Snake Farming

When I heard that my ZP brother, Gareth Spark was having a launch party for his new short story collection, SNAKE FARM I immediately typed the words ‘up north’ into my car’s satnav and hit the road. Some five hours later I arrived in Gareth’s hometown of Whitby on the north east coast of the UK. What followed was an evening of Brit Grit fiction, poetry and Scrumpy Jack Cider, with a little blues guitar thrown in for good measure.

Chris Firth, head honcho of Electraglade Press kicked things off. He was followed by and local up and coming poet Sam Brewster who read superbly in spite of this being her first time in the spotlight. Then it was time for the main event. Gareth started off with some crime tales, including two of my favourite Spark shorts, ‘American Tan’ and ‘Regal Kingsize’ before mixing it up a little with a western first published on the now sadly defunct Big Adios site and rounding out with a gritty horror. It’s fair to say he nailed all of them.

Hearing Gareth read reminded me why I love short fiction. Distilling a whole story into a couple of thousand words is a real skill. If it’s done well it can to blow you away. Gareth Spark does it very well indeed. Go buy a copy of SNAKE FARM and check that out for yourself.

Is This Thing Still On?

*Taps microphone* Okay good, so let’s get on with this, I’ve got to be back in Marrakesh by midnight. Actually I don’t, but having to go wash the car and do all those other Sunday chores doesn’t sound nearly as exciting so I’m going to stick with the Marrakesh thing.  

The first three months of this year have seen me—or rather they haven’t seen me—taking a step back from the virtual world of blogs and social media. Delmore Schwartz once said, “Time is a fire in which we burn”, and that’s certainly part of it. But maybe Charles Bukowski put it more succinctly when he said, “I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around.” Either way, I have been using the extra 10 or 12 hours a week I gained when I stopped scrolling through the cat pictures on Facebook to write a novel, and in between the usual moments of anxiety and crippling self doubt it’s been going pretty good. I have also managed to pen a short story for the next Zemler Pulp issue, but more on that nearer the time.

In other news I have got the rights back to my long awaited (at least by me) crime novella, Nevada Thunder. In the end things just didn’t work out with the publisher. No harm, no foul, just one of those things. I am currently talking with a new publisher and I’m pretty excited about what might result from this.

I don’t plan on putting out many short stories this year and I have turned down a fair number of offers to contribute to anthologies etc. so that I might concentrate on the work in progress, having said that I do have a few pieces out right now. As I previously mentioned I’m in DINER STORIES: OFF THE MENU recently released by Mountain State Press, with a new piece entitled Mary’s Place. This story is one of my personal favorites and is my own little love letter to all those great mom & pop diners that are sadly no more.   

Next up is ‘Last Exit’, which has just gone live at David Cranmer’s excellent BEAT TO A PULP webzine. This is my take on old school Noir, a story of rain swept streets and lost love out for revenge. Last Exit first appeared in Zelmer Pulp's, MAYBE I SHOULD JUST SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE, which has been our most popular issue to date and is still available for the princely sum of 99c (hint, hint).

Finally, I’m delighted to have ‘Long Time Gone’, a brand new crime story about a father trying to do right by his daughter in the latest edition of DARK CORNERS. Editor-in-chief, Craig McNeely has once again proved beyond any doubt that we are living in a new golden era of pulp fiction. He has put together another fantastic issue with a wide variety of stories in different genres. The one common theme being they are all from outstanding writers, including one by my brother-from-another-mother, Ryan Sayles.

 
So there you have it. That’s my 2015 so far in a nutshell; well the writerly part of it anyway. I’d love to stick around and shoot the shit some more, but you know how it is, Marrakesh awaits. Stay classy people, I’ll see you further on up the road.

                                                                                                                                   

Last Rites

Duck you suckers!

Hey, wait a minute, isn’t that one-eyed Frigga again?

Ain’t that always the way? You wait ages for one Shotgun Honey story and then two come along at the same time.

Well, this isn’t your usual ride and this time it’s only partly my fault.
I’m delighted to say that my brother, life coach and partner in crime, RYAN SAYLES and I are equally to blame for the very first collaborative story ever to be published at Shotgun Honey. I know, cool right? Right.

The idea of writing colab stories is something we’ve kicked around the Zelmer Pulp locker room a few times, but for one reason or another we never really got around to doing it. So back in the summer Ryan and I decided to give it a shot. LAST RITES is the result. It's kind of a love story or maybe a love gone bad story would be a better description. We actually wrote the second half of it first. That was on me. I took the girl’s part, because Ryan told me I was in touch with my feminine side (yeah, whatever, bro). When I had the ending down, I sent it over to Ryan who set the whole thing up beautifully from the guy’s point of view and seamlessly linked the two halves together. I kind of hate that he did it better than I could have, but I’ll get over myself. Telling a whole story in just 700 words can be tough, as I’ve said on here before. Telling half of one in 350 was an absolute blast.

