Category: The Art of Writing

“Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge” is Available on Kindle and in Print

Please go to amazon.com/author/philslattery or Goodreads or any other social media to leave a review.

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 revenge for the death of his wife, daughter, and brother. He 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.

I am a fan of the old school horror practiced by such authors as H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Edward Lucas White, and Arthur Machen.  I endeavor to make a story as terrifying and suspenseful for the reader as possible without resorting to gratuitous blood and gore for a simple shock or quick feeling of disgust.

This collection of three short tales is perfect for those who have only a few short breaks to escape into the hidden world of horror, black magic, sorcery, and anger-fueled revenge.

You can find this and other works at my Amazon author’s page:  www.amazon.com/author/philslattery.

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.

Show your appreciation for these stories by leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media.

If you enjoy horror, check out my collection of horror short stories A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror: Stories of wizards, werewolves, serial killers, alien worlds, and the damned, which includes these stories.

Update: GoFundMe account for Murray Arviso

Photo of Murray Arviso
Murray Arviso, 2019

Today, I received a link via email about a former (as of August) co-worker of mine named Murray Arviso. Murray is in the Maintenance Division at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where he has worked for around twenty years. Murray is in a bad health situation and will not be able to walk for a while. His family needs financial help to build a ramp for his wheelchair. Ironically, under normal circumstances, Murray is quite capable of building a ramp. Now that he needs one himself, he is not physically capable of doing it. A ramp is inexpensive compared to a lot of medical needs, so anything you can give will go a long way.

If you would like to help out, follow this link to Murray Arviso’s GoFundMe page, which explains the situation. This condition started a few months ago and has been worsening. Donating even a little bit will help.  Here is the note that came with the link:

Hello

I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-home-ramp-amp-home-medical-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

Even a small donation could help Colleen Arviso reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.

Thanks for taking a look!

If you can’t help out financially, at least spread this word to as many people as you can.
Murray with granddaughter?
Murray Arviso

Magic: Walking the Palace — Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Over the course of Memorial Day weekend, I found myself off in the woods of the Berkshire Mountains, teaching workshops on geomancy and palace of memory. I think a lot more people are interested in me teaching geomancy, going into the future, but I find that I want to spend more time on palace of […]

via Magic: Walking the Palace — Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Magic: The Daily Orphic Hymns — Wanderings in the Labyrinth

As a side note, I think I’m going to use the attached image as the key image for all of my posts about Palace of Memory techniques; it’ll take me a while to retro-fit all prior posts with this image, but I’ll be working on it. In my last post, I noted that I’d created […]

via Magic: The Daily Orphic Hymns — Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Update: GoFundMe account for Murray Arviso

Photo of Murray Arviso
Murray Arviso, 2019

Today, I received a link via email about a former (as of August) co-worker of mine named Murray Arviso. Murray is in the Maintenance Division at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where he has worked for around twenty years. Murray is in a bad health situation and will not be able to walk for a while. His family needs financial help to build a ramp for his wheelchair. Ironically, under normal circumstances, Murray is quite capable of building a ramp. Now that he needs one himself, he is not physically capable of doing it. A ramp is inexpensive compared to a lot of medical needs, so anything you can give will go a long way.

If you would like to help out, follow this link to Murray Arviso’s GoFundMe page, which explains the situation. This condition started a few months ago and has been worsening. Donating even a little bit will help.  Here is the note that came with the link:

Hello

I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-home-ramp-amp-home-medical-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

Even a small donation could help Colleen Arviso reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.

Thanks for taking a look!

If you can’t help out financially, at least spread this word to as many people as you can.
Murray with granddaughter?
Murray Arviso

Update: GoFundMe account for Murray Arviso

Photo of Murray Arviso
Murray Arviso, 2019

Today, I received a link via email about a former (as of August) co-worker of mine named Murray Arviso. Murray is in the Maintenance Division at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where he has worked for around twenty years. Murray is in a bad health situation and will not be able to walk for a while. His family needs financial help to build a ramp for his wheelchair. Ironically, under normal circumstances, Murray is quite capable of building a ramp. Now that he needs one himself, he is not physically capable of doing it. A ramp is inexpensive compared to a lot of medical needs, so anything you can give will go a long way.

If you would like to help out, follow this link to Murray Arviso’s GoFundMe page, which explains the situation. This condition started a few months ago and has been worsening. Donating even a little bit will help.  Here is the note that came with the link:

Hello

I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-home-ramp-amp-home-medical-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

Even a small donation could help Colleen Arviso reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.

Thanks for taking a look!

If you can’t help out financially, at least spread this word to as many people as you can.
Murray with granddaughter?
Murray Arviso

Update: GoFundMe account for Murray Arviso

Photo of Murray Arviso
Murray Arviso, 2019

Today, I received a link via email about a former (as of August) co-worker of mine named Murray Arviso. Murray is in the Maintenance Division at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where he has worked for around twenty years. Murray is in a bad health situation and will not be able to walk for a while. His family needs financial help to build a ramp for his wheelchair. Ironically, under normal circumstances, Murray is quite capable of building a ramp. Now that he needs one himself, he is not physically capable of doing it. A ramp is inexpensive compared to a lot of medical needs, so anything you can give will go a long way.

