Perfect Darkness
Click-Clack the Rattlebag by Neil Gaiman (2014)
Tuesday’s Tale of Terror March 12, 2019
Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of where creaking attic steps might lead you? Or what you’ll find up there? Do you like bedtime stories? An old house, a little boy, and the sister’s boyfriend. Do you believe in monsters?
Come along with Neil Gaiman and discover Click-Clack the Rattlebag. Deep, dark, and delicious! A quick read at 15 minutes, flash fiction, you won’t forget.
Turn out the lights and read it here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11603446/Neil-Gaiman-Click-clack-the-Rattlebag.html
Listen to the audio (12 minutes) by Neil Gaiman at NPR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imLja6Emezo
NEIL GAIMAN is the bestselling author of books for adults and children, winner of Newbery and Carnegie medals and Book of the Year by British National Book Awards. You may know his novels Coraline, American Gods, or The Graveyard Book. Born in the UK, he now lives in the US and is Professor in the Arts at Bard College. Visit his website: http://www.neilgaiman.com/
If you are interested in Neil Gaiman’s creative process as a writer, here is an interview that is well worth the time: http://www.theliteraryreview.org/interview/neil-gaiman-the-creative-press/
Here’s a snippet:
“Do you start with a theme that you then want to find characters for? Or do you start with the character?”
NG: “Both of those things, and sometimes more. What I start with is enough, enough to get going. With American Gods, I had an idea about characters. Somewhere in my head, I had the idea about a couple of people meeting on a plane. One of them seemed to be an old drifter, and the other one had just gotten out of prison, and that was all I knew about them.”
Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 200 short stories by more than 100 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, ‘quiet horror,’ crime, sci-fi, and mainstream fiction.
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Other Reading Web Sites to Visit
Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews
Books & Such Bibliophilica NewYorkerFictionOnline
Lovecraft Ezine Parlor of Horror
Slattery’s Art of Horror Magazine Chuck Windig’s Terrible Minds
HorrorAddicts.net Horror Novel Reviews HorrorSociety.com
Monster Librarian HorrorTalk.com
Rob Around Books The Story Reading Ape Blog
For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed