I'm still here

I keep saying to myself—self, you really ought to blog more. I mean, you’ve had old Bloody Knucks for a couple of years now and all you really do with her anymore is stop by to check out the blog roll to see if Jedidiah Ayres or A Twist of Noir or Charlie Stella have posted something new.

But you don’t write on it anymore.

It just sits there, molders, and you let another day go by without posting something.

But the fact is, I’ve thought about killing the blog more than a few times over the past couple of months I can’t bring myself to do it, though. Just like I can’t bring myself to delete my Myspace page. There’s just too much of my writing history here, so I’ll just bite the bullet and post something new.

I guess I'll do it Jimmy Callaway style and post what writing of mine has appeared recently…which isn’t all that much, to tell the truth.

Kung Fu Factory finally made the scene.
It’s a fantastic issue if you haven’t picked it up already, (Which you can do so right HERE.) and is so packed full of talent that I’ll just let you head to the website to check it out for yourself.
But trust me when I tell it is not to be missed.

Patti Abbott’s last flash fiction challenge hit BIG with nearly 70 writers turning out for it (My story, the Lesson of Blood, can be found right HERE.)

I’ve been invited to participate in three upcoming anthologies!
Hey, that’s exciting, right?
Except I really can’t talk about any of them at this point…

I guess I’m boring?
All I’ve really been up to is big life altering stuff.
Me and the Missus are buying a new home (Ya know, not new-new, but new to us) and becoming landlords in the next three weeks.(And trust me when I tell you that moving and becoming a landlord is a GIANT raw boil on my ass. I swear after we move this time that I’m not moving anywhere else for the rest of my life.) The daughter is getting ready to head to kindergarten (We’ve still got a few months before that happens.) which has got me on pins and needles already.

But let me think…what else?

Oh yeah, the short story collection I talked about a month or so ago.

That one’s still on.

In fact, Charlie Stella was gracious enough to write the foreword. (And format the sucker, which, by the way, if any of you folks need help with getting a manuscript ready for submission, Charlie’s the man to see. Stella is not only a great writer, but he has a real eye for manuscript mistakes that the author may have missed or was too ignorant about the submission process—guilty!—to format it correctly. [Don’t even start in on me. I know I’ve been at this writing crap for a while now. But, seriously, I was just being a little too lax when I sent it to Charlie] And in case you haven’t seen it yet, Stella’s started a side business called First Reads. So make sure to check it out right HERE.)

My pal Ben Springer (You know, Poker Ben, the guy who did the banners for Bloody Knucks, the Crimefactory blog, and a couple of Anthony Neil Smith’s covers.) is working on the cover

And I came up with a title.

The Chaos We Know

The name’s from one of the unpublished stories in the bunch, I know, not the most original idea, but I thought the title fit with the overall theme of the collection.
By the way, I’m still planning on giving a couple of copies away to folks who came up with some decent titles.

Also, I treated the collection like a big boy publisher and actually sent it out for some blurbs, all of which are pretty cool:

"These aren't stories (The Chaos We Know), these are slivers of a blasted world
which Rawson gleefully embeds in your mind, and which won’t be dislodged by
bourbon, ritual scarification, or even the police procedural -- thank God. And
thank God, too, for Rawson, who has the kind of talent to leave you mutilated
and breathless."

Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike

“The Chaos We Know is a pulp-fueled debut w/dopers, cops, husbands and wives.
Boyfriends & girlfriends, psychos & sadists, sand-storming through the
potholes & shithouses of Arizona, leaving barnacles of the self centered,
the down troddin’ & the surviving. Keith Rawson is the new garbage-tongued
satirist of filth, deviance & violence for the new underclass.”

Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana and Donnybrook

“Keith Rawson wields his spare prose like a wrecking ball, laying bare a world
of whores, petty criminals, crooked cops and meth heads. These short, sharp
portraits of users &losers are deranged snapshots from deep in the
underbelly of contemporary America. No tired noir tropes here, this is tough,
unsentimental& savagely funny dark fiction that charts its own course”

Roger Smith, author of Wake Up Dead and Dust Devils

"Keith Rawson's last name gives you a hint. It's going to be raw, and it's
going to get to you. Like stepping on a shard of glass, but in a good way.
Rawson's stories always bowl me over with aggressive style and deep
psychological fright"

Anthony Neil Smith, author of Yellow Medicine and Choke On Your Lies

And Ken Bruen offered up this one on the old Faceybook:

“Keith
It's simple.
you rock buddy”

Yeah, I’ll take it.

Anyway, that's what I've got for right now. Hopefully I'll see you in about a month