Literary Awards-a Stoker Nomination

It's been some years since I was honored by being nominated for both the Edgar
Award for Best Paperback Novel (NIGHT CRUISE from Berkley) and the Bram Stoker Award for Most Superior Novel (WIDOW from Berkley).

This week I have another nomination to add and it's sweet. It's a Stoker Award nomination for Anthology, FRIGHT MARE-WOMEN WRITE HORROR from DM Publishing, my own imprint.

How it came to be:
I had a little extra money and I began noticing more and more that anthologies in the horror genre were dominated by male contributors. Ten men, maybe one woman or two, or no women at all. That's not fair, I told myself. I know I write good horror and often sell what I write, so there must be dozens, hundreds, of good fiction female writers. Why weren't they represented in tables of contents then?

What if...? What if I used some of my newly found money and created an all-female anthology myself? I had to do it. I was on a mission and most people think that's bad, don't be a crusader. I couldn't help it.

I decided I would not include any of my own stories. This was going to be a pristine example of women writing horror. Other women. Not me. I'd pull it together and edit, that's what I'd do.

Let me tell you something straight and true. I received HUNDREDS of stories. I had to enlist help to read them, there were so many. My "maybe" file grew and grew and grew. I couldn't possibly publish them all. But they were so good, so creative, so original, and so well-written. You see? I said to myself. You see what I'm talking about? Women write horror beautifully and they bring you to fear and trepidation. They can scare you and make you feel you're in another, more menacing world. I knew they could. I knew they were out there, submitting to anthologies, and being turned down. I would publish them! I would let the world know that women were being discriminated against just because of their gender. I was indeed on a crusade by then. I would do this despite the cost. I would probably lose money and that was okay with me. I'd get a great cover (from JK Graphics) and show the world just what women were made of when it came to writing horror.

It was published and I was such a proud editor, such a proud mama. These women, these women, these glorious great writing women. I'd done what I could and reached my goal of showcasing twenty of them. If I'd had the money I could have filled three or four or five volumes with the rest. I regret that, that I couldn't afford to publish more than twenty authors when there were at least a hundred worth publishing.

Now yesterday the Final Ballot and the Nominees in every category was announced by HWA, FRIGHT MARE-WOMEN WRITE HORROR, having made the preliminary list, was on the Final list. It was a Nominee!

Did I do it? I didn't campaign or advertise how well the anthology was doing with the horror community. I only had the idea to uphold and respect women writers and tried to pull together a variety of the work out there. The women did it. The writers did it. They superseded expectations and it is THEM who are being honored by this nomination of excellence.

I am happy for them and for me for having done what I felt needed doing. Not that it hasn't been done before--an anthology of women writers. But this was my effort and I never dreamed it would garner attention and become so honored.

I don't have a track record of winning nominations, alas. Don't ask me why, hell if I know why. This may not turn from a nomination to a win, either, but by God you know I try. I really try. Every time a work of mine was nominated it was from having tried my darnedest. NIGHT CRUISE took it all from me, WIDOW took the rest, and now FRIGHT MARE-WOMEN WRITE HORROR has taken some happy effort.

Here is what I have to say about awards, whether they are in horror or mystery--You don't write to win them. You don't even have it in your head. You simply do your best, do what's right, and see what happens.

This time I did what's right.

FRIGHT MARE-WOMEN WRITE HORROR

LOSTNESS

THE SORROWS

Flash Fiction story for Women in Horror Month

It's February and Women in Horror month. I wish we didn't need it, but we still do. It's getting better, it's changing, but slowly. I edited FRIGHT MARE-WOMEN WRITE HORROR, an anthology of women writers and to my surprise, it made the preliminary ballot in HWA. I wanted to shine a light on the disparity between stories in anthologies and magazines where the number of male slots and female seemed off balance. Ten male writers and two female? It wouldn't be a problem if it didn't happen over and over and over again. Now women are being targeted to be discriminated against by a President who seems to have no respect for women. There's a lot of work to do and vigilance to keep. No one, male or female, should support discrimination in any form. That's what WiHM is all about.

Now for the fun stuff. Want to read a flash fiction story I wrote? It's 420 words. I hope you enjoy it. I am not a political animal, but I've always stood up for the abused, downtrodden, and people who live in an unjust world. I come from a long line of strong women personalities. As a writer, I have little impact, but what I do possess goes for justice and equality. For everyone.

It's Super Bowl Sunday. Take a little five-minute break and read a story. It might do you good.

AVENGE MY DARLING

By

Billie Sue Mosiman

Copyright 2017

Knocking my head against the tree makes it feel better. Makes me think hard. It all escapes me if I can’t think.

Blood pours from my scalp into my eyes, but I can see. Still see it. Sara taking the knife into the bathtub with her. Coming home from the fields to call and whistle and laugh that she might be hiding, then finding her floating in bloody water. Lost my laugh, lost my breath. Pulled her to me and wept bitter tears that she couldn’t last out.

Knocking my head on the tree again, silence in the forest, no birds, no animal to be my friend. In the distance the thunder of warfare. Artillery fire, the bombardment of canon, and jet strafing.

I don’t care. Why care now when I’m all alone? I told her, Sara, we’ll be all right here. We’re far out in the country, nothing but cattle for miles. You’re having our baby, Sara, I’ll protect us if they come, I swear it.

She was no fool. She knew there was no way out. We couldn’t leave the country, our proud country gone to hate and ruin. We had nowhere else to flee and hide. We were one couple in the middle of rangeland. All the other ranchers had gone off…somewhere. I told her we were perfectly safe here. Who would want us? Who would hate us that much?

Getting off the tractor once I saw the jets overhead, I hurried to the house and meant to make light of it. We’d survive maybe if we went down the trapdoor to the small area I’d built under the floor. I’d convince her this was nothing. We were as safe as anyone could be.

The war sounds neared and I turned from the tree to see the advancing army. They marched behind Jeeps and kept their gazes forward. They could see my house now and veered that direction.

I wiped the red fog from my eyes to watch. Relentless, like cockroaches, swarming, they rushed the house. All they’d find was Sara in the bathtub floating in her own blood.

As for me, I meant to outrun them, cut their throats in the dark, and disappear again. It was their fault my Sara couldn’t last out.

I could. I could outlast eternity now I had nothing to live for. I was bloodied, but not dead. Not caring if I died, I’d make a formidable enemy.

Slipping into the thick trees I hurried away.

I’d be back in the twilight darkness.

I’d be back to avenge my darling.