I’m kind of proud of the fact that we have broken some new ground with this one. Maybe one day we’ll try a longer piece, but for now why not hop on over to SHOTGUN HONEY and give us a little sugar, sugar.

Maybe I should Just Shoot You In The Face

It’s been a long dry spell for Zelmer Pulp, but after several trips to rehab and one custodial sentence we’re back with new blood, fresh ideas and clean underwear.  

MAYBE I SHOULD JUST SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE is our first collective venture into the dark, gritty world of noir. For the ZP team that meant they were going home and it shows. This issue features stories from all the regular ZP offenders, including new fish, Benoit LeLievre and Gareth Spark. In an attempt to make us more attractive to woman we have added New Jersey Noir photographer Mark Krajnak to the ZP roster. His stunning photography appears throughout the book. We are also delighted to have our old pal and father of Brit Grit Paul D. Brazill along for this ride.  

The Tesla version is available right now for your electronic trickery at the princely sum of just 99 cents and a dead tree version will be arriving just as soon as we have slashed and burned enough rainforest. Check out this doozy of a trailer and then go buy the thing. You won’t regret it. Well, you might, but by then I’ll be like 3 cent’s richer and probably living in some offshore tax haven. Hammer down!

  

Crime Storybundle

Is there anybody alive out there?  Yeah, I know, things have got kind of quiet around here of late. I blame the government. Well, I don’t specifically blame them for the lack of new content on my blog; I just blame them in general.


Anyway, you probably need to buy some new books, right? Good, thought so. In that case you should get over to Storybundle and pick up this month’s offer. For as little as $3 all in you can snag nine killer crime titles for your kindle machine, including titles from Jake Needham and Declan Burke. You’ll also get the EXILES charity anthology, edited by Paul D. Brazill. This features stories from some of the best indie crime writers working today, and another one from me. This deal is only available for another couple of weeks, so you best get on it.

 

Smoke Em If You Got Em

Yeah, I know it’s been a while since I blogged. I’ve been up against it of late. This is largely my own fault as I tend to follow a writing process that consists of several weeks of intense planning (procrastination) followed by a brief period of blind panic and actual writing when I realize the deadline is only two days away.

In between times I’ve been working with Ryan Sayles on putting together a collection of my short fiction. The result of this madness will be unleashed on an unsuspecting world in the next month or so and just to whet your appetite here’s a sneaky peak at the awesome cover, designed by Kit Foster.

SMOKE EM IF YOU GOT EM includes eighteen tales filled with loners, losers, cheap women and cheaper liquor. You know how I roll. But this isn’t just a case of grabbing everything from my hard drive and dumping it into a book. Ryan and I thought long and hard about the feel and content of the collection. I wanted SMOKE EM to provide new readers with a good introduction to my work and I also wanted to give the select few that have actually heard of me something new to chew on. I think it will do just that—at least I hope it will.

Springsteen and I AKA Trouble In The Heartland

I had to keep quiet about this project for a long time, but seeing as it blew up Facebook yesterday, I guess I can talk about it here too.

Let’s roll the clock back a few years…okay, quite a lot of years. Its 1984, I’m fifteen and my face times its breakouts to co-inside perfectly with any social event involving the opposite sex. I steal cigarettes from my pal’s mom, because I think smoking them makes me look cool (trust me kids, it doesn’t, but you’ll probably still do it anyway.) I have a leather jacket, bad grades, and an unhealthy obsession with Pat Benatar. In the middle of all this, Bruce Springsteen releases the BORN IN THE USA album and for me, nothing is ever quite the same again. Here was a dude singing about Vietnam, blue collar Joes and the broken American dream. I may have been living an ocean way, but those songs spoke to me, and I mean directly to me. Dancing in the Dark? You better believe I was. Bruce told me how it was and I listened—I have been listening ever since.

Roll forwards again to 2014. I’m forty four. The acne is long gone, but now my face has a permanently bewildered look that comes from the realization I’m middle aged. I have a pack a day habit that I can’t kick, a wife that I love, a job I hate and an unhealthy obsession with Pat Benatar. I got to chase my own runaway American dream for a while and I know that my glory days are largely in the rearview mirror. I’m good with that (most of the time.) I’m still dancing in the dark, but I’m a goddamn writer now, so the world can go suck it.

