Show Some Love

FFF, Friday Flash Fiction, is back and there are some stories you will want to check out.

Here’s J. F. Juzwik‘s My Brother’s Keeper

and Matt Potter’s In The Hot Seat

FFF is a community writing project. Anyone interested in writing, whether an amateur or a seasoned professional, is welcomed to join.

Our goal is to encourage writing by providing bi-weekly prompts for participants. This can come in the form of a sentence, a group of words or a photo. New prompts are posted on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of each month and due the following Friday.

A message from our good friends at Dark Valentine:

If you haven’t checked out Dark Valentine’s “Fall Fiction Frenzy” (31 stories in 31 days) now is as good a time as any. We’re on day #5 now and today’s story is a cautionary tale about love by Jennifer Lyn Parsons:http://darkvalentine.net/index.php/2010/10/fall-fiction-frenzy-5/‘

Artwork is by Pamela Jaworska. Coming up…tales by Cormac Brown, John Donald Carlucci, Brian Trent, Christine Pope and Barbara Emrys. Art by Jane Burson, Mark Satchwill, Joanne Renaud and Laura Neubert.

Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t send you over to Julie Sumerell’s site where she touches on Hilary Davidson’s new book The Damage Done.  

Of Note

Dark Valentine Magazine is doing a special promo — so I thought I’d share a note from one of the editors:

We’re promoting Scott J Laurange’s serial story “A Knight’s Tale” all this month. The story, part of Scott’s CANTERBURY GOTH project, will run in 11 parts, posted Monday, Wednesday and Friday all through the month. The last chapter will run on September 29.

At the end of the month, we’ll be giving away a copy of MOCKINGJAY, just published last Tuesday and already in its second printing. If you enjoyed HUNGER GAMES and its sequel CATCHING FIRE, you’ll want to know how the story ends. And really, isn’t the triangle of Kat, Gale and Peeta more interesting than Edward, Jacob and Bella?

To enter the drawing, you need to come to the site at any time during the month and comment on the chapter that’s up. (Feel free to come back for each chapter, which we’ll be archiving.) You’ll get our thanks and good karma just for showing up. But what gets entries into the drawing is spreading the word. Talk us up on your social networks, tweet a link, you know the drill. You’ll also get an extra five (5) entries if you bring us new members of our Facebook group.

The drawing will be done on September 30. The winner will receive a copy of MOCKINGJAY, the conclusion of Suzanne Collins’ HUNGER GAMES trilogy.

Thanks for taking a look at the story.

Katherine

Via My Little Corner: Thrillers, Killers and Chillers has posted an announcement that they’re looking for Halloween and Christmas themed stories to take us through the dark days that are coming. You can find all the details athttp://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.com/2010/09/darkness-falls.html

And look here, Ron Earl Phillips gets in on some of Cormac Brown’s FFF fun. Check out his entry, “Out the Door”.

Of course, I have to pair it with a song so…

Mr. Phillips is also hosting a great little contest, so get in and enter for a chance to win a Needle Mag. If you haven’t poked around and been pricked by Needle yet, what’s wrong with you? This contest would be a good chance for you to get creative juices going and win a quality mag.

A Lot Going On

Cormac Brown has a fantastic write up of the premier issue of Dark Valentine. He lays out some of the contributors, artists, and shares some of the themes of the magazine which can be found in PDF here.

While your checking out magazines, try a little poetry to go along with the fiction and artwork. Gerald So is one of the editors of The Line Up a magazine of crime poetry which has featured writers like Patricia Abbott, Sandra Seamans, Michael A. Flanagan, and others. Really interesting stuff there so go get some poe-try on.

Over at Twist of Noir, Cris Benton’s story,  is well worth the time to read.

Paul D. Brazil turned me on to Fiction Daily which bills itself as finding “good stuff to read in places you wouldn’t normally look”.

MediaVirus Magazine is another source for some really cool reads. Clearly the intertubes are a problem, because I’d do nothing but sit around and read if I could.

Hell Hole is Chris Grabenstein’s fourth mystery novel and Jen Forbus reviewed it for us at her site, Jen’s Book Thoughts.

Can someone please tell me why it takes so damn long to get Huraki Murakami’s new book, 1Q94, in English. It won’t be out until September 2011.

Flash Magazine is accepting submissions for its October issue while 977, which used to be nothing but flash is now up and accepts short stories as well.

If you have a crime novel manuscript sitting on your desk and you’re not sure what to do with it, perhaps you want to submit it to The New Pulp Press for review.