Shivers VI has started to ship. The latest in the long-running series of anthologies contains Stephen King’s rare story “The Crate,” which was part of Creepshow, “A Special Place” by Peter Straub, a novella that relates to his most recent book, A Dark Matter, and stories by many familiar names, including mine. My contribution is called “It Is the Tale.” The first printing of the trade paperback edition is almost sold out and CD has just ordered a second printing. (The signed Limited Edition hardcover sold out in less than 72 hours back when the book was announced.) I’ve had stories in all of the even-numbered installments in the series.
I sold my first story of 2011. It’s for an anthology to which I was invited to pitch a story idea and then got the green light to write the story, which I did in late November. Spent the last couple of days addressing some plotting concerns from the editor, sent it back last night and received my acceptance an hour or so later. The table of contents hasn’t been announced yet (though I expect it will be soon), so I’m not naming the anthology, but I’m pleased to be part of it.
Now if only I can get my sh*t together and write the story I want to submit to another anthology that has a deadline of, oh, oops, this coming Monday…
I’m also working on a lengthy interview that will be part of some sort of round-table discussion.
Oceanview Publishing (publishers of Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads) has a few giveaways going via Facebook and Twitter. Someone I know on rec.arts.mystery won their five-book grab bag contest from back in December.
The first of two new episodes of Law & Order: SVU last night started out looking like the characters had never heard of Fight Club and ended with a legal dilemma. If two people who aren’t in cahoots both claim they murdered someone, they both get away with it. I wonder if that’s true in practice. Sure, the presence of two viable suspects means that there’s ample reasonable doubt that either of them did it, but surely there must be some way to prosecute them for something. Otherwise, wouldn’t there be a spate of murders with two suspects? Proving collusion to dupe the legal system would be difficult, one would think. Of course, the fact that the victim was a wife- and child-beating bastard and the two suspects were his wife and stepson made it okay. He was someone who needed killin’.
