As of October 23, 2020, A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror is being printed and distributed by IngramSpark. With their immense distribution network of over 39,000 retailers, A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror is now available by print on demand. Be sure to ask for it at your local book retailer. It will continue to be sold via Amazon in Kindle and in print (though the IngramSpark version will be much nicer).
In this collection of published and previously unpublished stories of horror, I take you on a journey into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted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. Order yours today!
As I may have mentioned, sometime back I decided to publish a print edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror on Ingram Spark as well as with Amazon. I have been working diligently toward that goal over the last few weeks. As I get ready to go to publication, there are a few things I would like to point out:
As I may have mentioned, sometime back I decided to publish a print edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror on Ingram Spark as well as with Amazon. I have been working diligently toward that goal over the last few weeks. As I get ready to go to publication, there are a few things I would like to point out:
This new edition will be a glossy paperback 5″x8″ in size and 238 pages. The cover design is below. I am still working out the price (somewhere around $15-$20 maybe), but I am keeping it as low as I reasonably can and still make a reasonable amount off each book sold.
I am finding out that shipping costs make the biggest part of a book’s price.
I am enjoying working with Ingram Spark much more than I did with Amazon. Amazon’s process is faster, much simpler, and easier, but I don’t think the product is as good as Ingram Spark’s will be. Ingram Spark gives you much more control over the final product. They also give you much better advice on how to maximize sales.
Although Amazon supposedly uses the same distribution network as Ingram Spark, I suspect/hope that I will have much better print sales. Amazon requires an author to price his/her print book at least 20% more than the Kindle version. Apparently, they are pushing their ebooks over print because they are cheaper to produce and probably much easier to distribute. I suspect they may be doing the same in distribution.
After A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror comes out on Ingram Spark, I plan to publish Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover with them as well. That may be in about a month more or less.
I am going to experiment with advertising on Pinterest by promoting the cover design for A Tale of Hell… on there. I am also considering just developing a spectacular but subtle ad and seeing how that does.
First of all, my heartfelt condolences go out to all the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. That tragedy and its consequences, both direct and indirect, changed the US and our society forever. We will be feeling the repercussions of that day for decades, if not generations, to come. It awoke us to the dangers of an rapidly morphing and unpredictable world in the 21st century. Although at a great price, it taught us to be always vigilant and not to take our peace for granted. There are those, both in and out of the country, that would topple us in an instant if given the chance. In these challenging, divisive times, it is critical for us to remember when facing adversities of all types the seasoned adage “United we stand; divided we fall.” Stay woke! Stay alert! Remember that our strength through unity is unconquerable if we can overcome our differences and work together for the good of the nation. Truth will prevail.
Now, for my update:
I continue to work onShadows and Stars as much as opportunity affords. I am now at 147,000+ words and still completing the first draft. I have recently made some critical headway in coming up with two good ideas to fill out a couple of plot holes. I have a few more to go, though they should not be as challenging.
Coming hopefully soon.
I am also working on how to best publicize my works and am studying marketing strategies to use once Shadows and Stars is on its way to publication. I will be publishing this via traditional methods not via Amazon or another self-publishing platform. I will no doubt need an agent first, which will take time to find. Once he has a publisher lined up, it may be awhile before Shadows and Stars goes to print.
As part of putting my name before the public to facilitate marketing prior to the publication of Shadows and Stars, I am trying to resurrect some old concepts/drafts I have for short stories. This is taking a little time away from Shadows and Stars, but not a lot. The ideas for these stories are coming to me rapidly. A few bits of micro fiction will be coming out between Halloween and the new Year. I will keep you informed on those.
I have renewed my membership to the Horror Writers Association and I intend to take maximum advantage of their marketing and publicity opportunities. I am currently an affiliate member, but I hope to meet the requirements soon to be an “Active Writer”, which is the top membership rank. There are several way to do this, but the one I am shooting for is to have three stories totalling at least 7,500 words published at professional rates, which is 6 cents.word and up. I intend to write three stories of at least 2,500 words each and find a publisher for them. One story, called “A Semblance of Normalcy” is at 2,006 words now, but I can easily add another 500 and keep the writing concise. I have started two others and each is about 1,000-2,000 word range currently. These are drafts I have had in my files for a few years, but I am now making a sincere effort to finish them up.
Whatever stories are published I will include in either a new edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror or come out with a second volume of horror with a different title.
There are a lot of other developments and plans, but I will discuss those at a later date. I have other goals to accomplish now.
Don’t forget that Click and Alien Embrace are free on Kindle today.
If you don’t have Kindle, don’t fret. I have almost all my works in paperback. Check for those when you visit Amazon. If it isn’t in paperback currently, it will be soon.
