"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
J. Scott Coatsworth with his “The Hencha Queen..” Photo by Coatsworth & Guzman
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
My friend J. Scott Coatsworth, a prolific novelist and the guy behind Queer Sci-Fi has a new novel out! “The Hencha Queen” is the third book in Scott’s “Tharassas Cycle,” and that’s not even his only novel series! The book is coming out this week, here’s a link https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/novels/ to Scott’s website.
These snippets are a preview…
“You’re doing great!” Cor’Lea’s voice was artificially bright, and she was as tall as he was, maybe a little taller, peering over his shoulder at the sealed tunnel entrance.
Silya had tasked her with bringing him down here to check out these hidden caverns under the Temple, in preparation for the coming war. Important, sure, but also clearly an excuse to get him out from underfoot while she prepared for her official Raising.
He grunted “Thanks. These boards are hard as iron.” And hard as Silya’s will.
One day things would be different between them, once this crisis was over. I just have to be patient.
I am not putting myself out on a limb by saying that anything J. Scott Coatsworth writes is well worth your time.
See you next week with more Rainbow Snippets! —–jeff
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This one was written when I realized my initial idea for a story would be too long and I could try to send it to an anthology or magazine! The story here is one I’d been diddling around with in my head after seeing videos of people who really do this! —-jeff
11:15 PM
It was dark and the four High Schoolers in jogging shorts and running shoes ran under the streetlights towards the center of town.
“Okay,” the first kid said holding up his phone. “It’s eleven-fifteen and this is hour number three in our yearly marathon. Twenty four miles in twenty-four hours. One mile…an hour.”
He panted, he was getting winded.
“Hey, Skeeter,” Horacio said from a few paces behind him. “Our phones don’t work anymore. What’re you doing?”
“’Net is down but this thing still records and tells the time. Recording this for posterity,” Skeeter panted. “I’ll put it on my laptop later.” Skeeter was glad he had a cable that could do that.
“Yeah, we could show it to our grandkids someday,” Jamie said. “If we have ‘em.”
Someone else laughed and they ran on.
1:21 AM
“One twenty-one, hour five,” Skeeter said as they ran past several shopfronts. “Goin’ through town. Couple of shops boarded-up. Amazed…we still have…power…”
“Yeah, and groceries. At least so far.” Keith panted.
“Probably gonna run out of that real soon,” Jamie said. “Hey, did you see that cart in front of the store the other day with free bags of ice?”
“And that sign saying Free Ice.” Skeeter said. “Yeah, I got a picture of it.”
3:40 AM
Skeeter was sitting on the front porch of Jamie’s folks’ house and speaking into his cellphone.
“Okay, we are back at home base, just chillin’. I’m guessing that about hour seven we may start taking naps.” Skeeter looked up. Horacio was snoring in a lawn chair on the porch. Skeeter smiled.
Jamie sat down on the steps by Skeeter and offered him a soda.
“One of the last,” Jamie said.
“Yeah,” Skeeter said. “I wonder why we’re doing this. I mean, New York is gone, L.A. gone. We aren’t too far from the big city and the air base. Eight miles due south. We could be next.”
“That’s why we’re doing this.” Jamie said. “To try and keep normal going.” He sipped his pop. “The Pharmacy closed. Anybody surviving with their meds is just out of luck. We’re probably going to starve soon.”
“We become hunter-gatherers again,” Skeeter said. “Hey, the pop’s cold.”
“Fridge still works but this is in a cooler with some of that free ice.”
The two of them clinked their cans together and grinned.
7:24 AM
“Okay, seven twenty-four. Got a late start for hour…what?” Skeeter said.
“Hour ten,” Horacio said with a laugh.
“Yeah, ten,” Skeeter said. “Sun’s been up about an hour and everything looks beautiful.”
They ran on, seeing a couple of the stores had people in them. Probably not looters.
9:05 AM
“Nine-Oh-Five!” Skeeter shouted. “Halfway there!” They all cheered. They had been napping between miles. Their legs hurt.
