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Death. He plays a cunning role in our lives. Sometimes he uses us to do his bidding; other times, we can elude him, play him for a fool. But in the end, he always wins. In this volume of the Ink Stains anthology, our authors examine both Death and death and the power and pain that can accompany it. Mackenzie Cox, Layla DeGroff, Miranda Forman, S.D. Hintz, Anna Mavromati, Bekki Pate, Holly Saiki, and Jon Steinhagen lead us through a journey of eight tales exploring our connection with death in both the mundane and supernatural realms.
Relationships are complicated at best. Some are beautiful, some are beautiful disasters, and some are just deadly. This edition of Ink Stains explores some of the most fantastic, frightening, and fascinating dysfunctional relationships ever put down on ink, be it with a parent, a friend, a would-be lover, or Kurt Cobain. Authors Clay McLeod Chapman, Mario E. Martinez, Matt Meyer, Ted Myers, Adam Michael Nicks, Jay Outhier, Doug Russell, Ryanne Strong, Bobbi Thomas, Lynden Wade, Kathleen Wolak, and Todd Zack give us a look at interactions between people behind closed doors and in the dark corners of their minds where dangerous, delirious thoughts sometimes turn into actions.
Euphoria Rivers, Quonsettville's Chief Librarian, has left town for good. Announcing her departure, she posted a letter to the editor of the local paper, 'The Quonsettville Quacker'. On the back of the letter, Euphoria included a shitlist of all the people in town she believes drove her away. Small towns face many problems, but when one of their own turns on the rest, watch the fur and the books fly! Includes stories by Jane Andrews, Jim Bell, Claudia Bierschenk, Howard Brown, Shanique Burton, William Butler, Chuka Susan Chesney, Rachael Dickzen, Tom Fegan, G. P. Gottlieb, Samuel Gulliksson, Chris Hall, Robin Hillard, Jenna Hillhouse, Kathryn Hood, Mary Krakow, Mike Lewis-Beck, Vickie J. Litten, Patience Mackarness, Sally-Anne Macomber, Lance Manion, Jan McCarthy, Keira Morgan, Christopher Muscato, Edward Andrew Parks, Matt Potter, Melisa Quigley, David Rae, Bruno Rodriguez, Holly Saiki, Jessica Schneider, Beatriz Seelaender, Tim Thompson, Michael Webb, Benjamin Whitaker & Gary Zenker
Decay. The word inspires images of mold-encrusted carpets in abandoned hotels, forgotten toys in the rain, and rusting roller coasters. Those of us who call ourselves urban explorers are obsessed with it, perhaps because of its profound sense of sadness; if we are still and listen, we can hear the whispers of a brighter past. This pervasive ghost doesn’t only haunt the physical world; it invades our bodies, minds, relationships, and societies. It is inevitable; we are helpless to stop it. In these stories, one man is suddenly stalked by the same hooded figure that pursued his terminally ill father, while another stalks the world’s evil at great cost to himself. A woman who’s recently picked up smoking undergoes a monstrous transformation, another reels when she sees her boyfriend for what he truly is, and North Pole elves experience heartbreak for the first time. There are more; fifteen tales in all. These are the things we lose; we die a little each day. Some of us just more quickly than others.
Death. Murder. Betrayal. An inevitable undoing. The selfish and terrible actions of humans rarely go unpunished in a world where Fate is a cruel mistress and Karma can be more vengeful than a woman scorned. Hell is real, and it exists here on Earth as several characters in the stories contained within can attest as they face war, jealousy, domestic violence, and supernatural forces. Some face Hell on a literal level as others discover it is one of their own making. None were prepared for the reality of their consequences. Authors Michael Barron, Eric M. Battaglia, Eddie Cantrell, Michael R. Collins, Patrick Hackeling, Matthew Lett, J.A.W. McCarthy, Karen Metcalf, Ben Nein, Liam Quinn, RL Schumacher, Caleb Stephens, C.J. Thomson, Jackie Valacich, and J.S. Watts weave together dark tales that question how far one is willing to push to get what they desire and explore the consequences of those more interested in themselves than their fellow men and women.
Foreword by Nicola Griffith, author of Hild and Spear Too often, science fiction and fantasy stories erase—or cure—characters with disabilities. Soul Jar, edited by author and bookstore owner Annie Carl, features thirty-one stories by disabled authors, imagining such wonders as a shapeshifter on a first date, skin that sprouts orchid buds, and a cereal-box demon. An insulin pump diverts an undead mob. An autistic teen sets out to discover the local cranberry bog’s sinister secret. A pizza delivery on Mars goes wrong. This thrillingly peculiar collection sparkles with humor, heart, and insight, all within the context of disability representation.
The world is a beautiful and terrifying place, where the lands have secrets of their own. There’s a rustle in the trees in the French countryside. Is it the wind? Or the soldiers who should have died just once? The fields of India encircle the shaman as he performs rituals that can take away a life or bring it back. The woods next to a lake in New England hide a camp full of archetypes and a psycho who may or may not wear a mask. There’s something about a place in time folded into a tale that becomes a character of its own, something that tantalizes and mesmerizes. From the twisting, gravel roads of New Zealand to the dusty, hard-lived ranches of the American West, we travel the world to find the disturbed, the mysterious, and the heart-wrenching. Authors Luke Bandy, Nick Barton, S. B. Roark, Michael D. Burnside, Gwyneth Cooper, Dana Himrich, Brooke Reynolds and introduce us to their worlds and invite us in to see it as they do.
The fiction of Mori Ogai, written after the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, secured his promiment place in modern Japanese literature. This collection of stories, set in the Tokugawa Period, provide a means for Ogai to deal with contemporary moral and philosophical values and themes.