------------------


My latest novel on sale only today for $.99. LOSTNESS, a dark fantasy sequel to BANISHED.

ON SALE $.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N15KFMO/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_awdo_t2_uWhLybDDWQBDP

LOSTNESS, a novel

A couple of years ago I wrote a novel titled BANISHED, about a fallen angel who takes the body, mistakenly, of a ten-year-old girl on the historical island of Haiti. We follow her adventures over three hundred years as she leaves the island and lives first in Europe and then in the New World of America.

I was fascinated with all the problems an adult and mature being might face locked in the body of a child. How would she survive? How would she travel? How could she care for herself?

Angelique was the vessel for this fallen angel, brought to life in a dead child with the help of a shaman. From the beginning, she ruled the people who were superstitious and thought her god-like.

So many readers were intrigued with Angelique and her tale that I knew she had to make a reappearance. It took a while. I had a part of the book, but realized it was set too far into the future. I dialed it back to 1939 and had a backdrop of the Depression and the World War. More characters came forward, more fallen angels, more strange and wonderful people who gravitated to Angelique's former angel partner, Nick.

When completed LOSTNESS, the sequel of BANISHED, was short, but not by much. I let it be what it wanted to be. Just shy of 50,000 words it is still a novel, albeit a shorter one than usual for me.

Angelique is in pursuit of Nick, who she feels betrayed and abandoned her. Nick has left the USA for Europe just in time for the world war to begin. He has no idea Angelique even lives, much less that she's searching for him.

I've had the best time dealing with these various fallen angels and how they do or do not grow a conscience. Without one, we are less than human, and really are more monster--like Angelique.

I'm hoping LOSTNESS is received as was BANISHED. Readers reacted to the first book with five-star reviews.

I contemplate a third book with the characters, making a trilogy as I did with my vampires in the Vampire Chronicle books. It may depend on how well my audience reacts to LOSTNESS.

If you want to know more about Angelique there's an introduction to her here on my blog--a free story titled ANGELIQUE. Please help yourself to it to find out what the child-angel is like and how she came to be.

Here's a link to both BANISHED and LOSTNESS on Amazon. I welcome you to my world with open wings...

Free Story-Angelique

BANISHED


LOSTNESS

RUDE AND UNCARING GENRE BASHERS

      I heard of an author of horror recently who was accosted at a bookstore signing by a person loudly proclaiming he doesn’t read horror, doesn’t like it, and blah blah blah tinklely poo shit blah.

I had that happen at a big book signing at a conference in a hotel and didn’t know most of the other author attendees were romance writers. There I sat with my first novel, WIREMAN, called horror on the cover, but in truth was a suspense novel. It happened to be graphic in spots and real-to-life about the serial murders so in 1984 it got labeled horror. Which was okay by me. I was legitimately published and had no choice what genre my work was put into anyway, why cry over it? It’s pretty horrific, I admit.

      Two women came to my table, picked up the paperback and one said, “Oh, I don’t read this stuff.” The other remarked, “No, me either, that’s scary horror stuff.” They walked off and I think left me with my mouth hanging open. They weren’t the last to drop by to voice their dislike for the work I’d done. My girls were teens and hearing these people they were flabbergasted at the rudeness. The unthinking, uncaring way their mother was being treated. I was simply sad. And angry that I was being slotted and treated like an outcast.

     No matter what kind of writers were present this was uncalled for. Today I have thoughts I’d like to share with readers of any genre or mainstream literature who might dismiss horror for one reason or another.

Have some respect. I would say this today: Have you no manners? Go back to your grandmother’s knee and learn some. Oh, there are no manners or class taught in your family? Then learn it yourself.     

     There is no excuse for speaking ill of work right in front of the author. You can think it, that’s fine, that’s called freedom, but if you speak it you prove you are ignorant of genre in general, horror in the specific, and literature on the whole. I would ask this of you. Have you read the classic FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley? That, dear, is horror and mystery and literature. Have you ever seen a car wreck or been in one? That’s horror. Have you lain on a hospital gurney knowing your young son is dead in a fire? That’s ultimate horror. Have you had cancer and beat it—at least for a while? That’s horror. Have you read EAST OF EDEN, STRANGER ON THE TRAIN, MOSQUITO COAST, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, the BIBLE? There’s plenty of horror in those tomes and hundreds more, but the genre label isn’t on them.

     I’m happy you enjoy romance and I understand you dislike the violence of my work, I don't give a happy damn about your reading preferences, but if ever again you say it to my face, I will tell you these things.

     Have you lost someone you loved? Have you been betrayed by friends or family or spouse? Have you lost work and been in despair? Are you even faintly human?

     Have you any reason whatsoever to dismiss a working author about her work whether it’s a comic book, a child’s picture book, a self-help book, a mystery, a comedy, or….a book of horror. In her face. That author who worked more than a year on her novel, who worried over it and gave it her best shot and believed she had something to say and a story to tell no one else could tell. You would speak in front of her children these things and not care. How hard-hearted a fool are you and from what pig clan wallow did you arise from?

     Don’t speak to me about freedom of speech and people can say anything and it’s all right. It is NOT all right. It is RUDE. It is UNCARING. It shows you as a common person without good manners and good intelligence, otherwise you would not do it.

     I could teach you things you need to know with my horror. I could break your heart and make you weep. I could touch you deep where your heart resides. I could show you evil so you recognize it when it comes upon you. I could give you hope not all men or women are bad or criminal, and in fact, most of them are good and kind and upright. I could show you justice and humanity. But you will miss out on these lessons from inside the stories because…you “don’t like or read THAT stuff.”

     The least you can do is be ashamed of yourself for judging what you do not know. I know nothing of romance fiction, though I've read a bit of it, so I would never in a million years speak before an author of romance to say I don’t read THAT stuff. I wouldn’t do that to a friend, and all writers are my friends, and I certainly wouldn’t do that to a stranger. An author. Of a horror or any other kind of book.

     From now on try to curb your ugly, judgmental tongue. Or I will label YOU and it shall be called RUDE and UNCARING. The label will also read in small letters--IGNORANT OF GENRE AND LITERATURE IN GENERAL.

     I will. I swear I will.

     Do I sound angry at you, hey you there without a defense? You betcha. You mess with my compadres or mess with me, I'll feel no compunction about telling you what I think of your unasked-for opinion of genre novels. None at all. I'm not a young woman with a first novel anymore. I've earned my rank and I know how to use it.
     I swear it.

