Mini-Author Interviews: Anthony S. Buoni

Tags

airboats, American Venice, anthology, anthony s. buoni, Big Easy, cataclysmic, cockiness, crime, culture, Death, drink, fallout, flood, food, ghosts, horror, interview, Katrina, looting, Mini-Author Interviews, murder, Music, myth, New Orleans, organic monster, pilot, raiding, soggy, sumerged, swamp, Underwater, unhinged, urban fantasy, voodoo, wasteland

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

Anthony S. Buoni

What inspired your story?

I’ve lived in New Orleans off and on for over 21 years. It sings to me in a way no other place ever has. When Katrina flooded the Big Easy, my heart broke. Our country’s most unique city, rich with centuries of culture and history, submerged in a few short hours. People begging for rescue atop homes jutting from the murky water—an American Venice, tragic and romantic, flooded the television sets around the world, and I wondered if I’d get home again. Sometimes a place is more than a place, and I began wondering, should the swamp reclaim the area, who—and what—would remain? Would anyone ever come back? One of my best friends lives in Houma, just south of Nola, and she works for one of the local haunted house here, the House of Shock. Her normal character is a voodoo queen, and so I took some cues from that. This story is really a gift to her.

 

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

Geographical. New Orleans is shaped like a bowl, so some parts of the city are on higher ground than others. Watching videos that recreated the flooding, the fallout, the looting. I examined airboats, how they operated and what not.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about your protagonist?

He’s an expert airboat pilot. Got a lover back on solid ground, and he hopes these runs will afford him a family. This is his first time raiding the city for supplies, and he’s nervous, but his youth also breeds cockiness.

 

Tell me about the setting you chose and how it influences your work.

New Orleans is a living, organic monster. She decides who she’ll embrace and who she’ll spit out. Music, drink, crime, culture, food, ghosts, voodoo, murder—it can be a little much for some. The city not only influences my work, but every aspect of my life. It made me the creature I am today and continues shaping my life.

 

What would you like readers to know about “Diluvium”?

It’s a wasteland story, a smaller piece to a larger world that’s come unhinged. Several other authors are currently chipping away at different regions (and different points in time) of this world—mine just happens to be soggy. Maybe we’ll see all these cataclysmic tales come together someday…

 

Living and creating in New Orleans, Louisiana, Anthony S. Buoni haunts swamps and bayous along the Gulf of Mexico, writing, editing, producing, and lecturing about his craft. A practicing pagan, he’s responsible for the BETWEEN THERE anthologies as well as his screenplay-novel, CONVERSION PARTY, available through PULPWOOD PRESS. Recently, he’s co-edited and co-produced two exciting anthologies with Alisha Costanzo with their independent imprint, TRANSMUNDANE PRESS: DISTORTED: vol 1 and UNDERWATER: vol 1.

In the past, he produced the underground zine MEOW and the illustrated horror rag OUTRÉ from MEOW PRESS, and his work has appeared in WATERFRONT LIVING, NORTH FLORIDA NOIR, and SMALL HAPPY. Currently writing a New Orleans monster novel as well as putting the final edits on novels featuring ghosts, zombies, and a café between life and death filled with secrets and philosophy. His next book, a collection of dark short stories, is due for publication in early 2016.

When not writing, Anthony is a Bourbon Street bartender and underground musician and DJ, drawing down the moon with new wave, trance, and melancholy tunes. Other interests include film, gardening, comic books, and playing video games with his son, Fallon.

 

Follow him on facebook or his website.

Mini-Author Interviews: Gregory L. Norris

Tags

AMC, anthology, Eureka!, Gregory L. Norris, happiness, Happiness Shoal, hospital, interview, Isles of Shoals, Joe Dunnegin, Jurassic Cyst, lobsterman, Lost Hope, Maine, Mini-Author Interviews, missing, mountains, Muse, Salisbury Beach, sea, shipwrecks, Southern New Hampshire writer's group, Star Island, The Outer Limits, Underwater

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

Gregory L. Norris

What inspired your story?

In April of 2013, I headed to a writing retreat to Maine, feeling off. I knew something was physically wrong, but tried to compartmentalize it, as I tend to do. The retreat was wonderful, the company stellar—I was with members of my Southern New Hampshire writers’ group and had, the month before, moved 150 miles north and away from them after buying a house in the mountains. But as the retreat continued on, my condition worsened, forcing me to leave early. Three days after that, I was in the hospital with what I lovingly refer to as ‘Jurassic Cyst’. The condition advanced so quickly and grew so bad that I caught something out of the classic The Outer Limits staring back from the mirror. I spent four and a half days in the hospital hooked up to IVs, with a massive hole in my noggin. I haven’t been inside a hospital since I was a kid. I asked my partner Bruce to bring me a notepad and pens, which, along with the bedside vigil of my Muse, saved my life (or at least my sanity!). Forced to sit in bed for all that time, I wrote the first 3,000 words of “Happiness Shoal,” along with notes for two Western short stories (both of which have since sold), no doubt influenced by the only decent daytime TV available, the classic shows that run on AMC.

