Author of the Week, Richard Thomas, May 15

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK   May 15

 

Richard Thomas

( Dark Fiction, Horror Novels, Short Stories. Publisher, Editor, Teacher)

“To me, the best horror is a balance between terror and horror—the clues, the foreshadowing, the uncertainty, the unknown paired with the horror of the reveal, the truth, the violence, the monster come home to roost.

“I’m also drawn to more psychological horror, how the layers of body, mind, and soul go deep into the storytelling to get you to turn the page, feel strong emotions, and then blow your mind, staying with you long after you put the book or story down.”

“You know that part of your writing that you question—that’s weird and doesn’t fit neatly into a genre or mold? Write more of that. Please.”

“What I’m looking for in my writing these days is the journey—up and down, left and right, dark and light—landing somewhere that holds promise, wonder, and hope.”

 

Spontaneous Human Combustion has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award 2023 in the Fiction Collection category.

Richard Thomas is the award-winning author of seven books―Disintegration and Breaker (Penguin Random House Alibi), Transubstantiate, Staring into the Abyss, Herniated Roots, Tribulations, and The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books). Short stories in print include The Best Horror of the Year (Volume Eleven), Cemetery Dance  Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker winner), PANK, and many more.

His work has been accepted in over 150 publications.

He was also the editor of four anthologies: The New Black and Exigencies (Dark House Press), The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) with Chuck Palahniuk.

“Equally devastating and refreshing, this is a collection to be savored by horror fans and literary readers alike.” —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review).

“Horror fans will be drawn to this compelling anthology.” —Booklist

 

Richard has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller awards. In his spare time he is a columnist at Lit Reactor. He was the Editor-in-Chief at Dark House Press and Gamut Magazine, and lives in Mundelein, Illinois.

 

Interview with Richard at Lovecraft Ezine Podcast with Mike Davis:

 

“In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman.” —Chuck Palahniuk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit Richard’s Amazon Page:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Richard-Thomas/author/B0036EYNDC

 

Richard’s website: https://whatdoesnotkillme.com/

Facebook: ​​http://www.facebook.com/pages/Richard-Thomas/151325158233682

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richardgthomas3/ 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/richardgthomas3

Teaching Website (Storyville): https://storyvilleonline.com/

 

Please join me in my reading nook and discover an author once a month on Mondays at Reading Fiction Blog!

Browse the Index of Authors’ Tales above to find over 250 free short stories by over 150 famous  authors. Once a month I feature a FREE short story by contemporary or classic authors. Audios too.

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© 2012 Paula Cappa, Reading Fiction Blog

Abasteron House, A Little Horror Story

Greetings!

Happy May Short Story Month!  To celebrate this month, here is a 10-minute flash fiction read magnificently by Folly Baine, a gifted narrator and writer living in the Pacific Northwest.

Abasteron House was originally published by Everyday Fiction on March 16, 2012.  Listen to the audio here:

 

 

Come meet Abasteron, the angel of the fifth hour after sunset. She guards night. She visits day. This is a little horror story, one of my first shorts published, and the prequel to Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural—the award-winning novel that won an Eric Hoffer Book Award.

You can read Abasteron House as a FREE download online at Smashwords.com: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/350384

 

Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural is available on Amazon.com. 

Silver Medal Winner, Global Book Awards, 2021.
An Eric Hoffer Book Award Winner, 2015.

U.S. Review of Books: “Stunning and absorbing plot on par with—if not better than—a Dan Brown novel.”

ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARD WINNER, 2015. “This romantic fantasy is propelled by gorgeous language and imagery…angels and demons…The grime of inner city Chicago, the tranquility of the Rhode Island coastline, and the depths of a phantasmagoric ocean are the stages for this conflict.”

 

The Firehawk

★★★★★ Grady Harp, Amazon Hall of Fame Reviewer Gives 5 STARS to Paula Cappa. “A talent that will draw even those who are not keen on supernatural stories into her fold.”

 

Follow me on Twitter,   Facebook,  and Instagram. 

And on my Amazon Author Page.

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous and contemporary storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, horror and ‘quiet horror,’  fantasy, and mainstream fiction.

 Follow or sign up to join me in reading one short story every month. 

Thank you for supporting Reading Fiction Blog

© 2012 Paula Cappa, Reading Fiction Blog

Graveyard Dark

My Lakeside Graveyard  by  Peter S. Drang (2021)

Tuesday’s Flash Fiction Horror,  April 25, 2023

 

 

If you wander a graveyard frequently enough, you are bound to sense a ghost or two. In this flash fiction by Peter S. Drang, we have a cemetery keeper, gravedigger, and self-proclaimed “king” who “updigs” the residents. Elenore Heckerson is one such resident, buried only a foot deep.

