Hey everybody, M. here,

I’ve been way busier than I had expected to be over the past couple of weeks so I’m just now getting around to doing a proper update. I’ve had a couple of cool things going on recently that I’ve mentioned over on Facebook but have yet to share here. So here we go:

Strange Aeon 2022: Hopeful Monster contributor copy pictures
A few days ago I received my contributor copy of Strange Aeon 2022: Hopeful Monsters containing my story SONG TO… and I’m excited to have this one in my hand, it’s an excellent looking volume as you can see below (and my relatively limited camera skills do not entirely do it justice — it looks really, really cool).

There are also some very kind words from the editor as an afterword to the story, which was an excellent surprise. As the afterword mentions, the story is much more of a sci-fi/horror dystopia than the stories that it appears alongside, and so I consider it a very big honor to still be included in the anthology despite my story being slightly different than what the editor had envisioned for the book.

You can grab a copy of this one here and check it out if you’re so inclined. I’ve described SONG TO… as a story about what happens when things are finally looking up and the world ends five minutes later, among other things. While it’s not exactly happy, I think it is hopeful, with both the horror and the hope in this one happening on a rather grand scale. I do some stylistic and conceptual stuff in the story that you might enjoy as well, but above all I just hope you dig it. And of course if you purchase the anthology you can also check out all the other stories from an impressive list of authors from all over the world. I’m about to get going reading the whole thing myself.

New story slated for PsychoToxin’s Road Trip God anthology
Last month I received an acceptance from a new indie publisher called PsychoToxin Press. The press really seems to have hit the ground running with a new magazine and a new e-publication, not to mention all sorts of video and audio content coming out across all sorts of platforms.

I’m very excited to be appearing in their first themed anthology, Road Trip God, with a piece of flash fiction about the final moments of a road trip gone awry called LEAP OF FAITH. Hope this one keeps readers on the edge of their seats!

Pick up a copy of 2022’s Startling Stories if you have not!
Just thought I’d throw it in there that the current issue of Startling Stories is still out there for all to enjoy, featuring my story PHARMAKON, PHARMAKON.

I’m making my way through reading the issue right now and am really digging Mike Chinn‘s short novel The Color of Nothing. It’s a perfectly paced, thrill-a-minute space opera brimming with alien bio-technology, covert political intrigue between intergalactic overlords, risky adventures by scrappy space pirates, resurgent ancient evils, Van Vogtian identity bending, arsenals of devastating high-tech weaponry, and a bunch of other good stuff.

Chinn has pointed out that the story recalls his days working on sci-fi adventure comic Starblazer — a comic which I am almost certain I remember seeing mentioned somewhere when I was a kid, presumably in Comic Shop News or something along those lines, though I don’t know if Starblazer actually got distribution in the States or to what extent. So I don’t think I ever read an issue of Starblazer, but I certainly would have loved it if it was like this; I am finding the story to be evocative of a particular vibe of classic science fiction adventure while still being very much its own thing.

So if you have yet to pick up a copy, check it out! And since there’s so much excellent original art to be found alongside the stories in this one, I thought I’d include a better picture of the illustration for my story by Vincent Di Fate than I did in my last post.

Time for me to go drink another cup of coffee and get myself moving. Take care everyone!
-M.