FREE Short Stories--A Holiday Present for You

Please take advantage of my offering of two e-books. One is a short story, CARNIVAL FREAK,  and the other is a book of 14 short stories, SINISTER.

I make these free for the next couple of days to help you become acquainted with my works and to give away what I do with my life--writing stories and novels.

I do hope you enjoy them and might leave a review. The links are below. They're FREE. Happy Holidays!

SINISTER-TALES OF DREAD-2013

CARNIVAL FREAK

CEMETERY of THE SOUTH-THE DEAD DREAMING

I should have written this near Halloween, but I was too busy. A writer friend is going to do a book on Cemetery Travel true stories and it really excited my memory of a place I found to be peaceful when I was a little girl.

We lived in Helena, Arkansas and I was thirteen. In the summer I'd make a sack lunch, take a book, hop on my bike, and ride off across the hills and ravines to the Civil War cemetery that draped across a hill, the old tombstones rising step by step up into thick woods. It was a well-kept place, with the pathways smooth dirt; the grassy areas where the graves resided was the green of emerald deep water. Black cast iron gates opened at the bottom and I would push my bike, lunch sack in the basket, up the path. I was alone and relished the pure peace emanating from this place. I'd been taught in school about the Civil War and here lay many of that war's dead. Yet it wasn't a sad place and I felt no unhappy spirits lingering. It felt more like a lovely park for imaginative children than a haunted arena of long lost souls.

I'd turn off the path into the smaller paths leading between the graves. Later I discovered there had been a tremendous battle in Helena, with the Confederates defending the city and the Union in massive war ships coming in their determined way down the Mississippi River to raid and conquer. Hundreds of tombstones lay on this long hill testifying to the outcome.

I'd put aside my bike, and walk slowly, softly among the tombstones, curiously reading the names and dates of death. No one ever seemed to visit this open, historical cemetery. I was always alone and preferred it that way. No one worried about their children going off on their own for the day unaccompanied. I never felt threatened, worried, or afraid some male stranger might come by to whisk me into oblivion. It never crossed my mind the way it would today.

I found peace in this ancient cemetery. I contemplated the battle these soldiers had fought, the pure bravery, misery, and insanity of it all. I'd run my hand over the rough, pitted stone of the angels and statues. After visiting with the dead, I'd return to my bike and get the book and the lunch. I'd go walking again and find a spot on the amazing grass in shade and lean my back against a tombstone. There hours would pass as the sun skimmed over the surrounding forest, the tombstone shadows leaning, upright, then leaning again down toward twilight.

Birds sang and that's all. No person traversed this place and through the summer I began to feel it was my special, secret place, the only place I could find quiet and harmony. At noon I'd eat my meager lunch--baloney sandwich and sometimes an apple or banana. I'd grow sleepy and doze a bit sitting up.

No one came to intrude. I was not lonely or sad or afraid. It was peace I sought and peace I found. I went to this cemetery day after day, many times throughout that summer. One day a friend who lived down the street and with whom I crossed the levee and went down into the delta left fertile and growing corn until the Mississippi came roaring back into the land, asked me where I went every day on my bike. "You don't come back until almost dark," she said.

I told her I'd take her there, my place, and show her. The next morning we both rode off on our bikes and when I turned into the black gates with the toothy stones sticking up row after row up the hillside, my friend paused, stopping abruptly at the gate. "This is a cemetery," she said.

I told her I knew that, come on in, it wasn't scary at all. She came slowly following behind me and I showed her the marvelous pathways, the soft grass, the names and sayings and dates on the markers. None of the tombstones leaned. It was all as pristine and perfect as cookies laid out on a slanting platter.

"But what do you do here? It's so empty."

No, it was filled, I told her, absolutely crammed with people but they were silent now and left me alone.

Her eyebrows rose and I knew then, if not before, that I might be an eccentric child. Today thirteen year old girls wear make-up and short tops and dance to music I don't understand. In my thirteenth year I was a child, a real child, a little girl. Yes, I was on the cusp of becoming woman, but not today, not on this day.

We sat and nibbled on our lunches while I went on about how marvelous was this place. How silent and peaceful. How welcoming. I urged my friend to listen to the birdsong. I pointed to where the shadows grew and withdrew. I told her to listen, just listen, and wasn't it the best silence she'd ever heard? No adults talking, no car horns, no radio music. It was pure here and clean and peace lay over it all. When here I walked carefully not to step on a grave. I tried not to rustle my paper sack too loudly or scrape the rocks on the path with my bike tires. If there was serenity anywhere in Helena, Arkansas it was here and only here and I'd luckily discovered it, my secret hideout.

We left early and I don't remember that girl being much of a friend anymore. I understand the reasoning for that now, but it was a little hurtful at thirteen. What had I done so wrong? Was it weird to like to spend time reading and dozing in a cemetery of the war dead?

But I wasn't going to change or pretend I was not interested and happy in the Civil War cemetery. I still rose early, slipped out of the house with my lunch sack and book, and ran off on my bike every day I could.

It's possible that's the place where I learned to concentrate. I learned so well that when grown and working as a novelist I could hold a thought in my head, leave it to get my children water or food, come back and pick up with the very next word in the middle of a sentence.

It's the place that taught me not to fear the dead and their brethren. After so many years they'd departed those grassy graves or they lay quietly waiting. They had no truck with the living world, having done their best and moving on.

Odd places like cemeteries can be a place of not just solitude, but of learning, and of acceptance of one's own strangeness.

We will all go there, those who desire burial, into the earth. Having spent a summer in a graveyard was an adventure, a revelation, and one of the best summers I remember.

I don't know how the cemetery fares today, but being a national one I expect it to be the same. Gray stones rising up and up and up until the woods halt the advance. Acres of the dead reminding us of what civil strife can cause, of what we can head toward if we begin to hate one another because of race or discontent.

But once we load the musket, bring it to the shoulder to aim, and let loose Death against another man, woman, or child then we at least might meet the dark grave and grow at last cold and silent.  It's even possible a little girl walks the paths above us, reading her books and dreaming easily of days past and future. 

Haters Trying to Take Down Writers

I was contacted about troubles a writer is having dealing with people via the internet. I don't know the specifics, but I want to address the situation because I've seen quite a lot of this. I don't understand it and I certainly don't condone it.

Look, people believe different things. People can't all be alike. But under the flesh the heart is the same and the blood is red and the world turns on. It's difficult sometimes today to post an opinion without someone--someone--finding it offensive and making mean, cruel remarks. It's happened on my wall on Facebook, for instance, and I either shame the person or delete his comments and delete him from my circle. I don't play. I don't have time for that noise.

