Silent Nightmares Accepting
Quite a Roster of Talent Already Attached
Cross Your Fingers and Start Your Engines
We’ve already accepted stories from Joe R. Lansdale, Alma Katsu, Gary A. Braunbeck, Ramsey Campbell, Zoje Stage, Lisa Morton, and Eugen Bacon. With commitments from Josh Malerman, Jonathan Maberry, and Owen King. You should be in very good company.
Today I’ll reach out to Brian Evenson to beg for one of his short, uncanny pieces, as holiday-centered as possible.
Take your best shot right here.
In Regard to Our Story About Our Contributors
Take a fresh look at the story Wickedness. For contrast, we’ll need a couple Bios that function as short anecdotes. A mini-scene or two, but still presented within the format of a Bio: Name, Title of Work in this Collection, misc. & anecdote.
Like so much of Hempel’s work, the Ron Hansen story consists of vignettes that fall into a rough sequence, but that can be rearranged for best effect. Going forward, it would be good to have a couple longer narrative anecdotes disquised as Bios. What the hell, such anecdotes might even stretch longer — eventually — and at that point we’ll be looking at a novella.
That would be fun: A seemingly bland “About Our Contributors” page that slowly blossoms into a short novel like Winesburg, Ohio or Peyton Place.
If you can hammer out a good Bio/Anecdote, post it in the Comments below.
Here’s a pdf of “Wickedness.” http://ereserve.library.utah.edu/Annual/ENGL/2500/Kilpatrick/wicked.pdf
Ophelia M. Stockhill MDD, CPTSD, BPD, ‘How to Be, or Not to Be,’ was found dead, except she was breathing. The tiles that made up the floor, when she came crashing down, didn’t smell as white as they looked from standing. Lightheaded and hearted, she didn’t mind. But somebody heard the noise and minded.
Her short, handwritten essay ‘The Easy Way out, The Hard Way’ has been published in her medical records binder, granting her the "Extended Stay" prize. The piece has been described by Ophelia’s inpatient social worker as ‘concerning, to say the least,’ while her poem ‘Sweet Tooth’ has gone largely unnoticed because people who frame their diplomas think it's about deserts. Her favorite food, hospital chocolate cake, is served wrapped in cellophane.
For safety reasons, her contribution was written with a ballpoint pen that had a dull tip and a soft rubber shaft, half the length of a normal pen. If she swallowed it, it would flow through her without rupturing her intestines.
Ophelia understood the no shoelaces policy, but when she asked about “why no erasers?” no one answered.
And when no one answered, Ophelia smiled with half of her mouth and asked, “Can I please have some more cake?”
In addition to her writing, Ophelia’s shocking visual/performance piece, ‘Up the River, Not Across the Bridge,’ is the first-place winner of the "Broken Character" award after one paramedic said, “holy shit, she's bleeding out, fast” out loud. Recently, she was cleared of her suspected ‘Anorexia Nervosa,’ ordering two, three, four slices of cake each meal. The diploma people chalked it up to good metabolism.
“Unwrapping that cake,” according to Ophelia,” peeling the little squares of cellophane off is the best part of the day.”
Her upcoming novella ‘Suffocation, Piece by Piece: A Quilt of Plastic’, has been described as "breathtaking" and is set to be released, posthumously, this Summer.