While death and sadness may lurk above and below the headstones, this story will call you deep into the grave. As ghost stories go, this casts a chilling spell, one that joins life and death into a quiet little horror.

Read it here at FlashFictionOnline.com:

My Lakeside Graveyard

 

Author Peter S. Drang writes fiction by night. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, the Flame Tree Press newsletter, and other fine fiction markets.  You can find his blog at drangstories.com, including an analysis of his writing process for this story (https://drangstories.com/authors-notes-on-my-lakeside-graveyard/).

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous and contemporary storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, horror and ‘quiet horror,’  fantasy, and mainstream fiction.

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The Haunting Miss Strangeworth

The Possibility of Evil  by Shirley Jackson (1965)

Tuesday’s Short Story of Suspense, March 28, 2023

READING FICTION BLOG

Shirley Jackson writes a charming but mysterious short story with vivid descriptions and a protagonist who will captivate you  in a wicked little plot.  Miss Strangeworth (catchy name) is a 71-year-old spinster, living alone in a small town, in a house that her grandfather built, and tends her prize rose garden. Sounds dull? Not at all. Miss Strangeworth is obsessed with the evil doings going on in her world of neighbors and decides she must take action. Irony is Jackson’s best skill.

 

Come spend a half hour with the haughty Miss Strangeworth in a creepy tale in her house on Pleasant Street. Jackson’s writing is  well known as “quiet horror” with her exquisite subtleties and gradual horror that sneaks up on you.  This story lives up to that sly quality.

Read it here at University of British Columbia:

Click to access PossibilityofEvil.pdf

Listen to the audio here (20 minutes):

 

The New Yorker reported that Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) “was largely dismissed as a talented purveyor of high-toned horror stories—’Virginia Werewoolf,’ as one critic put it.” Her most famous works The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House,  and  We Have Always Lived in the Castle, are still read today by both literary and  horror fans. She certainly is the queen of literary Gothic fiction.

 

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, ‘quiet horror,’ and mainstream fiction.

Follow or sign up to join me in reading

one short story every month. 

 

Comments are welcome! Feel free to click “LIKE.”

 Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

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Discover Author of the Week posted on Mondays.

 

Thank you for supporting Reading Fiction Blog

© 2012 Paula Cappa, Reading Fiction Blog

Gothic Lovecraft’s Brooding Fear

The Outsider  by H.P. Lovecraft  (1926)

Tuesday’s Gothic Short Story,   February 14, 2023 Valentine’s Day

In this story, we are in the subterranean world of Lovecraft, written in a 19th-century style that is so very Poe-esque.  Alone in a decaying castle, ‘chambers with maddening rows of antique books … twilight groves of grotesque and vine-encumbered trees, full of dark passages and  high ceilings where the eye could find only cobwebs and shadows …’ our lonely Outsider chooses to venture out into the real world.

There is no measure of time here and no light in this castle. He is forced to light candles and stare at them for relief. Finally he feels compelled to climb out of the castle and into the endless forest beyond. What do you think he finds beneath a golden arch?

Lovely, dark, and deep, this is an exceptional story to read for Valentine’s Day because it is so sensuous and bohemian. The psychological here is brilliant. Ghostly and baroque desires drive the Outsider into a beguiling romance with his darkness. Bittersweet and delicious as dark chocolate.

Lovecraft is a master at leaving the reader with heavy subtext. And although I don’t read him regularly, The Outsider is likely to become a favorite because it is so bewitching.

Read the short story here at HPLovecraft.com

https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/o.aspx

 

Listen to the audio here:

 

Watch the modern film adaptation here (10 minutes). Hmmm, not what I expected:

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1880-1937), an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction was known to rarely go out in daylight, became best friends with Houdini, and suffered night terrors. He corresponded with fellow writers Robert Bloch (author of Psycho), Henry Kuttner (The Dark World), Robert E Howard (Conan the Barbarian) and the poet Samuel Loveman. It is estimated that he wrote 100,000 letters.

“Mystery attracts mystery.”

“Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.”

“I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1,500 or so books I possess.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, ‘quiet horror,’ and mainstream fiction.

Follow or sign up to join me in reading one short story by a famous author every month. 

Comments are welcome!

Feel free to click “LIKE.”