Bruce Springsteen has now been providing the sound track to my life for better than 25 years and it should be pretty obvious to most of you that he is a huge influence on my work as a writer too. He’s the finest storyteller I know (and I know Isaac Kirkman.)

Anyhow, last year I was shooting the shit with Joe Clifford and we got to talking about how much we both dug Bruce Springsteen, and how his songs have many of the same qualities present in good crime fiction. Boom! We suddenly hit on the idea of a crime fiction anthology with stories inspired by Springsteen song titles. Joe was up for editing it, my ZP brother and fellow Springsteen fan, Brian Panowich was in like Flynn too. The rest of the Zelmer guys weren’t far behind. We started to invite a few people to contribute stories and the response was completely overwhelming. Who knew so many top crime writers were Springsteen fans?

What we first envisaged as a cool little anthology soon became something way, way bigger than any of us could have imagined. The eight months that followed have been full of lawyers, contracts, frayed tempers and frustrations, but thanks largely to Joe’s dogged determination and Ryan Sayles’ unfailing optimism, we made it. Like the song says: Talk about a dream, try to make it real.

Chuck Regan has once again delivered a killer cover. This isn’t the final version, but it’s pretty close to it. TROUBLE IN THE HEARTLAND will be available from all good bookstores (and probably a few crappy ones too) this summer. Profits from the anthology will be going to The Bob Woodruff Foundation, who offer help and support to our veterans and their families, so there really will be no excuse not to hammer down on this one. 

Exiles

 



Well now, here’s a thing. Blackwitch Press has something a bit tasty in the works. EXILES is a charity anthology featuring around 20 tales of loners, losers and outsiders, all penned by seriously good crime writers, and it’s being edited by a great one, Paul D. Brazill. I have managed to blag my way into it too, but don’t let that put you off. I’ll let you know details of who, when and how much just as soon as I have them.

Gloves Off - Free This Weekend!

Get it here!

Heads up! For a limited time only the guys at Near to the Knuckle are giving you the chance to pick up their kick-ass anthology, GLOVES OFF for free.

GLOVES OFF is a collection of dark stories from the cream of the literary crop. These stories have one thing in common: they will come at you, all guns blazing. There’s a story lurking down every dark alley. Just when your back is turned a plot-twist is ready to attack.

The stories in this anthology are mainly crime, but there is also grim humour and the supernatural; dark tales for an adult audience featuring hit men, mobsters, bikers and stalkers.

This anthology was spawned from the dark, talented minds of: Gareth Spark, Richard Godwin, Paul D. Brazill, Aidan Thorn, Pete Sortwell, B.R. Stateham, Brian Panowich, Ryan Sayles, Chris Leek, David Barber, Vic Errington, Graham Smith, Walter Conley, Tom Pitts, Allen Miles, Jim Spry,Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw, Mike Monson and Alan Griffiths.

So what the hell are you waiting for? 

Roadkill Review: American Death Songs by Jordan Harper

Buy it!

“I do not believe in the Devil or the sanctity of Jesus Christ, but I’m telling you that something greater than you or me put that song on the radio at just that moment…”

Jordan Harper takes his readers from desert highways to backwoods bars and beyond. Here crime is king and these ballads of bad-ass sing about lives full of dead ends, blown deals and settled scores. Some of them have been played before, others are as yet unsung, but all are remarkable and deserve to be heard.

There is something deliciously poetic in Jordan Harper's gritty prose. Like being hit with brass knuckles while your sweetheart slips you the tongue, his words draw you in, smack you hard and leave you breathless.

You can pick any one of the stylish tales and I'll be more than happy to heap on some praise on it. ‘Plan C’ is a brilliant and brutal heads up on how things can go real bad, real quick; while ‘Heart Check’ captures the kill or be killed of the prison yard better than anything I have previously read. But I’ll take ‘Red Hair and Black Leather’ as my favorite, because when it comes down to it I’m just an old romantic and any that story starts with the line, “She had an ass like a heart turned upside down and cut in half,” automatically get’s my vote.

This review first appeared in my column at Out Of The Gutter Online. Since then two things have happened, firstly, my opinion hasn’t changed; ‘American Death Songs’ is still the best short story collection I have read this year and secondly, the opening story, ‘Midnight Rider’ has now been made into a short film starring Ryan “Opie” Hurst and if that don’t float you’re boat, you’re in the wrong place, pilgrim.

A Double-Barreled Blast

Hey, I have a new one up at Shotgun Honey this weekend, 700 words of bad-ass called Candy’s Room.  It’s really a love story and one that I’m pretty darn proud of. For one reason or another it has taken over two years to see the light of day, which makes its belated publication all the sweeter for me. I hope you’ll stop by and give it the once over. It will only take you a couple of minutes, and who knows, you might even dig it?

