If you are one of the you are one of the incredibly intelligent and tasteful people who has purchased one of my books from Amazon, please show your appreciation for my awe-inspiring writing skills by going back to Amazon and leaving a good review. Good reviews help move books up in the Amazon ratings and help sales, AND you’ll be able to sleep better tonight knowing you have done something to benefit mankind.
If you are one of those incredibly intelligent and tasteful people, and haven’t yet purchased one of my books, this is your opportunity to improve not only your lot in life, but mine as well, and to benefit mankind’s lot by raising the average I.Q. a smidgen.
If you’re not one of those people and haven’t purchased one of my books and, God forbid, don’t intend to, well, a good review still wouldn’t hurt.
Beginning in January 1, 2017, this will be the location of a new on-line quarterly magazine for short stories, poetry, and other short works of the horror genre. You can find the guidelines for submissions on my current Submissions and Announcements page, which will remain the same, with the only exception being that the word limit for submissions for “The Chamber” will increase from 1,000 to 2,000 words. The deadline for submissions for issue #1 passed on December 1. However, please feel free to submit for issue #2, which will be published on April 1.
I am creating this magazine primarily because it is not fair to my contributors to submit a work for publication, when that work will be at the top of my blog posts for only a day, and then that author and his readers will have to wade through a morass of unrelated blogs to find that one post. To remedy this, I am creating a separate page on my blog for my new magazine, “The Chamber”, where each quarter’s selections will appear on a separate page for eternity (or until WordPress folds, or until I give it all up and wander off to buy a bar in Key West, or etc.) Issue 2 will appear on April 1st. Send submissions for Issue #2 per the Submissions and Announcements guidelines, but specify Submission for “The Chamber” in the subject line, if you want your work published in The Chamber, or Submission for The Blog, if you want to be published in the regular blog. I will continue to publish submissions in my regular blog until December 31.
Why call it “The Chamber”? The word chamber has numerous sinister and macabre connotations: a chamber of horrors, a torture chamber, one chambers a round into a rifle, etc. A chamber can also be where a sorcerer, an alchemist, or a member of the Inquisition stores his library. It is with this last connotation in mind that I am developing my Chamber for the storage of my selection of sinister and macabre works from the best up and coming authors that seek to contribute to my blog.
So, start editing your best, most powerful material and see where this new venture takes us! I want powerful, hard-hitting material that leaves its readers gasping and awe-struck at the end.
Now available at Amazon in paperback: my novelette Click, an action/adventure tale set on the south Texas coast, and my short story collection examining the dark side of love, The Scent and Other Stories.
In Click, a Texas policeman, on a secluded island while recovering from the guilt of shooting an unarmed man, suddenly finds himself under attack by unknown assailants and caught up unknowingly in a web of intrigue.
Reader Charles Stacey gave Click five stars and commented: “Author has a wonderful ability to develop the characters using few words. Great foreshadowing to build suspense. And then a really outstanding twist at the end that left me smiling.”
In this 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 in setting from forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s confession in present-day New Mexico to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
Readers comments on The Scent and Other Stories include:
On “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.”
On “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.”
On “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.”
On “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…”
Available on Amazon Kindle
A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horroris currently available only on Kindle, but it should be out in paperback in the very near future. Watch for it at Amazon.
Readers of the stories contained include:
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories 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 Old West to the present and on to alien worlds in the distant future. Comments on previously published stories include:
Jay Manning, editor of Midnight Times commented in its Spring, 2006 issue: “Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web:
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
Available on Amazon Kindle
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” includPhile:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
While you are at Amazon, visit my new author’s page and visit it frequently to keep up with my newest releases and stay on top of my new miniblog.
Beginning in January 1, 2017, this will be the location of a new on-line quarterly magazine for short stories, poetry, and other short works of the horror genre. You can find the guidelines for submissions on my current Submissions and Announcements page, which will remain the same, with the only exception being that the word limit for submissions for “The Chamber” will increase from 1,000 to 2,000 words. The deadline for submissions for issue #1 passes today, November 30. However, please feel free to submit for issue #2, which will be published on April 1.
I am creating this magazine primarily because it is not fair to my contributors to submit a work for publication, when that work will be at the top of my blog posts for only a day, and then that author and his readers will have to wade through a morass of unrelated blogs to find that one post. To remedy this, I am creating a separate page on my blog for my new magazine, “The Chamber”, where each quarter’s selections will appear on a separate page for eternity (or until WordPress folds, or until I give it all up and wander off to buy a bar in Key West, or etc.) Issue 2 will appear on April 1st. Send submissions for Issue #2 per the Submissions and Announcements guidelines, but specify Submission for “The Chamber” in the subject line, if you want your work published in The Chamber, or Submission for The Blog, if you want to be published in the regular blog. I will continue to publish submissions in my regular blog until December 31.
