"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
I’m posting this extra because two extraordinary reading events are going on right now. Two fine writers are posting serials that show them at the top of their craft in making entertaining works for readers. I reference them in every monthly Reading Report but I wish to give them special attention.
J. Scott Coatsworth’s monthly serialized novel “Down The River” is drawing to a close. He has announced that he finished writing the last chapter which should be posted on his blog in September of this year.
It’s a follow up to his earlier serialized novel “The River City Chronicles,” set in Scott’s adopted home town of Sacramento, California. It is a work which the local paper compared to “Tales Of the City” for both it’s serialized format and LGBT characters.
The story is fun, sweet and compelling as well as entertaining. I’ll be sad to see it go.
Kaje Harper is an author of a lot of novels, mostly LGBT romance mixed with fantasy, mystery and science-fiction. She posts a weekly story on her Facebook page “Kaje’s Conversation Corner,” and for the last few weeks the offerings have been something different than a standalone story: a continuing serial featuring alien prince Bex and his human consort Troy. Two men in an arranged relationship for diplomatic purposes. Plenty of romance, wonder and palace intrigue which I won’t spoil here.
Anything Kaje writes is wonderful, and well worth the reader’s time, and her regular readers are hoping this is the beginning of a new book.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Draws for the August 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Fairy Tale set at the Empire State Building involving a bowl full of jelly. Enjoy —-mike
Once upon a time, there were two members of the Fairy Folk who had been assigned by the Queen of the Fae to locate the mystic Corejo Amethyst. It had once belonged to the Queen and she wanted it back for no other reason than that was the sort of thing a Queen of the Fae did.
“But your Majesty,” the Fairy known as The Namer of It said. “How do we find this, this thing?”
“That is your problem,” the Queen said imperiously. Saying things imperiously was something that, being a queen, she made a habit of and she had gotten very good at.
“Isn’t there an Office that finds lost things or maybe the Celestial Bloodhound?” said the Fairy known as Swiftness Of An Eel.
“Those things cost gold, and I do not wish to part with any of my gold,” the Queen said. “My gem is on Earth and I want you to find it and be back in a fortnight.”
The two Fairies bowed and walked out of the Royal Chamber, each trying to remember how long a fortnight was.
“If we have to be on Earth we had best get a move on,” said The Namer Of It, whose friends called him “It,” which made conversations a lot easier.
“But how will we find it, It?” asked Swiftness Of An Eel, whose friends likewise called him “Eel.”
“We are of the Fairy Folk,” said It. “We will allow ourselves to be taken to Fairy Treasure. That’s what we do after all.”
“Yes,” said Eel. “I shall leave this place like the wind and take you with me.” For part of Eel’s swiftness was his ability to assume the aspects of other forms and so It was soon carried over the gulf between worlds by a wind to the strange and solid place called Earth.
And it was in of all the places on the good old Earth, New York City, several hours after midnight that It swirled and spun down to a sidewalk as the wind swirled around and re-formed into Eel. They were both greyish men with long beards, pointed caps and clothing of forest green. Each one exactly four and one half inches in height. In other words, they were quite inconspicuous in the big city. Especially after dark.
The two Fairies stared upward.
They had landed before a huge structure, brightly-lit on the outside but only dimly-lit through the windows.
“Hmmm…This building belongs to the Emperor…” It read. “Emperor Stat’s Building…”
“Empire State Building,” Eel said squinting his eyes to read.
“Aha!” It said. “The Amethyst is inside.”
“But how do we get in?” Eel said. “The doors are locked at this hour. I could become like a rock slide and batter down the door, but…”
“Wait,” said It. “I have a better idea.”
From his hat, It pulled out a jewel encrusted hairpin and quickly picked the lock. They quickly entered and glanced around. They had never seen Art Deco or marble like they saw in the lobby.
“This is it!” It said. “The Amethyst! We’re inside it!”
