All short stories published on The Quick and the Dead are linked below. Happy reading!
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I phoned Kathy Jo before I went to bed that night. We’d gotten that phone put in only about three years ago. Daddy always asked what we wanted it for, we could just talk to each other if we wanted to talk. But Momma had convinced him we needed it in case of emergencies, and… Continue reading
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The White Stone, a short story I published on The Quick and the Dead in 2022 has been lengthened into a novel, and is now live on Kickstarter. The campaign runs until October 31 at 6 pm EDT. If you enjoyed reading The White Stone and the companion stories published on this blog, I encourage… Continue reading
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You know when you get all fluttery in your stomach because you don’t know if you’re getting Christmas gifts or not, or you find out a secret that’s real juicy and you know you aren’t supposed to know it? That’s how I felt next day going up the road from our house to Andy McCaffree’s… Continue reading
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The next day it rained buckets and we girls were even more bored to tears than usual since we were stuck inside. I swept the canned goods aisle maybe 15 times in 30 mins just to give me something to do. Momma put Mary Sue to work scrubbing the walls of the bathroom. Me and… Continue reading
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The chew witch lived up in the hills, on one of them dirt roads that never had any gravel on it in the first place, because nobody had the money to spread it or care enough to. Her real name was Clara Lou or Lou Claire or something like that but everybody called her the… Continue reading
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The next time Eden and Annie saw Meg, she was with Park, and there was no trace of the crying, nearly cowering, shrinking woman that had accompanied the other man to the coffee shop on Meg’s previous visit. The coffee house employees watched the couple as they always did, and Meg and Park did what… Continue reading
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“Hey Park,” Eden said as he slowly approached the counter. “Cappuccino today? Or you wanna do the flat white again?” She began to take a fresh cup off the stack next to the register, her pen ready to scribble down his order. “Oh, cappuccino is fine,” he said. He always seemed timid when they spoke,… Continue reading
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They started coming into the coffeehouse about 8 months ago. The woman was perhaps in her mid-forties. She colored her hair. Sometimes the roots grew out to where Eden could see them, streaks of gray among the black. She was about Eden’s height, a little over 5 foot 3, unless she was wearing heels. And… Continue reading
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I started writing a prequel story to my first novel, The World Between, near the end of 2021. I have not worked on it much in the last two years, but I have a few ideas on paper at this point, including a complete prologue. I shared the first section of the prologue last year… Continue reading
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When the text came to her phone, pinging like a clear bell in the finally silent house, she almost didn’t look at it. Whoever it was could wait until morning. These night time hours were precious—when she could draw, or paint, ink, stamp, glue, print, tape in peace. Amy finished the last stroke, letting… Continue reading
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