It took a long time. Many apologies for my absence. Thanks to the people at WordPress, I found my blog after a six month absence, and I am ready to start blogging again. I look forward to reconnecting with my many blogging friends. Roger.
Author: Phil Slattery
Publisher, Rural Fiction Magazine; publisher, The Chamber Magazine; founder, the Farmington Writers Circle. I have written short stories and poetry for many years. In my careers as a Naval officer and in the federal government, I have written thousands of documents of many types. I am currently working on a second edition for my poetry collection and a few novels.
“Her Strong Enchantments Failing” by A.E. Housman
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
“O young man, O my slayer,
To-morrow you shall die.”
O Queen of air and darkness,
I think ’tis truth you say,
And I shall die tomorrow;
But you will die to-day.
My Interview with KSJE Will Air on March 7 at 10:30 A.M.
In February, I recorded an interview on my works and writing with “Write On Four Corners“, a program with KSJE 90.9 FM, the Farmington (NM) National Public Radio station. The interview will air on March 7, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. The interview covered a wide range of topics concerning my writing and my writing plans for the future including upcoming work. Be sure to tune in. The program was hosted by Traci HalesVass, retired assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at San Juan College in Farmington. The interview will be available on podcast after the broadcast.
To celebrate this, on the day of the broadcast, I am giving away e-copies of all my works available on Amazon Kindle. These include A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, Alien Embrace, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge, and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Follow this link to my Amazon Author’s page to find out more about each work.
Spring “Diabolical” Giveaway
Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge will be free March 2, 7, and 20; April 6; and May 1.
Jack Thurston is a retired professor of medieval literature and history. He is also a widower and father and a retired sorcerer who has returned to the black arts to exact horrifying revenge for the death of his wife, daughter, and brother. Jack has an intriguing position in the universe at a focal point of life, the afterlife, logic and reason, anger and hatred, the ancient and the modern worlds, grief and his attempts to escape grief through self-destruction. Though he wants to have the peace he once found with his wife, Agatha, he is pulled in many directions by circumstance and by his powerful negative emotions.
Currently, Jack has a Twitter account (@jthurston666), where he has attracted a small following and where it has only recently been revealed that he is fictional. Jack has his own blog at jackthurstonblog.wordpress.com (a work in progress) and his own e-mail at jackthurston666@gmail.com. Information on more social media accounts and other characters (as they are developed) can be found at: philslattery.wordpress.com. Please interact with him at any of his social media accounts as you would with a real person.
Check back frequently. More giveaways are coming in the near future.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
Alien Embrace Giveaway on Four Days in March
Alien Embrace will be free on March 1, 7, 9, and 20.
Alien Embrace is the story of Logan Rickover, an officer on a spaceship set to explore the alien world of Stheno D. Captured by a xenomorph that wants to use him as food for its young, he must fight a battle for control of his own mind as the alien feeds him hallucinations to keep him complacent until its young hatch. Can Logan regain control of his mind in time to escape back to his ship?
Ron Baker, Amazon Customer, gives this story five stars and comments:
“This short has exactly what I like in science fiction: planet exploration and bizarre otherworldly aliens, in this case insectoid. The horrendous purpose the aliens have for the hapless astronauts who make planetfall to find the numerous previous missing exploration teams is grisly. I love the mystery of the planet and the authors device of alternating from the aliens bizarre perspective then switching to the astronauts point of view.”
Check back frequently. More giveaways are coming in the near future.
“Celebrating: Black Horror History” from HorrorAddicts.Net
Sycorax’s Daughters gives Black Women in Horror a Voice By Sumiko Saulson, editor of Black Magic Women Editor’s Note: On February 5, 2018 the Horror Writer’s Association announced that all three of the works by black women mentioned in this article have made it to the final Stoker’s ballot. The article was written when the […]
via Black Women in Horror: Sycorax’s Daughters — HorrorAddicts.net
Four of My Works Will Be Free on Friday, February 23.
On each Friday over the next few months, I will be giving away one or more of my works.
On Friday the 23rd, I am giving away A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, and my latest work, Nocturne.
A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
In The Scent and Other Stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
In Click, Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems he wrote during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of that time as a narrator, who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Kindle was published on February 15, 2018. This is the first time it is being offered for free as a promotion.
All of these are available on Kindle at amazon.com/author/philslattery.
Phil Slattery’s Sci-Fi Novelette “Alien Embrace” Will Be Free on Amazon February 16, 2018
My novelette Alien Embrace will be free on Amazon February 16, 2018.
Logan Rickover, owner of a hardware store in a small town in Kentucky, has lucid dreams of life as an astronaut that intrude upon his life at any moment. Which of his lives is real? The quiet paradise of Danville or the terrifying jungle world of Stheno D?
Ron Baker commented, “This short has exactly what I like in science fiction: planet exploration and bizarre otherworldly aliens, in this case insectoid. The horrendous purpose the aliens have for the hapless astronauts who make planetfall to find the numerous previous missing exploration teams is grisly. I love the mystery of the planet and the authors device of alternating from the aliens bizarre perspective then switching to the astronauts point of view.”