“I’m not so sure,” Eel said tapping on a wall. “Feels like stone. And anyway, it’s big. Too big to bring back.”
“What do we do?” It asked.
They heard a running of feet from upstairs. Guards.
“We leave, that’s what.” Eel said.
“You become like the wind again?” It asked.
“Can’t do the same trick in the same hour. But a bowl full of strong, bouncy jelly could get us out of here.”
Before it could protest, the doors behind them burst open and Eel became jelly which wrapped around It and shuddering and bouncing hopped them out of the doors and away into the night.
And It shook when Eel left like a bowl full of jelly…
—end—
NOTE: Had to close a fractured fairy tale with an awful pun! —mike
Here’s the draws for the August 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Followed by my usual long-winded explanation:
A Fairy Tale
Involving A Bowl Full Of Jelly
Set at The Empire State Building
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 Two of Hearts (a Fairy Tale), the Jack of Diamonds (The Empire State Building) and the Six of Clubs (A Bowl Full Of Jelly.)
So we will write a fairy tale involving a bowl full of jelly set at the Empire State Building.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday August 11th, 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!
Every Week at Rainbow Snippets https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974 participants post six lines of a work of theirs, a work-in-progress or a work by someone else that has LGBT characters.
I’m doing some shameless self-promotion for a just-published story of mine about a fast Bisexual hustler.
One thing he had to learn was to wait another five seconds after a speed burst before he tried using his speed again.
He tried that outside the compound: zipping into a grocery store. Pausing. Riffling through the candy bars so fast the cameras couldn’t catch him stuffing them into his jacket. Pausing again and then running out so fast, he looked like he’d suddenly just appeared, stood there about ten seconds and then disappeared.
Here’s Danny on a video he posted online:
“Hi.” the onscreen Danny said. “I’m Danny Zero. And I’m a hero. Watch.”
There was a sound of air rushing over a microphone and Danny was a greenish blur for a second. Then he stood there in his Danny Zero superhero outfit, blue and yellow with a big, red “Z” in a black circle on his chest.
Okay, here’s more…
“I can change clothes in an instant, but if you want me to take this outfit off a lot slower, just log in and pay for special access to my other videos.” He grinned right into the screen. “I even do requests! Yeah, anything you want to see. At super speed or a lot slower!”
Morrison shut the video off in disgust. “Luckily we had your account taken off the site before you could download anything else that would be more damaging.”
They’d walked along the sidewalk downtown in front of the shops and old buildings, across the grass lot and onto the old wooden boardwalk towards Mr. Gruber’s Grocery Store. Willie had always loved the CLUMP-CLUMP his shoes made on the wood; he called it his favorite part of town.
Joey would always crack that it was practically the only part of town.
It was August after dinner and they were both fifteen. School wouldn’t start up for another few weeks. Joey and Willie couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t known each other and they had always been best friends.
“So, you still gonna join up after we graduate?” Joey asked.
“Yeah,” Willie said. “Soon as I’m old enough. I mean, Mom says I’ve still got time to think about it.”
“Yeah,” Joey said. “My Dad’s all for it. He was over in France back around ‘18.”
Willie whistled. “From Kansas to France. Wow.”
They stopped walking, just standing there at the edge of the boardwalk staring over at the railroad tracks in the heat of the August dusk.
“Hey! Guys!”
Mr. Patterson was standing in the doorway of the grocery store waving them over. “Get in here, you’ll want to hear this!”
Joey and Willie ran over to the store and found Mr. Gruber and several other people gathered around the radio Mr. Gruber kept behind the register.
“What’s…” Willie started to say, but somebody hushed him and the boys realized something important was happening.
The voice on the radio was finishing reading a speech. Then the announcer came on the air.
“That was President Truman from the White House where he has just announced the end of hostilities with Japan. The war is over. Repeat, the war is over.”
Then the radio went back to playing the regular program.
Joey expected cheering but there was none. The group was silent for a moment.