While we are on the subject of Shotgun Honey, I am stoked to tell you that I have got myself a slot in their second print anthology, Both Barrels – Reloaded.  The first anthology was killer and I was gutted to have missed out, but with so many great writers and only 30 slots, I wasn’t too surprised that I did.

This time around I was determined to raise my game and make the cut. My story is called Loose change and I think it is one of the best I have ever written. Congratulations are also due to my brother from another mother, Brian Panowich who also got the nod with his flat out awesome story, Set Fire To The Trees.  The anthology will be out in September, I’ll be sure to mention it here once or twice, just to remind you.  

In the meantime, get on over to SGH and show Candy a little love: Candy’s Room

Happy Fathers Day, Muthas!

The Jackson Cage

I’m back at The Flash Fiction Offensive today with a little number called The Jackson Cage.

This story is my first one to be published online for quite a while. My other writing commitments have meant I’m not writing all that many flash pieces these days. I’d like to think that makes the quality of the ones I do put out that much better, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

I’d like to thank Tom Pitts and Joe Clifford for letting me lower the tone of their virtual pages once again and also thanks are due to Ryan Sayles and Rich Osburn for running the rule over my first draft.

I hope you read it and I hope you dig it. If you do, drop me a comment.

The holding tank has its own set of rules. Jail isn’t prison and the learning curve can be a steep one. THE JACKSON CAGE

2013 Spinetingler Awards

The nominations for this year's Spinetingler awards are out. This is the red carpet event for those of us who ply our trade in the murky depths of pulp crime fiction and noir.
I’m delighted to see that my good friend and Zelmer Pulp cohort Brian Panowich is up for Best Short Story on the Web with his double barrelled blast of Georgia noir “If I ever get off this mountain / Coming down the mountain.“

These two stories were published simultaneously by Shotgun Honey and The Flash Fiction Offensive and they tell the tale of a back country blood feud from the perspective of two different protagonists. Not only is this a damn clever idea that I wish I had thought of first, but the quality of the writing is exceptional. Don’t just take my word for it, go and read them for yourself.

This year is a good one for natives of Georgia as the brilliant debut novel from Peter Farris “Last Call for the Living” is also up for an award in the Best Novel: New Voice category.

Congratulations to all the other nominees. We are truly blessed with a wealth of talent in the world of crime fiction.  You can see all of the categories and cast your votes HERE

Smell The Glove

Surprisingly this post is not a thinly veiled homage to those fictional rockers, Spinal Tap, but a heads up on the new anthology from NTTK. Gloves Off features more awesomeness than you can shake a stick at. Anything with stories from the likes of: Tom Pitts, Jim Spry, Gareth Spark, Mike Monson and Paul D Brazill just has to be worth your time and your money.

 If that isn’t a big enough incentive, Gloves Off also includes a rock solid spine of stories from three Zelmer Pulp originals. Brian Panowich nails it like a $20 hooker with his bad ass tale, Somebody’s Daughter and Ryan Sayles grabs hold and doesn't let go with Squeezing. My small part in this tapestry of talent is some backwoods blood letting in Brothers Under The Bridge. It’s a story about kin and the price one man has to pay when he honors the debt owed by his dead father. If all that sounds a little too deep and meaningful, think of it more in terms of a shotgun shootout, followed by a killer car chase. There, is that better?

I guess, all I’m trying to say here is if you drop a couple of bucks into the old Amazon jukebox you can get yourself a kick ass anthology for less than the price of a skinny latte. Seriously, what more could you want?  Near To The Knuckle Presents: Gloves Off

The gloves are coming of at NTTK

Here is a sneaky peak at the cover for the new Near to the Knuckle anthology, Gloves Off designed by Steven Miscandlon. This little beauty is edited by Daz Sant & Craig Douglas and is full of bad-ass ballads from top crime writers such as: Paul D Brazill, Gareth Spark, Tom Pitts, Jim Spry and Mike Monson.

You will also find three kick ass stories from the Zelmer Pulp team with Brian Panowich, Ryan Sayles and yours truly getting in on the act.

The release date is still to be advised, but it won't be long now.

Tucson Noir

If you are in the Tucson area on Saturday 23 March, then get along to Mostly Books for a short sharp shot of noir from four of the best in the business.

My Zelmer Pulp brother, the incredibly talented Isaac Kirkman will be joined by top Tucson authors CS DeWildt, Bill Baber and Los Angeles' own Rich Osburn for an afternoon of short crime fiction readings.

I know all of these guys and I can thoroughly recommend their work. This is one of those times when I really wish I wasn’t stuck on the other side of the ocean.  

