“His Assitant”, Dark Fiction by Patrick Crossen, is now live at The Chamber.
Patrick Crossen is a writer living in Pittsburgh, PA trying to balance reading, birdwatching, writing, and breathing. When he’s not writing, he’s eagerly checking under bushes and stones for the pixies he knows are watching his every move. But he’s not paranoid.
A quick update on what I am doing these days.
Watch for the next issue of The Chamber coming out May 6. Great dark stories and poetry as always. I haven’t finished selecting all the material yet, but so far here are the contributors: Alan Catlin, James Mulhern, Peter Michael Bush, Janelle Chambers, Patrick R. Wilson, Hareendran Kallinkeel, Cecilia Kennedy, Kate Bergquist, Damir Salkovic, Jessica McGlyn, and Prithvijeet Sinha.
I estimated the number of pages I have for my play “Incommunicado” a few days and discovered there are only 45, which makes a performance of about 45 minutes. I want to do a full-length play of 90 minutes, which means I will need about 45 more pages. So, I am only halfway done. The real trick will be to add 45 pages of quality material vs. filler/crap. I believe in leaner, muscular writing, keeping the text to as few words as possible while giving as much meaning to each word as possible. This gives impact to the writing and makes it powerful. There are only three characters: Quinn, Cassie, and Ruth, but most of the dialogue is between Quinn and Cassie. There is not a lot of action in the play, so I am banking on having deep, fascinating characters, but I don’t want this to be overly intellectual. I want the average Joe in the street to appreciate what is going on. That makes the play more marketable and will attract a broader audience.
Quinn, by the way, is Quinn Gallagher, who is the protagonist in two of my short stories: “The Scent” and “The Slightest of Indiscretions”. I would post a link to “The Slightest…” but the website is down right now. You can find it along with several of my other stories on https://fictionontheweb.co.uk. Both of these are included in my short collection of relationship-based stories in The Scent and Other Stories.
The latest edition of The Chamber is out!
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
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The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
The Chamber Magazine publishes new dark stories and poems every Friday at 10:00 a.m. US central time. Take a moment to check out what is now online at The Chamber Magazine…
Yesterday, I remodeled, so to speak, the Chamber Gift shop by eliminating all the dozens of individual items and installing six collections, which is a feature Zazzle has, in which merchandise is grouped around a theme…
Yesterday, I remodeled, so to speak, the Chamber Gift shop by eliminating all the dozens of individual items and installing six collections, which is a feature Zazzle has, in which merchandise is grouped around a theme. Now instead of having to scroll though scores of individual objects, a reader can choose one of the six collections (The Chamber Magazine Collection, Famous Authors Collection, Quotes from the Darkness Collection, Cyberpunk Collection, Steampunk Collection, and The Dark Collection) and go directly to the page for that them. Alternatively, he/she can just follow the link in read above the collections to the homepage of the The Chamber’s Zazzle page and peruse everything.
I also added a block below the collections to my books (both fiction and blank notebooks/ journals) on Pinterest. Clicking on a book will take you to the Pinterest entry on that book. Click on the Pinterest image and you will be taken to the Amazon page for that book, where it can be purchased. This is just a short, easy way for visitors to see the works available and to go to Amazon while I develop something a little grander and easier to use.
I also took all of The Chamber’s cover art, which is that widget in the upper right of the website, and collected it onto another page. Although I have fun creating these covers, it does take some time and effort and I hate to see each of these viewed by the public for only a week or two and then to disappear forever. So, I put them all in one page, which I will update periodically. I also linked this page to The Chamber, so they can be found there also.
Hopefully, I will be making a few more changes soon.
The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 7,500 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction…
The Chamber Magazine is seeking articles, reviews, essays, poems, and short stories of approximately 7,500 words (more or less) including flash, micro fiction, smoke longs, drabbles or of any flavor of short fiction that demonstrates the art of writing dark fiction, whether it be prose, poetry, one-act plays, or any other form of literature from around the world. We will accept dark humor provided it follows the guidelines below with regards to content and good taste. All submissions must be in English. However, an accompanying translation in any other language is permitted.
There is no pay for publication, but the author retains all rights. Reprints are acceptable. Multiple submissions of up to three works per submission are permitted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but you must tell us if the work has been accepted elsewhere. We usually respond within a week. Works generally appear a month after acceptance.
Send submissions and queries to thechambermagazine@gmail.com. Guidelines are on the website.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 