“We knew this day was coming,” one of them said.
Willie and Joey hadn’t thought it was coming.
“Finally! Thank God!” said another.
“Remember the Armistice?” someone said.
“Remember when the Civil War ended?” someone else said.
“I’m not that old!” someone said with a laugh.
But Old Man Lander, who had been a baby during the Civil War, looked over at the boys and nodded his head.
“Always remember this day,” Lander said. “It’s a great day.”
“We will!” Willie said with a nod.
“And how!” Joey said.
Mr. Gruber turned off the radio and bought the boys each a bottle of pop. Joey and Willie walked back, feet clumping on the boardwalk, through the grass and onto the paved sidewalk.
Doug pulled the car across the street and pointed at the house.
“Look familiar?” Doug asked.
There was a small, curved drive in front of the brick house that had stood on the side street for decades. The shiny black car was a model of twenty years earlier but looked like it had been built yesterday.
“Oh, my gosh” Scotty said. “That looks like your Mom and Dad’s old car”
Doug grinned. “The one they got when Grandpa stopped driving.”
“Yeah, I remember you telling me he told your folks not to let Hitler steal the car” Scotty said.
The two men laughed. They’d both turned twenty after the War had ended and they had met in College, sure they were going to get drafted. They weren’t. They’d moved in together after they graduated after Doug got his job at the bank and Scotty had gotten on there too.
If anybody knew, they were quiet about it.
“I saw this a few days ago,” Doug said. “I had to drive down this side street and there it was.”
“Could’ve filmed the Great Gatsby there.” Scotty said.
“Or Topper,” Doug said. The two men laughed again.
“Wow.” Scotty breathed. “Ten years since that night on the porch by the lake dancing to Spike Jones.”
“And now it’s going to be the Sixties,” Doug said. “Hey, did you hear about those protests down South?”
“Yeah,” Scotty said. “Marching at schools and lunch counters. Think our guys will get around to marching someday?”
“Someday,” Doug said.
Scotty grabbed Doug’s hand, hidden from outside view.
“When we do, I will be in the front of the line, proudly holding your hand.” Scotty said.
Doug smiled. “Let’s get home,” Doug said, starting the car up again. “I wanna listen to you snore.”
For an instant, in the rear view mirror, Scotty imagined Doug’s folks along with Gatsby and Daisy and George and Marion waving at them.
Read Robert Bloch’s “Hungarian Rhapsody.” A jawdrop moment midway through involving gold coins. Didn’t see the ending coming (but should have!)
Started reading some James Schmitz with “The Second Night Of Summer” from “The Best Of James H. Schmitz.” Space opera with impressive character work from the author. Also started his story “Novice.”
Celebrated Julian Hawthorne’s June 22nd birthday by reading a chapter in his novella “Kildhurm’s Oak.”
Read “Please Mind the Poltergeist” by Tehnuka in “We’re Here; The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2023.”
Can’t believe I started Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” Never read it before. May not finish; it’s over 555 pages!! Old fashioned of course and a bit sweet and sentimental but a cut above a lot of the Nineteenth-Century YA stuff I’ve read.
Read Wallace Wood’s 1966 Christmas Comic strip “Bucky Ruckus and the Christmas Caper.” I’d read it in Grade School in the newspaper and it still holds up. Funny for adults and kids. Woods is best remembered for his work in MAD Magazine.
Started reading John Maddox Roberts’ Ancient Roman mystery novel “Saturnalia.” A fun adventure for his sleuth Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger who also features in the short-story “Beware The Snake,” which I read on June 25, the late author’s birthday.
Read Carrie Vaughn’s “It’s Still the Same Old Story.” A Forever Knight-style tale set in Denver. Fun and sweetly sad. This and Roberts’ snake story are from anthology “Down these Strange Streets.” Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.
Of course I read the monthly story by E. H. Timms (a poem this time!) and the weekly serial by J. Scott Coatsworth as well as Kaje Harper’s weekly story which has been a serial for the last few weeks too! All these regular reads are great fun!