Why call it “The Chamber”? The word chamber has numerous sinister and macabre connotations: a chamber of horrors, a torture chamber, one chambers a round into a rifle, etc. A chamber can also be where a sorcerer, an alchemist, or a member of the Inquisition stores his library. It is with this last connotation in mind that I am developing my Chamber for the storage of my selection of sinister and macabre works from the best up and coming authors that seek to contribute to my blog.
So, start editing your best, most powerful material and see where this new venture takes us! I want powerful, hard-hitting material that leaves its readers gasping and awe-struck at the end.
I am happy to announce that I have published a third book on Amazon Kindle: The Scent and Other Stories (64 pages/16,005 words). The five stories in The Scent… are more mainstream literary works that I have written occasionally over the years. In this collection of short stories, I explore the cryptic side of relationships, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes also from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range in setting from interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s confession in present-day New Mexico to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas. Visit my page at Amazon Kindle, pick up a copy, and leave a review. For the next few days, Click is free as a promotion of my works.
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…”
With Iced Tea, Farmington, New Mexico, March 20, 2015
I am proud to announce that today I published a collection of my short horror fiction entitled A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror on Amazon Kindle. It is a collection of the best fiction I have published so far and some previously unpublished stories as well.
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories 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 Old West to the present and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
Comments on previously published stories contained in this volume include:
“Wolfsheim” is basically a traditional horror story that tells the tale of a small European village confronted by the threat of werewolves. If you like stories about lycans, you definitely need to check this one out. Great stuff.” –Jay Manning, editor, Midnight Times
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web summarizes “A Tale of Hell” as a “… chilling vision of hell”. Other comments on “A Tale of Hell” from readers of Fiction on the Web
“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves…Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination…”
“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,…”
” Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks”
Publisher Charlie Fish of Fiction on the Web describes “Dream Warrior” as a “…powerful revenge epic about a man who visits his Mexican grandfather for spiritual guidance after a violent crime results in the death if his fiancée”. Fiction on the Web readers commented:
“quite literally a rite of passage, mystical and with an interesting payoff, one which Miguel may have to reckon with in time. some very good writing and characterisation. well done”
“…this is a rite of passage, complex and rich with significance. The cultural invocations are vivid and intense, the work of a writer in his/her full stride. The future for Miguel, who knows? The readers interest is fully engaged with what is to come…”
“Really enjoyed the story-kept me up past my bedtime reading it!”
“I loved the concept, was fascinated by the almost hallucinatory detail of legend with its fatal shadowlands.”
Reader comments on “Murder by Plastic” include:
“Chilling and brilliantly economical”
“Very well-paced and intriguing”
“Fabulous story! Five stars!”
I invite everyone to go to Amazon Kindle, pick up a copy, and leave a brief review.
The blogger on the banks of the San Juan River, Farmington, NM, 2013
Beginning in January 1, 2017, this will be the location of a new on-line quarterly magazine for short stories, poetry, and other short works of the horror genre. You can find the guidelines for submissions on my current Submissions and Announcements page, which will remain the same, with the only exception being that the word limit for submissions for “The Chamber” will increase from 1,000 to 2,000 words.
I am creating this magazine primarily because it is not fair to my contributors to submit a work for publication, when that work will be at the top of my blog posts for only a day, and then that author and his readers will have to wade through a morass of unrelated blogs to find that one post. To remedy this, I will create a separate page on my blog for my new magazine, “The Chamber”, where each quarter’s selections will appear on a separate page for eternity (or until WordPress folds, or until I give it all up and wander off to buy a bar in Key West or etc.) Issue 1 will appear on January 1st. Cut-off date for submissions will be November 30 (I don’t want to work over Christmas). Selections will probably be made by December 15. Send submissions per the Submissions and Announcements guidelines, but specify Submission for “The Chamber” in the subject line, if you want your work published in The Chamber, or Submission for The Blog, if you want to be published in the regular blog. I will continue to publish submissions in my regular blog until December 31.
Why call it “The Chamber”? The word chamber has numerous sinister and macabre connotations: a chamber of horrors, a torture chamber, one chambers a round into a rifle, etc. A chamber can also be where a sorcerer, an alchemist, or a member of the Inquisition stores his library. It is with this last connotation in mind that I am developing my Chamber for the storage of my selection of sinister and macabre works from the best up and coming authors that seek to contribute to my blog.
So, start editing your best, most powerful material and see where this new venture takes us! I want powerful, hard-hitting material that leaves its readers gasping and awe-struck at the end.
I am proud to announce that just now I published my novelette Click on Amazon Kindle. It should appear there within twelve hours.
With Iced Tea, Farmington, New Mexico, March 20, 2015
Click is not horror. It is a tale of action and intrigue set on a small island along the Texas coast, where a policeman, recovering from the guilt of shooting an unarmed man, is attacked by unknown assailants and is unknowingly wrapped up in a web of intrigue. Like many of my works, it contains adult language and situations.
