The Disappearance of Tom Nero (novelette) — Spooky House Press (May 2023)
During an investigation into the impossible disappearance of a friend, a young man searches for answers—as he learns more about the circumstances of his friend’s vanishing, the re-emergence of a metatextual horror from legend puts not just him and his new lover in jeopardy . . . but might also endanger even the reader screbselves . . .
[out of print; reissue coming soon. contact author for more details.]
(organized by most recently released)
short stories
“[_]he [__]a[__]r[_] of th[_] [_]e[_] [___]r [__] [__]o[___] [_____]t[_]” — We Will Speak Again of the Red Tower (October 2025) [download PDF for free]
In the face of the cochineal ruin, I stumbled backward and fell to my knees before it, unwillingly. Any casual observer might’ve labeled it supplication, or obeisance, but it was neither of these things. I simply froze in this position, afraid to move further for fear I would draw its attention, for fear it would move again, perhaps this time even crushing me entirely with its bulk . . .
“The Nightmare-Eater” — Cosmic Horror Monthly (Issue #49, July 2024)
There is nothing like the deep, venison-red cut of bad dreams . . .
[reader advisory: suicide]
“Heavy Rain” — PseudoPod (episode #915) [listen/read online]
(originally published in Howls from the Wreckage (HOWL Society Press, June 2023))
It lasts for approximately ten minutes before the body parts stop raining from the sky, but it takes much, much longer than that to get over the shock of what’s happened. . .
[reader advisory: suicide]
“Lack” — Collage Macabre: an Exhibition of Art Horror (Future Dead Collective, April 2023)
It was then the thought occurred to me that I was not in control of my expression, nor of my reaction, to the painting. My grimace was being drawn out of me by the painting itself. It goaded me, prodded at me, with an invisible poker, as if its primary goal was to elicit some sort of pain in the viewer. . .
“Old Man Vreen” — The Old Ways: Volume I (Eerie River Publishing, February 2023)
“So, the mayor got together all the men in the whole town and they went into them woods, and they done dragged Old Man Vreen out by the scruff. Hanged him right out there.” The bartender pointed past Colson, toward the door. “Right in front of town hall, on that big oak. No cops, no courts. Just a rope, and Old Man Vreen at the end of it . . .”
flash fiction & poetry
“Chosen” — PseudoPod (episode #955, December 2024, as part of their Flash on the Borderlands: Anthologies & Collections Showcase) [listen/read online]
(originally published in Howls from the Scene of the Crime (HOWL Society Press, May 2024))
What we did . . . was it a crime, if we couldn’t remember it?
“Chosen (voices)” — performed by Chris O’Halloran, Jessica Peter, Erik McHatton, Timaeus Bloom and Eliza Broadbent (May 2024) [listen on YouTube]
“Stasis” (version) — The NoSleep Podcast; Season 19, Episode 6 (story starts at 1:03:20) (March 2023)
Out of curiosity, you try to lift your left hand. You can see where it lays, pudgy and fleshy, a white-pink lump, quiescent, on your thigh. You communicate with your brain to your fingers, to your pinky, to twitch, to spasm, but nothing happens . . .
“Stasis” — Coffin Bell Journal, Vol. 4, Issue 1 (January 2021) [read online]
“such small crimes” — pidgeonholes, January 2023 [read online]
. . .and I went slam-shut quiet and something turned in my stomach like a key in a lock and something hot grew in my throat and my face started to prickle and I said . . .
“dread” (poem) — Nightmare (Issue #135, December 2023) [read online]
I do not know if it is a curse, or a lullaby.
Perhaps it is both…
“O My Heart, Curled Like a Fist Around Ropes of Blood” (three poems, including “the seafarer’s wife”, “dissever,” and “harvest”) — Crow & Cross Keys (February 2023) [read online]
and the blank-eyed men
are out again,
pious saints of discord
with melted-wax faces
& grasping fingers . . .
microfiction & hybrid work
“The Burglar” — as part of Terrify Me!’s Halloween Special (October 2022) [read online] [listen here]
It wasn’t until my sister discovered that one of her dolls was missing that I realized what had been stolen that night . . .
“Cherry-Grief Soup (Chilled)” — Deathcap & Hemlock (September 2022) [read online]
Only use family heirloom spoons to eat, and between each mouthful, make sure you whisper the appropriate prayer (see Great-Aunt Lois’ Book of Prayers for the Hours . . .)
“Some Verses Regarding the Township (and Immediate Environs) of Bear Creek” — The Bear Creek Gazette, Issue 10 (July 2022) [archived here]
As to the fifth verse, we can only guess at what is meant. There is an ominous quality about the word “harrowhound,” though we have heard the baying in the woods around Bear Creek at night, and we do sometimes wonder what creature’s throat could possibly conjure up that noise . . .
“a robbery” — Complete Sentence (November 2021) [read online]
. . . he digs through the drawers*; he rifles through the shelves†; even steals the keys to the apartment‡ . . .
“The Creative Writing Assignment” — Drabbledark II, Shacklebound Books (May 2022)
The paper’s face is as barren as a clock’s. I can hear my eyes ticking in my skull.
other
for 3 Quarks Daily magazine:
“You’re So Vane: on George R. Stewart’s Storm“ (February 10, 2025) — [read online]
I often find myself wondering how many people are behind these divinations, the meteorologists who cast their eyes over fluctuating numbers and patterns, their graphs filling with isobars and front lines like occult glyphs, indecipherable to the layperson. I think about how, as a child, I would wander out into the quickly-darkening backyard and stand on a rock while the westerly wind blew all around me. The leaves of the trees would always turn up before a storm, exposing their pale bellies as if they were frightened of the oncoming force—that was how I knew...