 

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© 2012 Paula Cappa Reading Fiction Blog

 

Discover Author of the Week posted on Mondays!

 

Come Meet Varlok. Flash Fiction

Varlok

 

Flash Fiction! Ready for a quick

100-word supernatural story?

The story below was part of a flash fiction contest at Horror Novel Reviews back in 2014. Some of you may know this website by Matt Molgaards. For the new year, I’ve been looking back at some of my work and decided to reprint this  tale that was published on Matt’s site.

 

Varlok by Paula Cappa   © 2014

 

The ninth hour. Julietta carries her violin up the darkened stone bridge. “I seek Varlok the music falcon, a blind creature of the ninth chorus.”

Julietta plays her sulky étude to the vale of sky, squeaking such discord she fears the black falcon will flee. “Dearest Varlok, I give you my perfect green eyes. Please grant me your immortal sonatas.”

The music falcon flies the Dusha River. He pecks her eyes, releasing glittering harmonies. Julietta breathes in the triumphant notes, grows dizzy, splashing into the river like a coin. Varlok soars the stars, consuming her lustful soul like a tasty fish.

 

 

Psst. Varlok is a character in my novel Greylock.

 

Check it out on Amazon.com or Smashwords.com

Gold Medal Winner, 2022 Global Book Awards.
Chanticleer Book Award Winner, 2015, First Place.
Best Book Award Finalist, 2017, by American Book Fest.

“Greylock is a smart, entertaining supernatural thriller. Think Stephen King meets Raymond Chandler with a score by Tchaikovsky. The author’s passion for both the arts and the natural world shines through on every page. Briskly paced and yet lovingly detailed, this novel was a genuine pleasure to read.” —David Corbett, award-winning author of The Mercy of the Night.

One of the Girls Was Dead

Harvey’s Dream  by Stephen King (The New Yorker Magazine, 2003)

Thursday’s Suspense  Story, December 8, 2022

 

 

How deep can the imagination go? How deep can a dream go?

Dreams are often horrors and great subjects for suspense stories and mysteries. This short story by Stephen King (The New Yorker Magazine) is a tale of a middle-aged married couple with daughters. We are in the kitchen and Harvey tells his wife Janet of a dream, describing details that his wife begins to recognize. Specifics like deviled eggs and a dent in the neighbor’s car. We follow Janet’s every thought that reaches psychological heights of fear and an ending that only Stephen King could write.

 

Read the short story here at The New Yorker Magazine:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/30/harveys-dream

 

Readers, please drop a line in the comments if you liked the story, or didn’t like it. How many stars would you rate Harvey’s Dream?

 

Film: 14 minutes. Don’t miss this!!

 

Stephen  King is a best-selling American author of suspense, horror, sci-fi and fantasy books. When he writes, he prefers to use pen and paper, using a Waterman fountain pen, instead of a computer. In his book On Writing, King says he tries to write at least 2,000 words a day. During the writing of his novel Carrie, King threw the first draft in the trash. His wife Tabitha retrieved it and eventually Doubleday bought the rights.

In the Atlantic, King revealed that he considers the introductory sentence of a book crucial for the book’s atmosphere and to successfully connect to the reader. He often labors over his first line for months or years until it’s exactly right.

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, ‘quiet horror,’ and mainstream fiction.

 Follow or sign up to join me in reading

one short story every month. 

Comments are welcome!

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Dead Still Here on All Hallows Eve

All Hallows      Walter de la Mare (1926)

Sunday’s Gothic Short Story, October 30, 2022

READING FICTION BLOG

Here is a perfect story to read aloud for Halloween.  Walter de la Mare is a dazzling author famous for his ghost stories and psychological drama. This is a fast short story and absolutely classic. We have a traveler visiting a deserted cathedral. The cathedral is not just haunted.

“Devils are creatures made by God, and that for vengeance.”

Why would devils haunt a deserted cathedral?

“We then turned inward once more, ascending yet another spiral staircase. And now the intense darkness had thinned  a little, the groined roof above us becoming faintly discernible. A fresher air softly fanned my cheek; and then trembling fingers groped over my breast, and, cold and bony, clutched my own.”

 

You got to read this one. Author de la Mare is one of the finest writers of the supernatural.

 

 

Walter de la Mare  (1873 – 1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem “The Listeners”, and for a highly acclaimed selection of subtle psychological horror stories, amongst them Seaton’s Aunt and The Return. He was considered one of modern literature’s chief exemplars of the romantic imagination.

