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The following is an excerpt from VHS, a literary novel by Pablo D’Stair being released in various e-formats, absolutely free-of-charge (and in limited edition print-editions-by-part through giveaways). Information on the project, including links to what is currently available, can be found at www.vhsbook.wordpress.com. "Drain" There was a distinct moaning coming from the sink drain in the bathroom of my basement—it didn’t start as distinct, in fact I hardly even heard it at first, had just ducked in to the bathroom to wash my hands because they’d felt sticky, and it took a few times thinking I’d heard something indistinct to focus and then it wasn’t until I had my ear over the basin it got clear, the moan. I stared at the opening, put two fingers in it, looked in the cabinet space under the sink, mostly because I wondered if the sink had a pipe went straight down or what—pipe…
Following is a guest post from David Baboulene, author of The Story Book. He is currently preparing to defend his Ph.D. thesis at Brighton University that subtext is the defining substance of story, and by measuring subtext presence, depth and extent, he can tell you in advance how successful a story is likely to be. If you are like me, you are unlikely to understand the next two paragraphs, but by the end of this article we will visit them again and hopefully you willunderstand them and your life will be all the richer for it and you will love me. Here we go, then: Plot is character, and character is plot, because as soon as a character takes a meaningful action, his action is driving your plot (whether you like it or not). Conversely, as soon as an event happens which elicits a meaningful reaction from your character, then his true character is developing in…
By now, most of you know that I have a story in this amazing noir short fiction anthology called Warmed and Bound. What some of you may not yet know is just how successful the book has been already. Go here for purchase information. Don't be left out.
The day of attrition is upon us. Also, coincidentally, the day that Warmed and Bound is released is also upon us. For those of you not yet in the know, prepare to be baptized. Warmed and Bound is an anthology of short stories stitched together by the people at The Velvet and edited by the beautiful and talented Pela Via. I've stated already the huge amount of talent crammed inside this amazing noir collection, so I won't do that again. For those with an tendency toward great noir fiction, this collection simply will not disappoint. In fact, the amazing Steve Erickson has offered his own view words to this effect: "The writers of The Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas...the result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy." Head over to the Warmed and Bound site for all the purchase information. Currently…
Pablo D'Stair simply doesn't stop. He has recently begun yet another project. His Why'd You Go and Do That? series asks authors to confess to a long hidden secret, and subsequently answer a few questions about how that secret may have forged the author’s thematic sensibilities. This guy has so much going on that he's basically become his own online school. Though I hope this trend of uncomfortable confession doesn't take over his entire curriculum; someone will likely be calling HR. Head over to the Why’d You Go and Do That? site to read my confession, my answers, Pablo’s confession, and his answers to my questions. Here’s a taste: So, first thing I’d like to ask—coming at less the full on subject matter here, but one of your set-up points—is whether you feel in your desire to write some drive to eventually “be free of the tedium of a…
This entire post is pulled from the Warmed & Bound book site, written by editor Pela Via. If she didn't already have the words, I swear this could have come from my fingers verbatim (though with less Caleb Ross praise; I try to subdue the ego as much as I can): It was this time last year I sent out the first anthology emails. If I remember right, first to JR Harlan, begging for his story “Love,” and to Craig Clevenger, with more unsubtle begging. Then others, Richard Thomas, Gordon Highland and Caleb Ross, asking for publishing advice and whether they liked various titles—one a play on the well-loved existing phrase: The Velvet warms and binds. I don’t know what happened between then and now. But this photo, and rumors of other people to be similarly inked, tell one part of it better than I could. The idea of a…