The story of the writing of Click is a short one that spans many years. I conceived the idea around 2000, when I was living in Corpus Christi and working on Padre Island. I have toyed with it over the years as my writing has developed. Sometimes I have gone years without writing a word, but it has always loitered in the back of my mind, waiting for the next fit of inspiration to bring it out of the literary ether and into being.
A month or so back, I submitted it to a magazine, which responded a couple of weeks ago, suggesting some revisions they would like to see before reconsidering it. I completed the revisions tonight, but decided afterwards that it would make a good novelette (hopefully making more money faster than I could with the magazine) to test out self-publishing on Amazon Kindle. Amazon Kindle is amazingly easy to publish on, but if you want to have a good-looking book to sell, do your research and know your layouts, formatting, front and back matter and so on. Because Kindle is so easy to use, it is also very easy to screw up if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Walter de la Mare June, 1924 from the National Portrait Gallery
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
‘Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,
I have lived o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
I have whirled with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.
I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies,
That the many-forked lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons, that out of the green waters rise.
I have plunged like a deer through the arches
Of the hoary primoridal grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches,
And stalks on where no spirit dares rove,
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers through dead branches above.
I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things, I care not to gaze on again.
I have scanned the vast ivy-clad palace,
I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon rising up from the valleys
Shows the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, that I cannot endure to recall.
I have peered from the casements in wonder
At the mouldering meadows around,
At the many-roofed village laid under
The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble, I listen intently for sound.
I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear,
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages;
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.
I was old when the pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-decked throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.
Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.
Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,
I have lived o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
Beginning in January 1, 2017, this will be the location of a new on-line quarterly magazine for short stories, poetry, and other short works of the horror genre. You can find the guidelines for submissions on my current Submissions and Announcements page, which will remain the same, with the only exception being that the word limit for submissions for “The Chamber” will increase from 1,000 to 2,000 words.
I am creating this magazine primarily because it is not fair to my contributors to submit a work for publication, when that work will be at the top of my blog posts for only a day, and then that author and his readers will have to wade through a morass of unrelated blogs to find that one post. To remedy this, I will create a separate page on my blog for my new magazine, “The Chamber”, where each quarter’s selections will appear on a separate page for eternity (or until WordPress folds, or until I give it all up and wander off to buy a bar in Key West or etc.) Issue 1 will appear on January 1st. Cut-off date for submissions will be November 30 (I don’t want to work over Christmas). Selections will probably be made by December 15. Send submissions per the Submissions and Announcements guidelines, but specify Submission for “The Chamber” in the subject line, if you want your work published in The Chamber, or Submission for The Blog, if you want to be published in the regular blog. I will continue to publish submissions in my regular blog until December 31.
Why call it “The Chamber”? The word chamber has numerous sinister and macabre connotations: a chamber of horrors, a torture chamber, one chambers a round into a rifle, etc. A chamber can also be where a sorcerer, an alchemist, or a member of the Inquisition stores his library. It is with this last connotation in mind that I am developing my Chamber for the storage of my selection of sinister and macabre works from the best up and coming authors that seek to contribute to my blog.
So, start editing your best, most powerful material and see where this new venture takes us! I want powerful, hard-hitting material that leaves its readers gasping and awe-struck at the end.
“Conrad Aiken came from a wealthy, and well known family who were from New England but moved to Savannah, Georgia. His father was a respected physician and surgeon however for no apparent reason Conrad’s father
Conrad Aiken October 3, 2013 (photographer unknown)
suddenly seemed to change his temperament and became difficult to get on with and violent. Then early in the morning of February 27, 1901, he murdered his wife and shot himself. Conrad (who was eleven years old) heard the gunshots and discovered the bodies. After this tragedy he was raised by his great-great-aunt in Massachusetts.
“To read more about the life of Conrad Aiken read his autobiographical novel Ushant (1952), one of his major works which is an excellent source of information. In this book he speaks candidly about his various affairs and marriages, his attempted suicide and fear of insanity.”
In honor of sharing the love this Halloween season here’s a flash fiction story from my fellow blogger and horror storyteller, Sanguine Woods. And if you like my blog then you’re going…
4 Things You Didn’t Know About Shirley Jackson by Carrie Sessarego I had the great pleasure of being on a panel about Shirley Jackson recently – which meant I was forced – FORCED, I SAY! To re-read…
Press Release: Chaos Theory If you’re an aficionado of apocalyptic fiction, a zombie fanatic, or a frenzied devotee of survival tales, look no further! Chaos Theory is a comedic romp through an und…
Beginning in January 1, 2017, this will be the location of a new on-line quarterly magazine for short stories, poetry, and other short works of the horror genre. You can find the guidelines for submissions on my current Submissions and Announcements page, which will remain the same, with the only exception being that the word limit for submissions for “The Chamber” will increase from 1,000 to 2,000 words.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 