11:40 AM
Skeeter felt someone shaking him awake on the couch.
Keith was standing there.
“I didn’t tell anybody but…” he looked away for a second then looked back. “My Mom’s gone, Skeet.”
“Gone?” Skeeter said wiping the sleep from his eyes. Then it hit him. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
“Her pills ran out last week,” Keith said. “She had some kind of an attack Tuesday night and another one yesterday morning. I got the neighbors but there’s no doctor around…”
Keith’s Dad had run out on the family when he was in Junior High. Keith started to cry quietly.
“Okay, it’s eight thirty-eight,” Skeeter said. “And we are winding down hour twenty-three.”
“Yeah, twenty-three.” Horacio said.
“For the record, I am with Horacio Villapando, Jamie Sanderson, Keith Rogers and I’m Skeeter McCabe. And we are gonna do this again next year.”
There was a chorus of “Right” and “Yeah,” from the runners.
8:59 PM
“Okay, starting up hour twenty-four,” Skeeter said.
“Finally!” Keith said.
“We’re starting at my house,” Skeeter said, angling his phone so it could get a picture of the four of them. “At least, we’re in front of my house. I just loaded what I’ve been recording onto my laptop.” Skeeter looked around. “Ready?”
There was a noise.
North, over the houses there was a slowly building ball of orange, like a malignant, awful sun.
Horacio squeezed Keith and Skeeter’s arms. “You’re my brothers, I love you,” he choked out.
“Yeah,” Jamie said, as the ball swelled.
“What do we do?” Keith asked.
“We RUN!” Skeeter yelled, taking off in the direction of the same route they had been running for the past twenty-four hours. The other three followed him.
Was it moments? Skeeter saw the orange light illuminating them and the neighborhood. He felt the wind, hot, heard the roar, felt cool not warm, felt something slam into him…
And in his mind, he was running on top of the light, towards the sky, towards the stars…
Author’s Note: The Draws for the March 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A crime story, involving a comic book, set on an outdoor stage. Here’s what I came up with.—jeff
I was sitting right in front of the stage when the man disappeared with the comic book.
I’d better explain.
My name is Marty Baxter. I’d been coming to the local Comic Book/SciFi convention since my best buddy “Street” Allan had helped start it up when we were kids in High school about twenty-five years ago. This year I’d finally decided to go in costume, as “The Jack Of Hearts” from Marvel Comics. I’d had a boyfriend who had gone to a party as a big playing card so I just adapted the outfit and painted half my face dark blue. I thought the character was pretty obscure but a couple of kids recognized who I was supposed to be which was pretty cool to a forty-something kid who hadn’t read a comic book in about a decade.
There were a bunch of other cos players there. A few Supermen, Batmen and Wonder Women as well as a guy dressed as Robin who looked just like Burt Ward. I saw a Nightshade, several versions of Catwoman and one guy dressed up as The Scarlet Spirit, right down to the flowing red robe and the red full face mask. Plus a lot of Doctor Whos.
The big attraction that year was a near-mint copy of Detective Comics #45, this one actually signed by Bill Finger. Finger was the uncredited co-creator and writer of Batman. The book was going to be auctioned off toward the end of the convention. It was expected to bring in a bundle.
I was there mainly to gawk and to listen to the panels. They held several of them outside, which is risky in Kansas but the weather cooperated and it was nice and warm. The table was long, they had it draped with a floor-length cover and they were in front of a big curtain. I sat through about three outdoor panels; they even had Marc Tyler Nobleman (the guy who had written a book about Bill Finger and gotten the late writer some long-overdue recognition.)
They were between panels and one of the panel moderators was on stage adjusting the microphones, when I heard a commotion. The man dressed as the Scarlet Spirit rushed onto the stage, carrying what I realized was the vintage comic with the Finger autograph.