Amazon distributes via print on demand to many bookstores and libraries. If you don’t want to deal with Amazon, ask for my works at your local book outlet or library.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
You can also order the beautiful paperback Nocturne… (with a different cover) through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
You can also order the beautiful paperback Nocturne… (with a different cover) through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
You can also order the beautiful paperback Nocturne… (with a different cover) through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
I watched this last night. It’s a terrific video on what makes a bestseller. The speaker is Jonny Geller, who was the agent for Tracy Chevalier who wrote Girl with Pearl Earring. This is a fascinating analysis by a man who has spent his career trying to determine what makes a bestseller.
On Sunday night, I sent six works of flash/micro horror fiction to Sirens Call Publications. I received an email just now that they will publish four of them. Three in their Halloween issue and one for their December issue. These are just works I came up with on the spur of the moment when I was experimenting with how fast I could write flash/micro fiction.
Of course, I won’t publish the stories here before Ezine51 does, but I will give you their names as a teaser. “Walking Through Downtown”, “River of Lost Souls”, and “Shadow Men” will be published in their Halloween issue. “Dirty Phoenix Rising” will be published in their December issue.
After these have been published, I will add them to a new edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror. I have anything else published by December, I will add it too.
I may try to come up with more flash horror to submit to other magazines. While this magazine does not pay anything (and most don’t), flash fiction is easy and quick to write (at least for me) and, in terms of publicity, it keeps my name out in the public view depending on the readership of the accepting publication. Ezine51, I believe, has a readership of 35,000.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
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 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. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. 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.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
As you may already know, I have written the manuscript for a children’s picture book entitled Bobby the Brave Brown Pelican. This morning I have been trying to find a publisher for it. This is considerably harder than finding a short story publisher. I did submit my work to a few publishers a few weeks ago, but I have had to date only negative or no responses. In short, I am having little success in finding just a possible publisher for my manuscript.
Nonetheless, I shall press on.
The two submissions engines I have for short stories, Duotrope and The Submissions Grinder, list very few publishers for children’s books. Consequently, I must resort to doing an internet search. Fortunately, there are few articles which list children’s book publishers. This morning, I have been working my way through a list of thirty publishers that can be found on johnfox.com. After I finish this list, I have another of 75, but this will no doubt include many on the first list.
I have had to develop an Excel spreadsheet to track my submissions. In this spreadsheet I am including the publishers I considered but decided not to submit to for one reason or another. This is to ensure that at a later date, I don’t go forget that I decided not to submit them and don’t go through the effort of researching them again.
Some accept manuscripts by mail, whereas I prefer to submit electronically. This does not mean I won’t submit to them, just that I won’t submit to them right away. I an trying to submit to as many as I can as soon as I can and submitting by mail slows this process considerably. Luckily, it seems only a few won’t accept simultaneous submissions, or at least they don’t state so on their website. Given that, I am submitting to as many as possible and will probably accept the first decent proposal that pops up.
Another stumbling block I am encountering is that, as with many publishers, many do not accept unsolicited manuscripts either throughout the year or during a good portion of the year.
Of course, there is the obvious matter that my subject matter is not to the taste of all publishers. Some have narrow requirements. For example, Arbordale Publishing accepts only manuscripts that are math or science related. Kids Can Press accepts manuscripts only from Canadian authors.
One big stumbling block is that it seems most children’s book publishers won’t send a message or letter declining a work. They state that if the author doesn’t hear from them in a certain amount of time, he/she should consider the work not accepted. Unfortunately, this time period is usually in terms of months. Three to four months is not unusual. So far I have found one that says 6-9 months.
Some publishers don’t go into detail about what they would like to see and basically say to just to submit the manuscript while others go into excruciating and exacting detail.
Another big stumbling block for my particular work is that most publishers want a picture book to be under a 1,000 words. My manuscript is 1,388 words and it is as concise as I want to or can make it and still get my message across.
I know that these obstacles are common to just about all genres, but, at least compared to the short story market with which I am most familiar, they seem more numerous and frequent with children’s books. Children’s book publishers also seem less organized. There doesn’t seem to be a standard or preferred way of submitting manuscripts whereas publishers of short fiction seem more consistent in detailing what they accepts. Of course, that is only a subjective observation.
I feel like I am taking pot shots in the dark.
Anyway, I will keep plugging on even if I have to go through hundreds of publishers. This is not unusual for novelists or short story writers and, as I am learning, it is apparently not unusual for children’s book authors either.
Another stumbling block I am encountering is that, as with many publishers, many do not accept unsolicited manuscripts either throughout the year or during a good portion of the year.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 