But some people tend to gang up and go after certain writers. They do it, why? I really don't know. And I'm not the policer of manners, but I do know if you have no respect for others, you can't have respect for yourself. Hate and venom is like a cloud and spewing it touches the person who indulges it. You can't be a good person if you're spending time being bitter, cruel, and malicious. Aren't we supposed to be a good person? Does a good person engage in hatefulness? I think not.

What do these people do? In the worst stage they try to ruin a writer's reputation. They set up dummy accounts on Facebook and Amazon to leave comments and one-star reviews. They form groups and gossip. You'd think people would be too busy to do things like this. You'd think they had more profitable avenues to pursue than to bring down someone they don't know.

I don't know what is to be done about this or why it even happened. Only two or three years ago the internet was a pleasant, happy place for writers. Mostly, it still is. I'm just talking about how a new trend seems to be rising where disruption and disrespect for one another has been degrading social media. It's a shame, really. I guess we could blame it on the deterioration of society in general, the malaise and anxiety so rampant, the loss of jobs and money, the fear of the future. Still, how is taking out frustrations on others going to make things better? Is there a deeper sense of separation and jealousy than there used to be or are people just more willing to act out of desperation and envy today? Whatever it is, I sound a warning that this is no way to go.

My friend, Robert Stanek, has been experiencing a wave of haters and this must really cease. Here's his link Robert Stanek. He's been an author twenty years and supports writers and indies. He says, " I have supported other writers my whole career, early on with sites like Writer's Gallery and for the past 10 years with Go Indie, Free Today and Read Indies." Why would a man like this be disrespected and attacked?

When you see writers (or others, for that matter) being targeted, speak up. Talk back to the cruelty. Write a blog about it. Let everyone know you stand up for respect and being mannerly and kind to others. It costs so little to be nice and it costs so much to denigrate others--costs them and you. We don't need this, people. When life gets rough and there's a trench between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, haves and have-nots, the worst thing we can do is turn on one another. Hurting someone else doesn't pump you up. It brings us all down.

Can you disagree politely? Of course. Can you still like someone even if he or she holds different beliefs? Oh, good gracious, why can't you? If someone makes a mistake of some sort, does it have to be pointed out because you feel aggressive? Is your sadness and discontent so deep the only way to make yourself feel better is to try to hurt or destroy others, often strangers to you?

Robert Stanek has done great services for other writers and continues to do so. Come to his support and run off the badgers. Stand up to the screamers, the haters, the horrible and help make the world a better place.

You'll be doing yourself a favor.

Why Stories Fail

A list of reasons short stories fail.

1-the story is an idea, not a story.
2-the ending is telegraphed too early.
3-the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying.
4-the story is aimless, wandering, and wordy.
5-the writing is too stiff and impersonal.
6-half the story is all backstory.
7-logic is thrown to the wind so readers don't buy it.
8-the plot is old, overused, and boring.
9-the pacing is screwed--either too fast, not fast enough, no variety in the pacing.
10-the writing is too precious, too pedantic, or riddled with cliche.

That's the top ten. I know we can all think of ten or fifty more.  They say the short story is easy to write. It is if you know what you're doing. It's a disaster if you wing it and have never practiced the form. The short story is an age-old part of storytelling and those who are best at it are marvelous. We have to take the writing of short stories serious. I will call it an art form, for it is. It's as artful as a poem or a novel without being either.

When short stories fail, we all lose. Be a Bradbury. A Poe. Be marvelous.

LITERARY AGENTS-Good, Bad, and Ugly

It was always difficult for a writer to get a good literary agent. My first one, I suspect, didn't even submit my novel. It wasn't a very good novel anyway, so maybe he did me a favor. And then I fired him.

My second literary agent tried to talk me out of finishing my novel, WIREMAN. Write something like THE THORN BIRDS, he said. I tried to explain that wasn't the kind of fiction I wrote. The suspense of WIREMAN is what I wanted to write.

Once off the phone I wrote him a letter and fired him. What good was he if he didn't realize I was already writing in the area I should? I knew it, why didn't he know it?

I was without an agent for almost a year and then I heard of a new agent hired on at the William Morris Literary Agency in NYC. I was too shy to approach him, even by mail. My husband, an audacious man, called the agency from work (I didn't know) and someway got through to the agent. He proceeded to tell him his wife was the best writer in Texas and she'd just finished a new novel. The agent said this was highly irregular, but my husband was to tell me to send it in, he'd take a look. He warned, "We only take the cream of the crop, you know." My husband told him that's exactly what he was going to get.

When he came home that afternoon and told me what he'd done I was shocked and embarrassed. You didn't call them! You didn't say that about me being the best writer in Texas!

But he had and it paid off and I had to mail out the manuscript to the most prestigious agency on earth. Within two days of receiving the manuscript the agent called me. "I want to sell this book," he said. "I like it a lot, it's great."

My husband Lyle got me in the door and the book cinched the deal. Within a couple of weeks it was sold and they offered an advance for my first litle novel of $3500. I told my agent I had to have more. The computer I wanted for writing cost $5000. (Imagine that!) He said, wait, let me go back, see what I can do. He came back in less than hour to say they'd raised the advance to $5000.

I, of course, was ecstatic. I'd reached a dream. I'd sold a novel. And now I could afford a computer. It was 1984 and the only persnal computers in my area of Houston for sale was a big, clunky CPM operating system machine with a green cursor and it cost almost $5000. I bought it. CPM was before DOS, even, and I had to put a big floppy in with a word processor on it, take it out, and put in another floppy for the word processor to write a file to. Oh God, I loved it. No more white-out. No more typewriters. No more carbon copies. It was heaven.

Now today I don't know it's any harder to get an agent as it was in 1984. If it's harder, that's bad. It was hard enough, despite how it worked out for me in a serendippity way, that no one else in my novel writing club was able to get an agent for years more.

I was with the Wm. Morris Agency until I stopped writing in the mid-90s (more on that some other time). They sold all the novels I wrote. They believed in me and when my novel, NIGHT CRUISE, didn't bring home the Edgar, my agent was livid. He believed so strongly there was no contender.

I loved my agents there. I had two, the first one who became Vice President of Wm. Morris, then another agent who is still my friend today, though he's moved on to another agency. The treatment and care of a good agent is to always treat him with respect. If  you disagree over something, do it politely. He wants the best for you because if you do well, he does well.

The moral of this true story may be that being brave and audacious might work. But the product has to stand on its own. No amount of charming banter will save a bad manuscript from being rejected.

