was all over and the real security guards showed up, the station manager explained everything.
“They hadn’t put the money in the strongbox,” he said. “They’d been ducking behind the curtains and hiding it in these bags that are supposed to be full of sand but we don’t use now that we have metal weights. This stage is pretty old.”
“And they did it in front of everybody,” Benjy said. “Wow.”
“What I don’t understand is how Wonky figured it out.”
“That’s easy,” Benjy said. “The guard was carrying those meaty doggie treats in his pocket. To use if they ran into any guard dogs.” Benjy reached down and ruffled Wonky’s fur. The dog wagged his tail. “Those aren’t the HealthyTreat treats he usually gets but he went after them anyway. I’m really sorry if we wrecked the telethon.”
“Sorry, nothing!” the station manager said. “The cameras caught your chase and Wonky apprehending the guy. Pledges are coming in like never before.”
Benjy grinned and scratched Wonky behind the ears. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been something besides the doggie treats that had set him off. Wonky seemed to understand what was going on most of the time.
I’ve gotten a nice response the last couple of years posting a snippet of Oscar Wilde around Christmas. No overtly LGBT characters here but the writer IS Oscar Wilde.Paula always liked that I had “invited Oscar Wilde to Rainbow Snippets.”
I had not read “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” before this year. I knew it was about a man predicted to become a murderer but I did not expect the story to be as funny as it was!
Here’s a snippet:
Murder! That was what the cheiromantist had seen there. Murder! The very night seemed to know it, and the desolate wind to howl it in his ear. The dark corners of the streets were full of it. It grinned at him from the roofs of the houses.
First he came to the Park, whose sombre woodland seemed to fascinate him. He leaned wearily up against the railings, cooling his brow against the wet metal, and listening to the tremulous silence of the trees.
Outro:
Isn’t that elegant prose? And yes, this snippet doesn’t indicate a story full of humor.
“Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” is available online and in plenty of printed places but I first found it in the excellent anthology “Shadow Voices: 300 Years Of Irish Genre Fiction” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58935109-shadow-voices Edited by John Connolly. It not only includes well-known stories but seriously obscure tales and poems. (Remember, Wilde was an Irish Writer!)
And on that note, I will wish you all the best for the holiday season and for whatever the seasons of life brings! —–jeff
Wichita’s newest bookstore, “Left On Read” occupies a cool niche in a multicolored alley just East of Old Mill Tasty Shop at 612 E. Douglas, Suite 200.
When I visited the store, owner Latasha Kelly was busy shelving books in the space which is well-lit and inviting and has a wide selection of books by Black authors.
The store is “Supporting and amplifying Black voices,” Kelly said in an interview with KAKE TV.
Left On Read is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Alleyway off Douglas leading to Left On Read, 612 E. Douglas, Suite 200. Wichita, Kansas.
authorjeffbaker 