The Scarlet Spirit shoved the moderator to the side and dove under the covered table. The moderator pulled the cover up from the back and looked under the table. After a moment he crawled out from under the front cover, his jaw dropped shaking his head as a security guard and my old buddy “Street” who was one of the convention officials ran on stage.
“That man with the valuable comic book, dressed like a red Klansman,” the security guard said.
“He’s gone…” the moderator said. “He just disappeared…just like the Scarlet Spirit…”
I jumped up to the stage. The security guy about threw me off.
“It’s okay, I was an M. P.” I explained.
“Member of Parliament?” the security guy asked. You gotta love rent-a-cops.
But Street vouched for me, so I quickly examined the full-length curtain behind the table. The rest of the stage was behind there and I remembered seeing a Shakespeare play here one evening years ago. I noticed a door at the back. From the placement of the building I gathered it led to the convention hall. I pushed on the door. Unlocked with the convention hall on a lower level behind it.
I stared down at the crowd and the vendors. The cos players were conspicuous. I did some quick mental math as Street and a couple more security guys and the moderator walked up to me.
“Street, trust me. Don’t let this guy go,” I said, pointing at the moderator. Street (who was bigger than I was) grabbed the moderator, who protested as I grabbed his cellphone. “Let’s hope I’m right,” I said as I hit re-dial keeping my eyes on the crowd.
Street and I watched as the valuable comic book was placed back under the glass case which the Scarlet Spirit had opened with a spare key.
“The cops took the moderator and his accomplice away and they’ll want you to go down to the station and explain everything, but I want to know; how did you know the panel moderator was part of it? How did the Scarlet Spirit disappear? And how did you know how to find the Scarlet Spirit when he’d taken off that costume?” Street asked.
“She,” I said grinning. “In the comics, the Scarlet Spirit could turn invisible but you can’t do that in real life. When that moderator made like he couldn’t see the Spirit it was a good act but I realized they must have been in on it together. The Scarlet Spirit must have ducked under the back curtain and handed the moderator that comic book, which we found under his jacket. He, I mean, she ditched the Scarlet Spirit costume in the trash and had a Catwoman outfit on underneath, to throw us off. But I’d taken notice of the Catwomen in the crowd and she was the only one dressed like the one from the 1960s TV. show. I’m not a Bi comics geek for nothing. I noticed that slinky outfit right off! All I had to do was hope the last person the moderator had phoned was her and that she had her cellphone on her and would answer when it rang.”
Street shook his head.
“She was, and she did.” I said.
I looked around the convention for a little bit before I went down to the police station, even though I probably wasn’t dressed for it. As I left the hall I saw some kid carrying a 1970s comic featuring The Scarlet Spirit.
First of all, I did not intend to get three cats. Just two. A little orange male and a calico female.
I’d better explain.
My house has felt empty and too quiet since Darryl died almost a year ago. Last June I was down at my Brother’s and his family for a week or so. And they had cats. Lots of cats. I eventually counted about fourteen.
What happened was the crazy cat lady who lived next door up and bailed this past spring and she had several cats. My Brother and his family took the cats in hoping to place them in good homes. Then, two of the kitties had litters. And then one of those two cats got pregnant and had another litter!
Three litter groups of kitties running around the house. Along with two little dogs and some grown cats.
Eventually, the little kittens got placed with other people. And I claimed two of them.
Yeah, just two.
I named them Camden and Ebbet. Baseball names after Darryl’s love of baseball. I planned to take them after the first of the year. Meantime, the kitties got spayed and neutered, and got all their shots. I went out there once a month for a week or two and got to know the kitties.
When the other kittens were almost all parceled out to families in the area, one remained. A black and tan female named “Little Miss Meow-Meow,” for the obvious reasons. She’s either the sister or cousin of the other two. She and Ebbet became playmates (yes, she’s been fixed too.)
We didn’t want to split them up, so I agreed to take Miss Meow-Meow.
And so, on Monday February 12th I made the drive back to Wichita, with the three kitties in their respective cat carriers. They had been fed “calming treats” before the ride so they snoozed covered-up for the trip. Once I got them home they set about exploring and quickly found the cat boxes in the hallway and in the basement. They felt at home very soon and so did I.