You never know when you'll find the right agent, but don't be afraid to fire one if the fit is bad. When you do luck into a good one, hang on tight and do good work.  A career can last for years, for your lifetime, if you know how to nurture it and do most of the right things. Or at least a few of the right things. None of us can be perfect.



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FROM THE TRENCHES: Top 10 List of Advice on Battling Cancer

This will be a joyous and life-affirming blog. Don't get depressed, not for a minute.

I thought today of how nifty my short, thick hair is compared to when I was bald. I remember one picture of me when my hair was almost all fallen out due to chemo, and there was one strand still stuck to the top of my skull. I looked like a concentration camp victim.

Don't look like a concentration camp victim.

Here's some of my advice from having lung cancer and going through 33 targeted radiations to my lung, 10 full brain prophylactic radiations, and 5 months of intravenous chemotherapy.

1. If your hair begins to fall out, go ahead and shave it smooth. Don't wait until you end up with a picture like I have.

2. I lost my hair twice. Be brave about this. It's just hair. Wear wigs and headgear, scarves and hats and such if you like. If you don't mind the coolness of being bald, go bald. Whatever you do rock it. Rock it good.

3. Don't think negative thoughts. If one comes to mind, imagine grabbing it with your hand, the whole thought, and throwing it away from you. Preferably into a corner never to be thought again. The truth is we think bad things when we fight cancer. That's natural. Just don't think it long. Throw it away. If you've thought about a dreadful future for more than five minutes, that's too long. Throw it all away.

4. Think beyond this situation to the future. See yourself on the other side of it. Make plans. Be forward thinking. Don't look back.

5. When people want to tell you about their experiences with cancer in their families or themselves, listen with an open heart. This disease touches at least one out of every five people and we're all together in this. Be kind and loving.

6. If you believe in a higher power, call on it now. And believe you're heard. If you do not believe in a higher power, call on your strongest inner self and believe you'll make it. We have to grow a backbone for this experience and like my mom once said, "Dip your backbone in cement."

7. See this as a chance to tally your positive characteristics and what you need to improve about yourself. I had a problem letting go of resentments over perceived wrongdoings on the part of others. I didn't try to get revenge, I just disengaged. Now I make an effort to let those old resentments go and engage again with people. Who appointed me judge, right? You can change. Now's the time. It's never too late. Tell those you love that you do love them. Forgive those who wronged you. Be understanding of the foolish, the liars, the hardened, the envious, and the horrid. Step away if they invade your territory and make you unhappy, but otherwise stop judging. Repair yourself by fixing what's wrong with you, or what is imperfect. Get happy.

8. This is a chance to see if you've done enough. Done enough loving and forgiving. Done enough of your life's work.  Done enough soul-searching.  Take the time now to do what you didn't have to do before.

9.  Stand tall. Take your treatments without complaint. Face the facts, but never let them dominate you into thinking you can't make it. If you have a doctor who is morose over your condition and chances, CHANGE DOCTORS NOW. I did. It made a big difference. Once you hear a terrible prognosis, you can't unhear it. Try to surround yourself with positive caretakers.

10. Don't give up. I saw a woman on the news recently who fought cancer nine times. She's still kicking. I had a 20% chance of survival. I'm in remission. I knew a woman who had cancer four times in different places on her body and survived every one. If it takes you, then there's nothing you can do about it but feel acceptance for a good life given you. If you beat it, then you too can write a blog like this and tell people good advice about living through cancer. Either way, do it with at least some joy still left in your spirit. No point in bringing others down or making your loved ones and friends suffer with you. Be strong. It's the only way.

Strange Ideas

There's something exquisite about short stories that you can't say for the novel. I suppose a novel could be exquisite, but it would be quite rare. I can think of a few novels that reach that pinnacle, but there certainly aren't many in all of literature.

However, many short stories do reflect that kind of perfection you don't often see in art. I believe it's because one small ant-like idea can become of such importance that it's a whale. The story is a complete package unto itself. If done correctly the reader should sit back after reading a successful short story and say, Wow, that was something. Then the story should linger, like a fine wine on the tongue. 

If it sounds like I love short stories, you'd be right. I began writing them first, before novels, and I practice the form all year, every year. Ellen Datlow doesn't pick them to honor and they've won no awards, but I know what I've done and I pronounce it...a pod of whales. Sometimes work gets overlooked. Perhaps that's my status with the short story, and that doesn't slow me in the least. My whales swim and a lot of readers like them. That's what matters in the end, my friends.

I wrote a short story this past week that I like very much. I just published it as a little e-book on Amazon with a great cover by my cover artist, Jeffrey Kosh. I could have submitted it to an anthology or magazine, but I just couldn't do it. I wanted this one as my own, share it personally, and get it to readers as quickly as possible. It's called THE PEOPLE OF THE TOWER. I'll try to explain how it came about.

I was sitting on my sofa, the TV on, my laptop on the coffee table in front of me. Into my head came this, truly out of the blue yonder: Tower. Big castle-like gray granite building. Someone is put there and not let out. The people who put him or her there never speaks. It's a little town.

I sat in surprise, the idea twirling around in my head. A castle tower. Really? That sounds Gothic, I thought. But why are people put there and what happens to them and who does it and why? All the story questions came to me and I knew I couldn't answer those questions unless I wrote the story. I wrote it like a suspense tale, despite I knew from the first it would be a supernatural horror story. I get an idea and I just follow to see where it leads. I know, I know, writing advice books tell you not to do that. You could end up in a big empty pasture of words and no where to go. That's not been my experience, so I trust the Muse to lead me forward, knowing whatever tale waits I want to read it so I have to write it. Writing advice is fine for most people. It doesn't work for me.

Then the denouement came finally and not more than two pages before I got there I knew what it was. I saw it coming, though readers shouldn't, and so far it appears they don't see it coming, which pleases me. I hate letting an ending get to the reader before its time. It's like comedy. It's all in the timing. You have a knack for it or you don't, there's no maybe about it. 

You may ask:

How do you know the idea that comes to you is worth pursuing? I don't know. I trust. Creativity is an instinct. I accept the idea because it came out of the ether and it tapped my shoulder and I am at its service the amount of time it takes to write the story. Nothing makes me happier than to read a new story, one that I wrote, one that gave me such pleasure writing. 

Have you ever taken an idea that came to you and it failed, you didn't complete the story? Yes, that happens, but seldom. If it doesn't work out, it wasn't strong enough, it didn't have "legs." That rarely happens for me, though, thank goodness or I'd have a hard drive filled with partially completed short stories and I don't.