“Touching Words: on Poetry in Memoir” (March 10, 2025) — [read online]
Memory and imagination are twins, in that they are both vulnerable to the distorting forces of great emotion, and there is no distortion greater than grief. When we grieve, memory can come in bright flashes, often intensified to a fever pitch, causing grimace or shudder at the recall. Our seeking selves scry omens from patterns found in nature: in the movement of the stars, the looping paths of birds in the sky, or the settling of leaves in the trees, to help us find our way back from a darkness absolute...
“‘Yours is a Servant Heart,’ He Said.” (April 11, 2025) — [read online]
Inherently, the service industry is broken. It relies on an underpaid and overworked group of people whose typical demographic is the very young, the very old, and those who—like myself—have a lack of marketable skill. Is it any wonder that there is such rapid turnover in the business? Yet the grocery store is one of the only places in society that serves as a cultural and social nexus: we must shop for food. And so, while shopping, we find ourselves in sometimes surprising proximity to our neighbors—even if we do not know they live adjacent to us...
“An Interview with Tom Nero; or, the Mirror, the Gaze, and the Mask” (May 11, 2025) — [read online]
Note: Tom was agreeable through the interview process, and even deigned to answer a few questions regarding the book. As I probed deeper into the reason for his disappearance, though, he became taciturn and furtive, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. During the latter part of the interview, he began to chainsmoke. His hand shook appreciably while lighting each cigarette, and I could tell he was struggling to maintain an even keel in his voice. As the clouds moved in and the temperature dropped, his gaze flickered skyward with increasing frequency, like someone agitatedly checking a clock. As I began to ask him to recapitulate the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, he abruptly ended the interview. It was strange, however—as he stood up, he swung his backpack around and drew out a white mask. He gave me a rueful, chastising glance, and then slipped behind it...
“I’m in My ‘End-of-the-World’ Era” (June 5, 2025) — [read online]
In these days, there’s unprecedented amounts of strife and calamity, as evidenced by the ever-more-definite probability of climatological oblivion and global political unrest with the rank scent of war in the wind—not to mention that the lower classes don’t trust the upper classes, but now the upper classes have learned how to hide better from the guillotine...
“I Have Nothing to Say; I Must Say It” (July 3, 2025) — [read online]
Interestingly enough, though I feel as if I have nothing to say, I’ve used up nearly 1200 words talking about it. Even now, I can feel the silence surrounding me start to bunch up, gathering, gliding into position like a snake poised to strike, either repelled—or attracted—by all this noise I’m making, and this enormous, invisible threat is rising, rising…
“Is There a Collective Noun for the Lonely?” (July 30, 2025) — [read online]
When you hear a warning, you always assume the danger is close, that it’s just moving through. That you might miss being targeted, if you just lay still enough and let its massive shadow pass over you. The danger part wasn’t immediately apparent to me, nor to Cheryl, at the time of the ritual, and it wouldn’t become clear or present until much later, after the final battle...
“Authors, Seen & Otherwise” (August 29, 2025) — [read online]
In January of 2024, I received an email from someone calling themselves “Author Unseen.” This is the story of what happened after—a tale of artistic serendipity and literary confluence.
“Seeking Shelter from the Storm; or, Erasing the Prints of the Heir” (September 24, 2025) — [read online]
I have impossible memories of the construction: my father, barechested in the sun, smoking a cigarette, his eyes shaded by aviator sunglasses. He is lean, wears jeans. The thrum of drugs in his blood, he grips a hammer and uses it to pound nails into beams. Slowly, all around him, the house takes shape, moves from an imagined outline. How points joined become a line, become a wall.
“Camera Obscura” (October 20, 2025) [read online]
Perhaps it is what my friend Chelsea calls the “villain edit,” which is done in post-production by the wizards cutting and sewing the scenes together. Perhaps this detestable-seeming individual was unfairly maligned by the editors’ need to present a cohesive narrative—a rise and fall, a ritual which would include chalking the shape of Freytag’s Triangle on the cutting room floor…
“Tributaries of the Hidden Curriculum” (November 17, 2025) [read online]
Why do we think that “drills” are an appropriate tool to use for education? A drill is something which bites into another material, which chips away at it, which reduces something through sheer repetition and pressure. “Tests”—there’s another one. A test is something which strains us, which bends us to our limit to determine performance. Our patience is often “tested.” Our faith. The waters. The etymology of the word in its current usage comes from metallurgy, in which metals were melted in a pot...
“One, Another; Other, Alone—the Fiction of Andrés Barba” (December 17, 2025) [read online]
In all four of these books, there’s a kind of equanimity found to the prose, a simplicity that calls to mind a still pond, even when the temperature of the scene has either reached a boil or plunged into freeze. It puts me in mind of Shirley Jackson’s limpid writing—clear and straightforward, like a beam of light in an otherwise darkened room. Somehow, that beam draws attention to the shadows moreso than it does banish them, seeming to theorize that light may not always be the best antidote for darkness.
“The Minotaur is Patient: a Schizothemia” (January 12, 2026) [read online]
Perhaps it is possible to know too much. We are often critical of those who “know too little,” and much has been made of the axiomatic “ignorance is bliss,” but what if it truly is? Sapere aude! goes the cry. Dare to know! But every dare comes with a potential for cost—it’s whether or not that price is exacted wherein comes the risk, and sometimes the bill is not tendered until much later. Today, however, even “unknowing” has become risky, something divisible…
Narrator of excerpt from chapter 18, “His Own Waldo,” for Philip Graham’s What the Dead Can Say, as part of the Jennyverse Chorus. [listen online]