If you would like to help out, follow this link to Murray Arviso’s GoFundMe page, which explains the situation. This condition started a few months ago and has been worsening. Donating even a little bit will help.  Here is the note that came with the link:

Hello

I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-home-ramp-amp-home-medical-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

Even a small donation could help Colleen Arviso reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.

Thanks for taking a look!

If you can’t help out financially, at least spread this word to as many people as you can.
Murray with granddaughter?
Murray Arviso

The Virtues of the Semicolon; or, Rebellious Punctuation — Literary Hub

In 1906, Dutch writer Maarten Maartens—acclaimed in his lifetime but now mostly forgotten—published a surreal, satirical novel called The Healers. The book centers on one Professor Lisse, who has conjured up a potential bioweapon: the Semicolon Bacillus, an “especial variety of the Comma.” The doctor has killed hundreds of rabbits demonstrating the Semicolon’s toxicity, but, at the…

via The Virtues of the Semicolon; or, Rebellious Punctuation — Literary Hub

Dear male writers: here’s how not to write about breasts. — Literary Hub

Today, on the garbage website that controls our lives, some actually very good writing advice from author and editor Katherine May, which I present below without further comment: A note from a very weary editor, to all male writers: Women’s breasts are not communication devices. They are not sending you, or your male protagonists, encoded…

via Dear male writers: here’s how not to write about breasts. — Literary Hub

Update: GoFundMe account for Murray Arviso

Photo of Murray Arviso
Murray Arviso, 2019

Today, I received a link via email about a former (as of August) co-worker of mine named Murray Arviso. Murray is in the Maintenance Division at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where he has worked for around twenty years. Murray is in a bad health situation and will not be able to walk for a while. His family needs financial help to build a ramp for his wheelchair. Ironically, under normal circumstances, Murray is quite capable of building a ramp. Now that he needs one himself, he is not physically capable of doing it. A ramp is inexpensive compared to a lot of medical needs, so anything you can give will go a long way.

If you would like to help out, follow this link to Murray Arviso’s GoFundMe page, which explains the situation. This condition started a few months ago and has been worsening. Donating even a little bit will help.  Here is the note that came with the link:

Hello

I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-home-ramp-amp-home-medical-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

Even a small donation could help Colleen Arviso reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.

Thanks for taking a look!

If you can’t help out financially, at least spread this word to as many people as you can.
Murray with granddaughter?
Murray Arviso

Das bisschen Buch | Rückblick August — Lesen in Leipzig

Es fühlt sich wirklich sehr merkwürdig an, diesen Beitrag zu schreiben. Im August habe ich so wenig gelesen wie selten in meinem Leben. Dementsprechend lohnt dieser Beitrag eigentlich kaum… Da ich euch aber ein wenig meine September-Pläne mitteilen möchte, schreibe ich ihn trotzdem! Was habe ich gelesen? Am Anfang des Monats habe ich Der Geschmack von…

via Das bisschen Buch | Rückblick August — Lesen in Leipzig

Update: GoFundMe account for Murray Arviso

Photo of Murray Arviso
Murray Arviso, 2019

Today, I received a link via email about a former (as of August) co-worker of mine named Murray Arviso. Murray is in the Maintenance Division at Chaco Culture National Historic Park, where he has worked for around twenty years. Murray is in a bad health situation and will not be able to walk for a while. His family needs financial help to build a ramp for his wheelchair. Ironically, under normal circumstances, Murray is quite capable of building a ramp. Now that he needs one himself, he is not physically capable of doing it. A ramp is inexpensive compared to a lot of medical needs, so anything you can give will go a long way.

If you would like to help out, follow this link to Murray Arviso’s GoFundMe page, which explains the situation. This condition started a few months ago and has been worsening. Donating even a little bit will help.  Here is the note that came with the link:

Hello

I thought you might be interested in supporting this GoFundMe, https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-home-ramp-amp-home-medical-supplies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

Even a small donation could help Colleen Arviso reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.

Thanks for taking a look!

If you can’t help out financially, at least spread this word to as many people as you can.
Murray with granddaughter?
Murray Arviso

See Joaquin Phoenix Devolve Into ‘Joker’ in Unnerving Final Trailer — My Site

Joaquin Phoenix revels in chaos with maniacal laughter in the final trailer for Joker, director Todd Phillips’ upcoming film based on the iconic DC Comics villain. Like the previous clip, this preview opens with Arthur Fleck answering his therapist’s questions with disturbing rants. “Arthur, I have some bad news for you,” he says. “This is…

via See Joaquin Phoenix Devolve Into ‘Joker’ in Unnerving Final Trailer — My Site