For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Pixie

All Aaryn wants to do while his mom is out is play some video games, but his kid sister Emilee won’t let up about some stupid fairies in the bottom of their garden. Even though he’s sick of Emilee’s overactive imagination, the reality could be much worse.

All There in the (Monster) Manual

For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Hill Giant

When Edgar Smith wakes up to a giant destroying his barn and raiding his livestock he wishes he could say he’s surprised. The Great Depression has left folk, big and small, destitute and struggling to get by. But instead of calling in the army maybe there’s a better way to deal with the giant that could benefit the both of them.

I’ve been wanting for a long time to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. Over 2021, I started writing more short stories, or editing and releasing some old ones.

My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday a while back which I’d wanted for inspiration although I’m not a D&D player myself. I just love browsing through it looking at the artwork and reading through the terrific lore, but it seemed like so many great stories, so little time. So I came up with the idea of writing and releasing a story or scene every week throughout 2022 based on a different creature from the Monster Manual.

Given what I’ve been working on so far, however, I’d say don’t think you know what you’re walking into. Some of the stories will go a traditional fantasy route, but others will be focused more in horror or science fiction, or parody. I’ve got a few settings I want to give a run and we’ll see how it all works out.

The first story – A Job for a Giant, will be coming out Friday, January 7th, so watch this space!

With a global pandemic, America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades of war, and an attempted overthrow of the US government by an outgoing president, 2021 was most certainly a year for the history books. Ed and Sean take a look at the highlights and lowlights of the year, including the January 6th Coup, responses to COVID-19, Afghanistan, infrastructure, promises made on climate action, trials which underscored America’s political and racial divides, as well as the road ahead for Joe Biden and America.

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Desperate for answers after his girlfriend’s death, he looked for a way to bring her back via the supernatural. His search leads him to Sirendale on the trail of rumours of a mermaid whose tears can grant wishes. But the mermaid does not give her tears easily, and every wish comes with a cost.

Since this story is a long one, you can download a MOBI file of the story to your eReader device for easier reading if you’d like.

Trigger Warning: Suicide

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“Do you know if she was depressed?”

Red and blue lights strobed through the front doorway and lit the living room. Patrol cars both attracted attention and turned it back. I could see neighbours making excuses to pass by. Rubberneckers, straining to get a glimpse inside to find out what was going on at this time of night in our quiet little neighbourhood. Most of those who shared this street were old people or young married couples without kids who largely kept to themselves. Starter homes or homes winding down to an end, the neighbourhood not big enough or close enough to schools to raise families.

The following is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch: Final Season, available on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

Thick straps knotted around slender wrists. Two hulking orderlies pinned the young woman down until clasps were secured. Screaming through gritted teeth, she lashed out to the limits of her restraints. Cold and sterile, a mirrored window took up one wall of the tiled room. Tables and electrical equipment cluttered the space.

She couldn’t remember a time before the hospital or before the tests. Something made her fight them anyway. Willowy and pale, the young woman was almost anemic. Half her head was shaved, the left side, while the right had been allowed to grow long enough that it reached her throat, dark blonde and unwashed. The orderlies in their white uniforms moved around the room, picking up equipment with gloved hands. One of the men retrieved a metal spike. A handspan in length, thick at the base and then tapered to a blunt point, the spike attached to an insulated cord. He loomed over the young woman and she jerked away, teeth gnashing. She knew it was inevitable, every day it was inevitable, but she battled it all the same.

You awaken on a bench in the middle of what appears to be a large clothing store. Fluorescent lighting glares from the ceiling high overhead. Soft music drifts to your ears from nowhere in particular. Sitting up, you find yourself surrounded by a veritable forest of clothing racks, all filled with women’s outfits of various sizes and styles! White linoleum paths divide the racks and shelves into square grids.

You stand up and look around. You can’t see an entrance or exit. There’s no sign of how you got here. Tall shelves eventually block your view in every direction. All you can see is women’s clothing for hundreds and hundreds of metres. You see people moving around the racks of clothing or along the linoleum paths. Other customers, all shopping by themselves, and people in red and white uniforms that must be staff.

What do you do next?

I’m a great lover of 80s horror, so when a friend of mine, C.T. Phipps, shot me through an advance copy of his latest novel Psycho Killers in Love I was delighted to give it a read (you can check out my review here). The story pays homage to some of the great slasher flicks of the era, particularly Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play and Candyman. But it got me thinking about some of my lesser known favourites from the decade, so I put together a list of eight eighties gems lovers of those same films will enjoy!

Continue reading →

The following is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch and Kill Switch: Serial Escalation, available on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

“Run, rabbit, run rabbit! Run! Run! Run!”

Sweat drips into eye. Hot. Baking in the cave like an oven. Fire crackles orange and fills it with smoke. Man across the fire. Singing.

“Run, rabbit! Run, rabbit, run, run! Run!”

Continue reading →

“We have some countries that are very near collapse… Let’s see if we can prevent that by doing the right thing now. We really can’t wait til 2020.”

Sick of talking about Trump, we gave ourselves a week off to travel south of the border and talk about issues plaguing Central and South America. Record numbers at the US-Mexico Border and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrado. The latest on the Venezuelan Crisis and sanctions on Cuba, Brazil’s rightward turn under Jair Bolsonaro and fears for the Amazon, Argentina’s money troubles, Bolivia, and recovery for Puerto Rico.

LISTEN TO THE SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA SPECIAL HERE.

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