Camden has a few neurological issues; she has seizures sometimes and may need a little extra care but the three of them play together and groom each other and seem to enjoy their new home.
So, I have someone to come home to again as well as talk to and I’ve missed that. They hop onto the bed with me and snooze, and they may be getting used to my weird hours. I tend to be up until the wee hours of the morning.
There are a few inconveniences; I can’t leave my food laying around unattended on the table or even the stove. And I have to watch out that they don’t run out when I open a door. They are indoor cats now, but they had the run of the backyard back in Hugoton at the house where they were born.
I tend to use the back door a lot; coming onto the screened-in back porch and then using the back door to the kitchen. I call it “going through the airlock.” I grew up with cats, and this is not my first time taking care of them. And it brings back memories of twenty years ago when my Brother and his family were moving and I took care of their two cats “Stubby” and “Boo-Boo” for a couple of months. I called them “The Naughty Kitties,” because they were into everything. And when they went to their new home I missed having them around. So I guess I’ve come full circle now, with a house full of active, sweet cats. I call them “The Kitties Without Pity.” But they are sweet. They don’t tear things up but they do knock them over.
Like I have said, the house feels warmer now, it feels like a home again. And there is endless fun with the kitties playing, curled up to snooze on the couch or snuggled next to me in bed or demanding my attention.
First, here’s the prompts for the March 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Crime Story
Involving a Comic Book
Set on an Outdoor Stage
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 (and hopefully have one of my own written!) the week of March 11th, 2024.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Jack of Hearts (a Crime Story), the King of Diamonds (An Outdoor Stage) and the Seven of Clubs (a Comic Book.) So we will write a crime story, set on an outdoor stage involving a comic book.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2024 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again!
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you next week!
And have fun!
——mike
Flash Draw Sheet for 2024 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
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
My snippets this week are from a writer whose short-stories I read during the 90s when I was trying to teach myself how to write them myself. Bruce Coville’s story “Am I Blue?” was recently featured on the fine podcast “The Queer Book That Saved My Life.” https://thisqueerbook.com/am-i-blue/ The story is available in a lot of places. Here’s the original. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/708960.Odds_Are_Good
Vincent, our young High-School narrator is having a bad day. A guy punched him out calling him an anti-gay slur. Then he meets Melvin, a Gay guy who can do real magic and says he’s Vincent’s Fairy Godfather. Snippet one has them talking in a cafe.
“Do you know the three great Gay fantasies?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said nervously.
He looked at me. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Skip the first two. You’re too young”
Melvin explains that Gay Fantasy #3 would be every Gay person in America turning blue for a day, so all the straights would have to stop imagining they don’t know any Gays and that there are Gay cops, firemen, kids, parents. Melvin offers to give Vincent Gaydar for a while; he’ll see anybody who is LGBT as being blue. Here’s snippet two:
It was like seeing the world through new eyes. Most of the people looked just the same as always, of course. But Mr. Alwain, the fat guy who ran the grocery store, looked like a giant blueberry—which surprised me, because he was married and had three kids. On the other hand, Ms. Thorndyke the librarian, who everyone knew was a lesbian, didn’t have a trace of blue on her.
“You can see a lot from up here,” I said. It wasn’t my first day on the job, but I’d never been on top of the Community Facility Building. Some people called it “The Big Flying Saucer,” because it was round, had a domed roof and was about 200,000 square feet. Movable walls inside and theaters made it perfect for conventions and concerts. It had been state-of-the-art when it had been built about fifty-six years ago. But now the state-of-the-art needed repair, especially on the roof and I was part of the construction crew putting in new tiles.
“My Granddad used to tell me about seeing them put this building up when he was in Grade School,” I said.
“Yeah, my Granddad worked on this building back when it was being built,” Andres said. “that was in, like 1969. Way back when.
Andres and I were two of the newer guys on the crew.
“But I get what you’re saying,” Andres said. “This must have been what it was like working on top of the Pyramids in Egypt back in the Old Kingdom.”
“What Old Kingdom?” I asked.
“That was back when they were building the Pyramids,” Andres said. “Some writer started calling it the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom. Stuff like that.”
Andres didn’t like to show off but he had a degree in Egyptology. Couldn’t get a job, though. Me, I had a G.E.D. after I dumped High school.
“And you know what else?” Andres said.
“What?” I asked.
“Thousands of years from now there will be a couple of workers standing on top of a building they’re working on, looking out and shooting the breeze just like we are now.”
“And complaining about the Pharaoh,” I said. Andres laughed.
We kept at the work for a little bit longer. Fortunately, it was still late Spring and the heat of summer hadn’t kicked in yet.
“Whew! What time is it anyway?” I said.
Andres looked around. “Lunchtime,” he said.
“Good.” I said pulling my lunch pail over from where I’d stashed it.
And we sat there on the roof of the building eating our lunches, the view on all sides stretching to the horizon.
Saw this pic on Facebook and the story banged into my head. Wish I looked like him! Wish I was the narrator of this story! Enjoy! —-skip
On The Busses
by Skip J. Hanford
February 27, 2024
I was on the commuter train home when the two men sat down across the aisle from me. One in a robe, the other nearly naked except for gold-laced shoulder pads, a loincloth and studded sandals. He was young, tanned and muscular. I checked him out. He saw me looking at him and quickly looked away. Long enough for me to see his wonderful dark eyes.
I nodded over at the man in the robe who seemed to be his Master. He nodded back.
“You selling him?” I asked.
The near-naked man glanced up for a moment, then looked away.
“Only to get rid of him,” the man said. “I’m having to downsize. I inherited a bunch of slaves like him.”
“What’s your price?” I asked.
“He is yours if you will pledge an amount to the Empire,” the man said. “And address me as Master.”
“I am no slave,” I said.
“But you will be trading for a Mastership, to own this young man. He is paying for his crimes. You will remain free. He will never be free. Look at those muscles, those lips.”
I looked. My tunic was getting tight around my crotch.
“Yes, Master.” I said. “How much do I pledge?”
“His name is Marco,” the man said. “Here is what you pledge.”
Marco, the near-naked young man, had lowered his head the moment the man spoke his name, showing the full weight of being owned.
It was nearly an hour later after walking Marco, walking as subservient as he could, from the bus stop to my apartment that I locked the door behind the two of us.
That was when Marco collapsed on the floor laughing.
“Oh, my God! Oh my God!” Marco said laughing. “I’ll never forget that! ‘He is yours if you will pledge an amount to the Empire.’” Marco rolled onto his back and kept laughing. “I had no idea your Brother was anything like an actor!”
“Yeah, but the three of us earned third place in the costume contest,” I said, shucking off my makeshift toga. “You’re problem is you’re such a youngish-looking hunk!”
“Yeah, I am!” Marco said. “You know why I agreed to do that whole thing?”
“No, why?” I asked.
“We met on February 18th,” he said. “Our first official date was February 27th.” Sixteen years ago today”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right!” I said. I forgot that part!” I only remembered when we met and our wedding in 2016 after they legalized it.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Marco asked with a grin. “You did buy me on the bus, remember?”
“Let me help you out of this stuff first,” I said, kissing him. “Then we’ll see.”
I guess I kept at it over late January through February 2024.
Wrote up a story I’d plotted out early in the pandemic.
Typed-up/revised a story I may have first written in a handwritten draft about fifteen years ago. The original typed draft is on the old computer but this new, revised version is better and it fixes a few plot holes.
Sent both stories off to a market. One got rejected, sent it elsewhere. And I submitted about three other full-length stories.
Wrote-up one QSF column, (I have three others already written!) and did the weekly Flash Fiction stories as well as the monthly Draw story.
authorjeffbaker 