And I’ll brag on myself here; I re-read my story “Incorporation Of Danny Zero” which was published in LiveRealPress’ anthology “Five Seconds Of Power.”
“I’m quiet, dammit! Where is the damn thing?” Sommerfield said.
“I’m not sure,” Bax said. “All these machines look alike.”
The room was cavernous, with row after row of grey metal boxes pressed back-to-back against one another leaving only a small space for someone to walk in front of them. Each one was as big as one of their rooms in the barracks, Sommerfield thought.
Bax jumped across the walkway, landing on one of the machines, waving Sommerfield over.
“We don’t have much time.” Bax said.
“We don’t have any time.” Sommerfield said.
“I know,” Bax said, sticking his arm down between the backs of two of the machines, his cheek almost lying flat on the machine’s top.
“Use this,” Sommerfield said, turning on the flashlight on his revulator and shining the beam into the darkness.
“Turn that thrice-damned thing off!” Bax snapped.
“Remember, I outrank you,” Sommerfield said tapping the insignia patch on the sleeve of his uniform.
“Right, right!” Bax said flashing a half grin for a moment. They weren’t actually members of the Stellar Guard; they had been placed on the station with other members of the team infiltrating the Guard unit.
The unexpected part of their mission was discovering that another espionage team was active on the station and had planted what intelligence called “a destructive timed device.”
Sabotaging the Station Master’s operation was one thing. Blowing up over 450 people was another.
And doomsday was set for 2700 hundred hours. Not long.
“Not there,” Bax said standing up. “You take that side and I’ll take that side.”
But Sommerfield found the device in a matter of moments at the far end of a row of the machines, in the crack between the back and front; something in the shadows seemed darker. Sommerfield shined his light into the dark space and it revealed what looked like a wad of dirty something about the size of his fist and flattened into a slightly bulging disc.
Sommerfield pulled the object gingerly out from under the dingy curve of tubing that concealed it. Smeared with grime it blended in with the dark. Sommerfield rubbed the device with his sleeve uncovering an unlit display counting down time.
“Found it!” Sommerfield said.
Bax rushed up, Sommerfield held up a hand.
“Not an explosive, a chemical device,” Sommerfield said. “I’ve seen these before.
“Poison.” Bax said. “Spread all over the station.”
“How far is the nearest ejector portal?” Sommerfield asked.
“Not far,” Bax said as the two of them headed for the door, device in hand.
The slogans they would see in the lounge rooms of the stations ran through their heads: KNOW WHERE YOUR PORTALS ARE. KEEP OUR STATION CLEAN.
Sommerfield clicked open the ejector room door and realized he was sweating.
The portal was an unassuming box the size of a station clothes dryer at the end of the room on the far wall.
They put the device in, shut the lid and swiped the screen.
There was a click and a whoooshing sound.
“Look,” Bax said.
Through the small, round porthole to one side of the machine they could barely see the object ejected from the station, lit by the reflected sunlight off the planet beneath them. After a moment, the device seemed to blur as if someone had smeared something against the backdrop of stars. A blur that spread slightly.
“The gas,” Sommerfield said.
Bax and Sommerfield watched as the blur dissipated slowly in space, drawn towards the planet they were all orbiting.
Sommerfield and Bax sagged against the wall. They had barely made it.
“Think that was all of them?” Sommerfield asked.
Bax nodded. “One was all the message warned about.”
“If that had been a bomb, the regular station personnel would have noticed the explosion outside.” Sommerfield said.
“Certainly would have noticed it if it had gone off inside,” Bax said.
The two of them walked out into the main corridor.
“I wish we’d had time to examine that device before it went off,” Sommerfield said. “Maybe found out something about the other team that planted it.”
“Maybe it wasn’t another team,” Bax said. “Maybe it was one of ours.”
authorjeffbaker 