Do you suggest other writers do what you do? Hell no! I wouldn't try to tell anyone else how to write. If this is the way it works for the writer, as it does for me, then fine. If it doesn't, if the writer has to outline a story, take notes, study details of character or setting before starting, that's simply the way it works for the writer and who am I to say it isn't the correct way. Because it is the correct way for THAT writer, not this one.

If you want to see how my out-of-the-blue-yonder idea came out, you can pick up PEOPLE OF THE TOWER. If you want to know why anyone is in a castle tower in a small Southern town the way I did, here's your chance. It's $.99 and I won't make much money from it, but sometimes that's not the point. That's not the point at all.

To buy click here: PEOPLE OF THE TOWER

Travel Bug Strikes Again!

Many years ago my husband Lyle drove big rigs for a big company and I often went on the road with him, traveling cross-country. From those first trips on the road a novel came into creation titled NIGHT CRUISE. (On Amazon now as Night Cruising.) Cruise was an unsuspected serial killer driving a Chrysler across country, killing as he went. Then he decides he needs a witness to his crimes, someone to take note of his actions, and picks up a teen hitchhiker running away from home. I used truck stops I'd been to, people I'd met, even dialogue I heard on the CB in the book that gave it a feeling of truth beyond fiction. The book went on to garner the prestigious Edgar Award nomination. The book lost that year to an Alaskan detective book that was part of a series--well, that's all I'll say about that. It would be rude to say more.

Travel infused a novel. The night lights, the long empty roads, the truck stops, the movement of strangers past one another on the road and in the cafes and stops held a sort of romance for me that has never dimmed. Off and on I would ride with my husband and we'd be in Northern California one week and in North Carolina the next. Every day a new view, every minute the landscape changing, and stimulating my creative juices. I'd always liked traveling, but this was like traveling on steroids, day after day a new city, a new part of the country. In the end, over the years, we drove through and enjoyed 48 of the states, from coast to coast and into Canada.

It gets in the blood. Sitting still at home gets boring for us now, Lyle and I. Over twenty years, off and on, we'd take off in a big rig and roll over the land, having the time of our lives. Whether in snow or storm or tornado, whether a blizzard raged or the rivers ran high, we rolled on through to the other side of it, often into sunshine.

We were traveling this way last December when in California I had to go to an Emergency Room and was diagnosed with lung cancer. That stopped the travel for the foreseeable future, if not forever. But I got a reprieve and went into remission. Now we may be going on the road again, Lyle maneuvering the big rig, me in the jump seat taking photos, and feeling the joy of a sunset in a new place. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

Some are home people, loving only being at home. I like to COME BACK home, but if I can just get a few miles under my feet, I'm never more content. My grandfather said of my wish to travel that I had "sand in my shoes." He said that to me when I was a teenager pining for a way to go somewhere, anywhere. He was so right.

The experiences you can gain by travel are worth millions. It's a tough job, the food on the road is bad, sometimes the traffic is horrendous, but then you walk over to a cafe for dinner in some state and get the most marvelous meal or you see a sunset behind mountains that you know you'd mourn if you'd missed it, or you see a rushing stream over boulders shining in the morning light and your soul is lifted. Clouds drift above you in one place and five hundred miles distant those clouds are different, the world is changing, the planet is twirling, and the wheels are rolling taking you on to the next view and next adventure.

I hope I get to do that again in a few days. When inspired by the travel I'll write blogs about it and see if I learn anything new. I hope you'll follow along. The next best thing to travel for me has been armchair traveling. When not on the road I read dozens and dozens of travel books just to feel in touch with those, like me, who take to the road when life is too routine, too the same.

As my grandfather predicted so many years ago, I still have to shake this sand from my shoes.

Five Days left to SINISTER Launch

It's December 10th and on December 15th SINISTER-Tales of Dread 2014 can be ordered as an e-book on Amazon. Today and for five more days you can pre-order it for the ridiculous price of $.99. When published it will go back up to the normal price of $3.99.

I'm doing a Thunderclap campaign for the book too and I hope you can support me. No cash involved. Just share it with Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. Here's the link:

THUNDERCLAP TO SUPPORT SINISTER

I've read recently where famous writers and movie stars (William Shatner) are doing Kickstarter campaigns to fund their projects. Shatner wants donations for his book about living successfully after fifty. Well, someone had to write that, I guess. I often wonder if I should try a Kickstarter. For instance, I'd like to create an anthology of horror and also a new noir suspense novel. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try.  You don't know what you can do until you try.

I've made a couple of memes today with quotes from my own writing. Here they are for your amusement.

HE WAS BORN OF AIR AND HATE AND FIRE. Billie Sue Mosiman, from her story opening of "The Monster Waiting Above."

I saw my fictional monster looking a little like this, but bloodier.

This is a quote that I used in my novel, THE GREY MATTER. I know it's macabre, but looking around at the state of the world this is how it often feels to me.  We're bringing it.

A word about "extreme" horror. I think much of it today is taken too far. I never write it--until I wrote my latest short story, "The Monster Living Above."  I didn't mean to do it. I'd really not done it before. But this demon came from Hell on a mission and performed it. It had to be extreme. I hope it didn't go too far and I don't think it did. It's when we go to the extreme with close-ups of rape and molestation that I say it has gone too far. I don't like it, I don't write it, and I am sad anyone else would. That's just my take on extreme horror fiction. It has to have control or it's just horror porn, don't kid yourself.

So I hope you will support the debut of my story collection (without an extreme horror story in sight in it) and support it at Thunderclap. The more people know about the collection the more readers might read and review it. I do appreciate anyone who supports, buys, or reviews my work. It's just dark love poems from me to you.  Get it for the holidays as an e-book or paperback, and soon as an audiobook. SINISTER 2014

Lock in The Goodness-A Sinister $.99 Proposition

It's difficult for writers to promote themselves. Some go overboard and hit every Facebook group available, tweet the thing a thousand times, and give away prizes if people will only pay attention. Other authors today have bowed out and said to hell with it, I'm no shill. Is there a sweet spot? Can we let our dear readers and maybe new readers know we have a book out without appearing to be egotistical and desperate?

I can't even answer that. It's really become a conundrum for every author, including me. I don't want to browbeat people, annoy them, or beg them. I'm not a publisher's publicist. I haven't been trained in marketing. Few authors have. The truth is we spend our lives, mainly, in a hermit like existence doing our work. Hours that stack up to days and, then to years, are spent alone with our imagination, creating other worlds and other people. We simply aren't equipped to step out into the limelight and say to you, the reader, we have the best thing for you to read, the best book to spend your money and time upon, and here it is. In some cases it makes us feel so badly we do finally give up and go silent.