 

Read All Hallows  at Gutenberg.ca (page 288 in Table of Contents):

https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/delamarew-beststories/delamarew-beststories-00-h.html#Page_288

 

Listen to the audio at BBC Radio:

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, ‘quiet horror,’ and mainstream fiction.

 

 Follow or sign up to join me in reading

one short story every month. 

 

Comments are welcome!

Feel free to click “LIKE.”

 

 Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

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Discover Author of the Week posted on Mondays!

Bleeker Street Caper

Guy Walks Into a Bar  by Lee Child  (2009)

Tuesday’s Mystery Story (flash fiction)   July 26, 2022

 

 

Take this quickie read for a spin about a sexy girl in a scruffy dive on Bleecker Street at 1:30 am. Moscow-style intrigue with a sassy twist. Author Lee Child at his finest!

SHE was about 19. No older. Maybe younger … She was blond and blue-eyed, but not American … She was probably Russian. She was rich. 

 

 

Read it here at the New York Times:

 

Also available at Readsnovelonline.com

http://readsnovelonline.com/Page/Content/353368/page-1-of-Guy-Walks-into-a-Bar-(Jack-Reacher-125)

 

If you like Tom Cruise and bar fights, this one is cool, featuring military cop Jack Reacher.  Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher  is being challenged to a fight outside a bar. He tries to warn the group that they can and should still walk away but despite his warnings, they still want to fight.  Three minutes of tough and gruff. So fun!

 

Lee Child, an multi-award winning author, is an English thriller novelist and an Anthony Award winner for the best first novel Killing Floor (1997). His novels are based on the adventures of Jack Reacher, a former American military policeman wandering the United States. He currently lives in New York.

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, ‘quiet horror,’ and mainstream fiction.

 Follow or sign up to join me in reading

one short story every month. 

Comments are welcome!

Feel free to click “LIKE.”

Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews

Books & Such    Bibliophilica   NewYorkerFictionOnline

      Monster Librarian     

For Authors/Writers:  The Writer Unboxed

Literature Blog Directory   

Blog Collection

Blog Top Sites

Discover Author of the Week posted on Mondays!

Dream Existence

The Fairy Maiden, A Welsh Fairy Tale

Author of Legendary Stories of Wales, Collection Written by E. M. Wilkie, Published by Pook Press, 2013

Tuesday’s Tale   June 28, 2022

Today is a fairy tale day. The fantasy genre is a delicious side dish of supernatural mysteries, which has been my main meal here at Reading Fiction Blog. We love fairy tales, even as adults, because they explore breaking the bonds of culture and transport us into other worlds of magic and endless possibilities. That childhood desire to fly like Peter Pan or discover your prince at a stunning ball like Cinderella.  I like what W.B. Yeats has to say about fairy tales.

 

 

For me as a child, fairy tales were not my escape from reality; they were reality  in thousands of ways. The wicked witches, the mad enchantresses, the evil queens, and pixie dust, wizards, and magical realms. All wonderfully real in some far away world at a time beyond me.

Come into the fairy tale again and experience the dream existence.

An enchanting quick read, this short story is a charmer and so refreshing.  This Welsh fairy tale is about a man named Tom who steals a maiden from her circle of dancing folk fairies on a river bank.  Once upon a time …

This is a tale of the still, hot days in summer when the dust lies thick and soft on the roads, and muffles the footfall of horse and man, and powders the hedge-plants, and turns the roadside grass grey.

 

The Fairy Maiden – A Legendary Tale from Wales

This story is featured in Legendary Stories of Wales – Illustrated by Honor C. Appleton, on Amazon.com.

This book contains 57 classic Welsh tales  ‘told through the ages’ – including those inspired by Ancient Greece and Rome, the Celtic past, King Arthur, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, George Eliot, and many more. As Wilkie informs his reader… ‘many of them are well known… some are out-of-the-way tales… and a few, probably, have never been written down before.’

 

Listen to a famous Welsh fairy tale The Fisherman and the Mermaid read by David Reid, on YouTube (8 minutes). Delightful!

 

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 250 short stories by more than 150 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, ‘quiet horror,’  fantasy, and mainstream fiction.

 Follow or sign up to join me in reading one short story every month. 

Comments are welcome!

Feel free to click “LIKE.”

 

 Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews

Books & Such    Bibliophilica   NewYorkerFictionOnline

      Monster Librarian     

For Authors/Writers:  The Writer Unboxed

Literature Blog Directory   

Blog Collection

Blog Top Sites

Discover Author of the Week posted on Mondays!