I will be offering more of my works for free in the upcoming weeks. Check back often.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media.
“Nocturne” Has Been Published on Amazon Kindle
On February 14 at about 10:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, I finished and submitted my poetry collection Nocturne for publication on Amazon Kindle. It has been published. A print version is in the works.
Nocturne is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically.
Check back frequently for updates.
“Nocturne” Has Been Submitted for Publication on Amazon Kindle
On February 14 at about 10:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, I finished and submitted my poetry collection Nocturne for publication on Amazon Kindle. It should appear within 72 hours from then. A print version is in the works.
Nocturne is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically.
Check back frequently for updates.
“Nocturne” Has Been Submitted for Publication on Amazon Kindle
On February 14 at about 10:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, I finished and submitted my poetry collection Nocturne for publication on Amazon Kindle. It should appear within 72 hours from then. A print version is in the works.
Nocturne is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically.
Check back frequently for updates.
“The Scent and Other Stories: the Dark Side of Love” Will Be Free on Valentine’s Day, 2018
In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
To order yours and to view my other works as well, visit my Amazon author’s page at: www.amazon.com/author/philslattery.
Praise for Stories Contained in “The Scent and Other Stories”:
The Scent
“This story has a lovely dreamy quality whilst being unsettling too. It lingers on half processed emotional experiences and leaves the reader asking ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ – feelings that are familiar for so many people.”
“You wrote about something we can all relate to – how, out of the blue, the scent of something evokes a memory of something long past; and the emotions we felt at the time! A clever story …”
“This descriptive piece about remembrance, the thought of what might have been, is a common sad thread that will resonate with those have experienced the pain of that one love lost. Slattery’s use of scent was exquisite as we feel Quinn’s pain and hope that he finds his peace, at last.”
Decision
“Fantastic writing – I held my breath for most of the story. The descriptions of the countryside and the people were beautiful and the tension compelling. This could possibly be the start of a novel or a suite of stories. Thank you very much and good luck with your writing in the future”
“Suspenseful and engaging. The dialogue and descriptions kept pace with the action. Well done.”
A Good Man
“Lots of detail examining an old question of how do you judge a person’s life. It left me wondering.”
“Great job capturing the social climate of the sixties. Good choice for how to present the story – deathbed “confession” by the mother. I enjoyed it.”
The Slightest of Indiscretions
“Excellent writing brings this poignant story to life and makes the reader work to understand more of what might be. Very many thanks for a satisfying, emotionally intelligent read…”
“A Review of The Paris Review’s Overproduced Podcast” from Biblioklept
In his introduction to the first episode of The Paris Review Podcast, former editor Lorin Stein tells us that we’re going to hear some great writing. He then claims, “what you won’t hear is much in the way of hosting from me or anyone else. We’re just going to let the writing speak for itself, the way […]
via A review of The Paris Review’s overproduced podcast — Biblioklept
Article on Clark Ashton Smith from Horror Delve
Clark Ashton Smith was an painter, poet, sculpture and writer born in 1893 in California. He had several horror, fantasy and science fiction stories published in Weird Tales and other pulp magazines of the time. This led to his developing a thriving correspondence with both H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. I particularly love Smith’s […]
via 13 FANTASY AND HORROR TALES BY CLARK ASHTON SMITH — Horror Delve
“The Scent and Other Stories: the Dark Side of Love” Will Be Free on #FictionFriday, Feb. 9 and on Valentine’s Day
In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
To order yours and to view my other works as well, visit my Amazon author’s page at: www.amazon.com/author/philslattery.
Praise for Stories Contained in “The Scent and Other Stories”:
Praise for Stories Contained in “The Scent and Other Stories”:
The Scent
“This story has a lovely dreamy quality whilst being unsettling too. It lingers on half processed emotional experiences and leaves the reader asking ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ – feelings that are familiar for so many people.”
“You wrote about something we can all relate to – how, out of the blue, the scent of something evokes a memory of something long past; and the emotions we felt at the time! A clever story …”
“This descriptive piece about remembrance, the thought of what might have been, is a common sad thread that will resonate with those have experienced the pain of that one love lost. Slattery’s use of scent was exquisite as we feel Quinn’s pain and hope that he finds his peace, at last.”
Decision
“Fantastic writing – I held my breath for most of the story. The descriptions of the countryside and the people were beautiful and the tension compelling. This could possibly be the start of a novel or a suite of stories. Thank you very much and good luck with your writing in the future”
“Suspenseful and engaging. The dialogue and descriptions kept pace with the action. Well done.”
A Good Man
“Lots of detail examining an old question of how do you judge a person’s life. It left me wondering.”
“Great job capturing the social climate of the sixties. Good choice for how to present the story – deathbed “confession” by the mother. I enjoyed it.”
The Slightest of Indiscretions
“Excellent writing brings this poignant story to life and makes the reader work to understand more of what might be. Very many thanks for a satisfying, emotionally intelligent read…”
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 