If we do that, however, we've orphaned the book. We've crippled it and sent it packing into a dark corner. Even publishers don't promote our works and we're expected to do it on our own, with very little help. If we want to pay for promotion, it's going to come out of our pockets. If anyone mentions it on Facebook or Twitter or Linked In, we have to do it. 

I'm using my blog today to announce to you the Pre-Order availability of my latest fiction, SINISTER-Tales of Dread 2014. Yes, you can go ahead and order it now at the lower price of only $.99,  lock it in, and you'll have it delivered on the first day available, December 15th. Later it will return to full price. This is my small way of announcing the book, just so you'll know. If you care to know. No harm done if you aren't interested, I suppose. Don't hold it against me. I'm just a writer.

SINISTER 2014 is a collection of stories I've written in the past year. I began this series of collected stories last year and that, too, is titled Sinister-Tales of Dread 2013--the years and covers change. Not every story I wrote is in this year's collection as a couple of them didn't have the rights returned yet, but nearly every story I wrote is in it. Compared to last year's collection, this one contains more realistic suspense and psychological fiction compared to horror. It just worked out that way, though there are some horror tales in there (vampire! contagion! killer apps for a smartphone!) that should disturb the reader and make him check the locks on the doors. 

As the author, I can't tell you if this is the best collection of stories out there. That would be foolish. I can't tell you your life will be better, your hair will turn from gray to brunette, your children will become angels in their comportment, and your friends will lavish you with gifts on your birthday. All I can promise is you'll get Mosiman stories written at the apex of my ability. Weird, strange, odd, and in a case or two, there are stories that are emotional rollercoasters. 

As I stated in an earlier blog, the short story is my love letter to the world--no matter how dark it might be. I write them at full-force, head-on, and barreling down the freeway at a hundred-forty miles per hour. I hold nothing back. I don't second-guess the characters and their decisions. Like some other authors have claimed, I really take down dictation and the stories write themselves. There must be a reason for this. If I'm given stories, then they're meant to be shared, to be read, and if I did my job right, they will be enjoyed. 

Therefore, that's my pitch. I have done my promotion thing, the thing we all despise because it isn't really our job and we aren't trained in it. I hope you will go to the link, look at the cover and the listed stories and decide to put in a pre-order. Sort of a little early Christmas present to yourself--and to me. I'll know you're out there and you're interested in my storytelling. Nothing encourages a writer more than to sell copies of her work and to receive reviews from readers who liked it. If you want the paperback copy instead, that too will be available soon on Amazon.

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY.

Thanks for your attention to this blog post. It had to be done, you know it did. And something else, though it's not December yet, I hope you have the Happiest Holidays ever--with my book or without it! That's more important than anything else.

A Christmas Gift for the Demented

It's that time of year when I gather my year's stories together into a collection for those who enjoy the dark side. I don't always write pure horror fiction, though I've indulged in it using the short form for about three years now. My real home is suspense, psychological suspense to be precise. In my new collection this year, SINISTER-TALES OF DREAD 2014, the thirteen stories are pretty even between suspense/noir and horror. If readers are like me (and I always think they are), they like both genres and don't mind a variety of stories in a collection. This will be ready to pre-order by December 5 and ready to buy by December 15, a real holiday release.

Here is the new Kindle cover for the collection. It is original from the cover artist, Jeffrey Kosh:

There will be a paperback edition, also, available from Amazon. Eventually I hope to have at least a trio of the Sinister collections.

Why do I write so many short stories? Because I have to. I have a million ideas and very few of them are ready for the prime time of the novel arena. Most of them don't have the "legs" for noveldom, but they are perfectly right for the short story form. I get to explore characters, situations, and locations that I'd never be able to explore if I stuck completely to writing novels. It's true, too, that I began my career writing stories. I've written and published them for over thirty years and the majority of them were published, hundreds of them. In the 80s and 90s I had so many contributions to paperback and hardback anthologies the copies filled up four shelves in my bookcase. Since the advent of digital ebooks, I've tried to gather some of the older stories into collections and now I've decided to make my yearly collections into the Sinister series.

I love to read short stories. In today's world we seem to have little time to devote to reading and the short story is the perfect solution. You can read one story at a time during a doctor's visit or when out camping, or when your mother-in-law is in the kitchen rearranging your spice cabinet. You know how that goes. In a collection or anthology a reader can skip around and not lose anything for doing it. Read the last story first, sample the one in the middle, or read right from the beginning, the way we read a novel.

I've been lucky to have my stories taken by editors and featured in various anthologies and magazines. I take nothing for granted. I expect hundreds of thousands of stories are written a year and the inclusion in print by an editor is quite a special event for writers. The competition is fierce, other writers are terrific and inventive, and stories proliferate. I'm always grateful for the impetus that keeps me writing short stories, for the way sometimes editors want to publish them, and for you, the reader, who come back for more when I do a new story or create a new collection of the year.

Writing is my love, my Muse is my helpmate, and the short story is my love letter (no matter how dark it might be.)

I hope you'll remember me in December when the Christmas lights are shining and the presents are stacked beneath the tree. Look for SINISTER-TALES OF DREAD 2014 on Amazon and see what you think. I promise to give only my best. I give you all I have.

If you absolutely need a novel fix, please look at THE GREY MATTER, my latest novel of suspense on Amazon from Post Mortem Press.

The Awful Desperation of the Fiction Writer in Today's World

I've read disturbing facts on Facebook having to do with publishers. Asking for forever copyright to a book, plus all foreign rights and movie rights, for instance. What!? Just go get a gun and shoot yourself instead, that would be a faster way to destruction. Or what about a publisher changing terms in the midst of accepting stories. What? You don't go changing terms willynilly. Not if you want to keep contributors worth their salt.  I’ll address that later.

Because really, trying to take away a writer's copyright? Insanity.

The number of years you grant is one thing and it's what you feel you can live with, but giving away your entire copyright forever? You'd have to be brain dead. Yet I've heard of a small press asking for those forever rights and maybe even one of the Big Five or Six is trying to go that drastic (for the writer) route too.

If a writer doesn't understand the strength and power of his copyright, he should get out of the writing business immediately. Do it, do it now, and don’t look back. You’re making the rest of us look stupid.