Mostly Books, 6208 E Speedway, Tucson, Arizona 85712. Tel: 520-571-0110

ADR Hits The Streets

ALL DUE RESPECT is the sort of anthology you dole out to yourself piecemeal. You read “Even Sven” and then shake your head, looking off into the distance, trying to make sure you start breathing again. You read Matt Funk and Patti Abbott the way you eat a good meal in that restaurant you go to for your anniversary. You savor the characters, the plot undertones. When a Joe Clifford character says that something “tastes like a cat’s ass,” you nod that, yeah, that character probably has that experience. Full of great stories from David Cranmer, Thomas Brown, Fiona Johnson, Ryan Sayles and more, ALL DUE RESPECT is a book you’ll read a story at a time, maybe one a night, like that after-dinner drink you can’t put down.
- Steve Weddle, editor, NEEDLE Magazine
 
Highlighting lowlifes in hardboiled homilies – these stories stick it in and break it off. Tender as a brick, subtle as a Molotov Cocktail.
– Jedidiah Ayres author of Fierce Bitches

You can kick off your weekend with this bad boy for only 99c/ 77p

Hammer down at Amazon or Amazon UK

Name That Tune

Well hot-damn it raining anthologies. Following hard on the heels of the ADR from Full Dark City Press, will be a sexy little number from Daz & Craig at Near To The Knuckle.

If you’re familiar with the quality of writers they host on their site, then you won’t be surprised to hear they have some top talent lined up for the anthology.

The doors on this baby have just slammed shut and those that have made it inside are: Gareth Spark, Michael Monson, Aidan Thorn, Chris Leek, B.R. Stateham, Jim Spry, Walter Conley, David Barber, Tom Pitts, Allen Miles, Richard Godwin, Alan Griffiths, Brian Panowich, Ryan Sayles, Paul D. Brazill, Graham Smith, Veronica Marie Lewis Shaw, Vic Errington, Pete Sortwell.

 

Sound Good? Good. There’s also a chance for you to snag a copy for free, I’ll Let Daz tell you how.

We'd like to appeal for help in naming the anthology. We'll be heading it wit Near To The Knuckle Presents.... and then our chosen title. The person who suggests the winning title will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology. So, email me with the word TITLE as the subject. The email address is close2thebone@hotmail.com. We’ve tried our very best to remain true to the spirit of the site and I know that our regular readers will enjoy the anthology as much as they enjoy the site. Darren Sant - Editor

 

Click here to go to NTTK



All Due Respect - The Anthology

On February 1st Full Dark City Press will be publishing the first anthology from the gritty crime e-zine All Due Respect.

Some of the short stories that make up this book have been taken from the site while many others are being made available here for the very first time.  The line up includes some of the hottest names currently plying their trade in on the dark and dangerous streets of crime fiction.

The anthology will be available in both e-book and print editions; may I humbly suggest you snag yourself a copy as soon as possible.

Here’s the full roll call:

Joe 'Google me' Clifford, Tom Hoisington, Mike Toomey, Erin Cole, Stephen D. Rogers, Scotch Rutherford, Patricia Abbott, Nigel Bird, Andrez Bergen, Benedict J. Jones, Garnett Elliott, Alec Cizak, Christopher Grant, Gary Clifton, Jack Bates, Ryan'The Walnuts' Sayles, Tom 'Pedal to the Metal' Pitts, Pete Risley, CJ Edwards, Jim Wilsky, Chris Leek, Richard Godwin, Mark Joseph Kiewlak, Mike 'The Man' Monson, Tyler M. Mathis, Matthew C. Funk, Fiona Johnson, Ron T. Brown and David Cranmer.

Okay, so you noticed that I'm in it too, well don't let it put you off.

Full Dark City Press

All Due Respect
 

A Short Review of the Reviews

Since I landed the gig at Out of the Gutter all of my book reviews have headed that way. This is mainly due to the fact that my week doesn’t usually allow the time needed to read two books. I want to change that, make more time for reading and start posting some reviews back here again, perhaps take a look at some books which don’t fit in with the Gutter’s style. 

My OOTG reviews tend to focus on emerging and independent authors as I feel these are the guys and girls who can make best use of the platform. I’m a writer and I know how tough it is to get the word out there. Established authors don’t need a half-assed critic like me to blow literary smoke up their ass, they already have the platform  that comes from a five book deal with a major. That said, another thing I'd like to do is pass comment on some of those bigger guns from time to time.  So keep a look out for that kind of thing here and remember to check the Gutter on Tuesdays for my weekly slice of the crime stuff. (You can find those crime reviews just by clicking the linky thing to the right).