Suddenly I'm everywhere

So the wife and I made it back from our first toddlerless vacation in Las Vegas in one piece. True, we're tired and in need of a second vacation (Luckily we made it home right at the beginning of the Labor day weekend and have three more days to recover) but we had a great time doing what you're typically expected to do in Vegas. We drank too much, (way too much. In fact, I’ll be in dry out mode for about the next month or so) ate too much, and spent way too much time walking around the strip. (Hell, we had to do something to counteract all the booze and rich food, even if it meant doing the douche bag stroll down the strip. But, you know, it was the wife’s first time in Vegas, so she had to see it.) The only thing we didn’t do was gamble. Yeah, I know, who goes to Vegas and doesn’t gamble? Well, the financially conservative Rawson family doesn’t, that’s who.

But I guess I should’ve been doing some gambling while we were there, because I got luck on a few times on the writing front while we were there. And I’ll get around to all that stuff here in a minute but I wanted to do a quick run down of all the stuff that’s had my name attached to it over the past couple of weeks and in order to conserve writing time, I’m gonna do it bullet point style.

• First up I had my first story to be published in quite some time pop up in the zine Title Fights. Title Fights is a theme based zine and the theme for the group of stories I appeared in was Jimi Hendrix songs and I was lucky enough to draw Crosstown Traffic as my song. The story pretty much wrote itself after receiving the theme and I had a hell of a lot fun writing the thing. By the way, if you haven’t checked out Title Fights yet, make sure to right HERE. They’ve got some great stories from the likes of Eric Beetner, Jimmy Callaway, Josh Converse, Cameron Ashley, AJ Hayes, and a whole bunch of talented folks.

• Alright, next up is my interview with John Rector over at my home away from home Spinetingler magazine. As you know, I had a great time with Rector when I finally got to meet the man face-to-face and John’s UK publisher, Simon and Schuster UK, liked the interview so much that they decided to turn the audio of the interview into a podcast. (This was lucky bit of news #1 on our trip) I’ll make sure to post a link to the podcast when it hits, but if you haven’t seen the original interview yet, make sure to check it out right HERE.

• Next bullet point is all about me and a gentleman by the name of David Cranmer (Speaking of David, if you haven’t already, make sure to check out the first installment of A Rip Through Time over at Beat to a Pulp. This is BTAP’s first serialized story and the concept and characters are all David’s creation. The first installment was written by none other than Chris F. Holm with the remaining parts to all be published as an e-book by various authors. It’s good, pulpy fun folks, so make sure to check it out right HERE) David asked me to do one of his 7 questions interviews for Gutter Books and in the interview I reveal the entire line up for the up coming Crimefactory anthology and the reason why you haven’t been seeing all that many of my stories lately. I had a great time with the interview despite the fact that I was dealing with one of the worst cases of stomach flu I’ve ever had. So if you haven’t already, check it out right HERE.

• Next is my self interview over at Nigel Bird’s little slice of the internet pie, Sea Minor. I had blast writing this thing. So if you want to read me making a horses ass out of myself (You know, more than I normally make of myself that is) you can check it out right HERE.

• More Spinetingler stuff. I tore out a new Short Thoughts on Short Fiction column right HERE about all the anthologies I’ve been reading lately (And I will be doing another of these because there have been some truly stellar anthologies to come out this year.)

• Here’s another interview I did for Spinetingler with debut novelist Benjamin Whitmer. Benjamin’s debut, Pike, is one of the most impressive debuts I’ve read in a very long time. It’s gritty, atmospheric and violent and like most guys who write gritty, violent novels, he’s one hell of a nice guy. Make sure to check out the interview right HERE.

• Okay, now onto the good news portion of this windbag of a blog post. After three years of submitting to pulp rag Out of the Gutter, Matt Louis and his crew of degenerates finally picked up one of my stories for issue #7 of the magazine. When Matt sent me the acceptance letter I was out by the pool at our hotel putting some words on the page and nursing a killer hangover and when I read it, I practically jumped up and shouted in my excitement. I’ve been trying to get a lot of my stuff into print magazines this year and I’ve been doing nothing but getting knocked on my ass for it, so this was a real boom for me.

• Alright, print publication #2 happened the same day when Gerald So accepted one of my poems for issue #4 of the Lineup. I’ve been a closet poet since I was in high school and I had quite a few of my half ass meanderings published in old school fanzines in my early twenties, but I never thought I would get a poem in a glossy journal like the Lineup. It was a hell of a nice surprise

• And acceptance #3 came when the wife and I were wandering the strip and I found out super agent Stacia Decker had managed to sell an anthology I was involved called Discount Noir. Now, I’ve received a few e-mails about just what the hell Discount Noir is? Well, back at the beginning of the year, Steve Weddle of Needle magazine posted a link to the website “People of Wal-mart” and we started goofing around about the site and I casually mentioned that Steve should approach our mutual friend Patti Abbott about sponsoring a flash fiction challenge revolving around the site. Well with Steve being Steve, he ran with the idea and what happened was probably one of the most original—and popular—flash fiction challenges I’ve ever participated in. And Ms. Decker liked the idea so much, she decided to have Steve and Patti edit all the stories into an anthology with new stories from Kyle Minor, Sophie Littlefield, Bill Crider, JT Ellison, Laura Benedict, and a whole bunch more writers and Stacia ended up selling it to the good folks at Untreed Reads. For the full line up of writers, make sure to check it out right HERE.

Well, shit, that went on way too long, but you all know I don’t have a problem with bragging about myself and hopefully more good news will be coming in the next few weeks as I spit polish some new stories for some of my favorite sites like A Twist of Noir and Plots with Guns and try my hand at getting into some other print mags.

Oh, and one last thing before I go, issue #5 of Crimefactory will be hitting at the end of the month and we’re going through a few format changes at the moment and we’ll be announcing some HUGE news as we get closer to zero hour.

Anyway, folks, have a great holiday and I’ll see you next time.