Yeah, I blame sneaky publishers for proposing such an unheard of thing, but let's blame "writers" who even listen to such rubbish without going ballistic.

Sometimes I think I've fallen down Alice's rabbit hole. If this is the way so-called publishing is going, it deserves to die. A big, rattling, snorkeling death.

Nothing gets me hotter than people taking advantage of writers or writers allowing it to happen.

Stealing copyright is like someone coming into your paid off home and saying, "I live here now, I'm taking over. I'm going to keep this house until 70 years after your death. What do you get in return? Bumkus, that's what you get."

Bottom line...there are NO circumstances under which you lose or give away your copyright forever. None. Not offers of money or the hope of heaven. None.

I've felt desperation as a writer before. Years trying to get published did that. But even then if the largest publisher in NY had offered a deal asking for all rights forever I would have embraced my desperation and said go away Junk Heap brain, I can't talk to you. You simply can’t be so desperate you would do that, can you? Again, Jesus, go cook a casserole or something instead of trying to be a writer.  You can’t possibly think giving away your copyright is an okay deal, under any conditions.

As for anthologists who change terms during the acceptance phase of compiling an anthology, well, cripes and soda crackers, what’s going on there? You want the fiction for a whole year, then you say okay I’ll settle for six months, then after stories come in you go back to a year’s rights. What? You offer a certain amount of payment then you change it, THEN you come back and change it back again! It’s like dealing with a swinging door in a stiff breeze. You say there will be just minor edits, then you go hogwallers all over the pages of stories, or so they say, and that swinging door is flying in a hurricane.

This, my dears, is not professional. Professional people do not do these things. There’s a statement of rights, a statement of payment, a true statement of editorial interference, and that’s it. It does not change on a whim and out of the blue.

I’ve been disturbed for some time when I’ve seen so many new writers giving away their stories or novels for “exposure.” Is your work not worth payment? Then don’t fucking write it in the first place! This is a profession, get it? It’s not a Look At Me I Got into an Anthology game.

Oh don’t be such a hardass, you might say.  Have a little sympathy. Sorry, I have no sympathy for morons and people indulging in stupid practices. Don’t devalue stories and novels. Don’t devalue yourself. Have a little pride, at least a little pride, for chrissakes. If you don’t think fiction is worth paying for, worth protecting the rights of, worth keeping out of pseudo-publisher hands who is stealing it and doing a terrible job with it, then hell, go along your merry ignorant way because you do not belong in the writing profession. And I’m not the only one who thinks that way.  I may be one of the few who will tell you the unvarnished truth, (because frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.) I am not the only one who thinks writers are being used and abused and, evidently, liking it just fine.

 Bah. Move over Alice, I’m trying to climb out of this hole. It’s got too many dancing cards in it and the rabbit's wearing a hat.

WRITE FOR EXPOSURE! (I'll expose you to my back as I walk away.)

I've been reading submission guidelines for short stories and thought I'd just make up one of my own here for your entertainment. It is a mash-up of all the guidelines I keep seeing. "Flash fiction length to novel length. We don't pay. We crowdfund/give you a copy/make you famous/think you should be happy we even read you. We only want the best. The best of the best. It better be the goddamned Best or don't even bother sending it, okay? If you don't write as well as today's bestselling authors, don't bother. I'm serious now. You better be writing at the top of the heap because we don't play. We will keep all your rights for a year. Or five. We're thinking that part over yet. We expect you to have your manuscript professionally edited and ready to go. If we have to actually edit it, we may have to break your legs. If you go one word over the suggested length, your mother may get a knock on her door late at night. If you think you've got what it takes, take your best shot. Oh, and we don't pay. Or maybe we'll pay you to take out the trash from the office. We might pay for that."

 I suppose there's a need for all kinds of markets, but goodness, some of these aren't for the serious writer. I don't know who they're for, but not the serious writer. Harlan Ellison, of course, said it first and best, "Fuck you, pay me." Also, don't expect to keep the author's rights on a short story for an inordinate amount of time. Because you don't need it and you certainly aren't paying enough for it and we don't have to give it to you. That is the truth you need to see.
 
I don't want to go around browbeating publications, but I see so much of this kind of thing that it's gotten under my skin. Like a virus or a bug or a worm that's five feet long. It's like saying, "We don't really respect you or the writing you do. We want to see it and judge it and if we like it, we can take it for nothing, meaning you are nothing and this antho/mag/zine is nothing and the whole project is nothing, but we want you to work on something for a long time, edit it about ten times, and we want you to give it to us for twelve months or more so you can't use it in a collection of your own that year, you can't have it reprinted, you can't do bunkus with it, and all this so we can try to make lunch money off it. Also, we give you 'exposure. That's more precious than gold.'" 

That, in a nutshell, is what they're saying. And I find that disrespectful to all writers everywhere.

But then I'm a curmudgeon and I often say what I think. Probably not the best way to be, but some things just tick me off. And using writers for whipping posts and lunch money is one of those things. If a publication cannot afford to pay a pro-rate, I understand that. But on top of not offering enough money to buy a quarter tank of gas, if you also think you can ask for all rights for a year, then you must be delusional. 

No wonder so many writers turn to self-publishing. It's a real alternative to these sorts of offers. I heard people say but yeah, there are so many markets for fiction! Sure there are. And three-fourths of them are ridiculous and I suppose some writers flock to them, I don't know why. The few who pay good rates and don't try to tie up all the rights are as crowded with submissions and as competitive as a bar with free beer on a Friday night. The response time on your work? Long time. Long, long time. That's the rule. Some might be faster, but who can expect the better markets to wade through thousands of refugees from the No Pay-Only Exposure-Keeping Your Rights' bin? So you send a story and wait a year. That's always a barrel of fun.

I have no solution. I just have complaints. Well, I do have a solution. Don't treat writers like morons. Don't take advantage of them. Don't believe serious writers want to publish with you. Don't delude yourself into thinking you're doing a good thing by disrespecting writers. They're your lifeblood. If you can get it cheaper, or for free, that's what you're getting--cheap and free. Good luck with that. Keep flooding the market with cheap, free, stomped-upon writers in your projects and see how that works out for you.

Pay writers a decent wage for good work. Don't take or keep rights you do not need to take. You're probably a writer too, Mr. Zine Man and Ms. Anthology Editor. Be good to your creative partners or it's just not going to work out. And that's a truth you can take to the bank.

THE GREY MATTER On sale TOMORROW- April 10. 2014!

This suspense novel will be available for purchase as a paperback April 10th from Amazon and Post Mortem Press.