 

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

The research amounted to asking questions about my own hospital stay and working them into my main character’s, who wakes up in the hospital after having been missing for days at sea. Also, in September of 2012 before buying the house, I stayed for five days on Star Island in New Hampshire’s Isles of Shoals at a fantastic, boot camp-style writers’ retreat. So I got to understand the lay of the land on a shoal very much like the one I wrote about, including the local shipwrecks and atmosphere.

 

Can you tell me a little about your protagonist?

Joe Dunnegin is a divorced lobsterman, feeling only half there until he experiences something extraordinary near the barren outcrop off Maine’s rocky headlands, known as Lost Hope. Handsome, athletic, a man’s sort of man, Joe wakes up unable to remember what happened to him during the days he was missing at sea. But he goes on a quest to uncover the truth—and reclaim that fleeting chance at happiness.

 

Tell me about the setting you chose and how it influenced your work.

While laid up in the hospital bed, I put the pen to page and wrote. Joe is based upon my Muse, who is tall, dark, emerald-eyed, and ridiculously handsome. The setting came to me in one of those Eureka! moments, when a story emerges in high-def, 3-D form enough for the author to believe it as being real. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts (even penned longhand drafts of stories there when I was a teen; those manuscripts are still archived in my filing cabinets). Though I live in the mountains, I was supremely inspired by Transmundane Press’s call for UNDERWATER, and wanted to have a story in the anthology.

 

What would you like readers to know about “Happiness Shoal”?

Well, that along with thoughts about returning home to my partner, cats, and our new old house, “Happiness Shoal” kind of saved my life. I can’t remember ever being so sick, so laid up, so gutted open. To me, the words, the ink, the fresh pages (which were put down at a slower-than-usual pace, but put down nonetheless despite all the needles and equipment and jabbings) were the true medicine.

 

Gregory L. Norris is a full-time professional writer, with numerous credits, mostly in national magazines and fiction anthologies.  Recent short story appearances and sales include ANTHOLOGY YEAR THREE (the companion handbook to Anthocon), DEAD HARVEST, DEATH’S REALM, THE END IS THE BEGINNING (which includes reprints by THE Mary Shelley, Hawthorne, and Mr. Poe) and numerous releases by Cleis Press and Bruno Gemuender Verlag in Germany.  He once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount’s modern classic, STAR TREK: VOYAGER, and penned the screenplay to BRUTAL COLORS (Royal Blue Pictures), his first contracted feature film.  Norris judged the 2013 Lambda Awards in the SF/Fantasy/Horror category, and in 2015 saw the publication of TALES FROM THE ROBOT GRAVEYARD, his collection of cyber-centric novellas, with a cover by Eric Chu, concept artist on the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series.  He was a semi-finalist in the Roswell Award in Short SF.

You can follow him on facebook or his author website.

Mini-Author Interviews: Adrik Kemp

Tags

abyss, adrik kemp, alien, anemone, Australia, beaches, bioluminescent, daydreams, deep-sea, deep-sea creatures, discovery, Disney, fantasy, fear, horror, inspiration, interview, magic, marine life, mer-people, mermaids, Mini-Author Interviews, Mischa, mischa and the mermaid, obsession, ocean, rock pool, rock walking, sea, swim, swimming, terrifying, Underwater, water, whales

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

Adrik Kemp

What inspired your story?

As a child, I spent a great deal of time ‘rock walking’ from beach to beach with my family. I’ve always been fascinated by the beauty of rock pools and the sheer scale of the diversity of marine life, so it was enjoyable to create some of my own. Each pool is an opportunity to see something new and alien swimming around, and while many are filled with standard anemones, shellfish and seaweed, every now and then you find a tiny ecosystem of fish or even an octopus, and it’s exhilarating, like hitting a jackpot. I wanted to convey the wonder of discovery that I felt as a child and still feel as an adult when combing rocky beaches.

 

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

The setting of my story is based on memories, so my research was mainly delving into my own mind while I wrote; however, the more fantastical elements of my story took a little research. I looked into what many would see as unusual mating habits – deep-sea creatures that favour strong, muscular females and tiny, insignificant males, useful only for their sperm. This got me thinking about the potential hierarchy of a deep-sea, marine community of humanoid derivation and it all snowballed from there. Without giving anything away, I also spent some time googling images of whales.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about your protagonist?

The eponymous Mischa is a teenage boy who has spent his life in a sleepy, coastal town in Australia. He has an older brother, a best friend, Fiona who is about to move away, and an endless fascination with the hidden magic of the sea. A bit of a dreamer, his laid back approach to life allows him to drift along with the current, so to speak.

 

Where does Mischa’s fascination with the sea come from? His obsession with mermaids?

The driving force behind Mischa’s daydreams is his subconscious understanding that he’s stuck living in a small town, his only constant friend being his brother George and his best friend Fiona. Rather than dealing with this and the fact that his friend is leaving him, he loses himself in fanciful daydreams of mermaids and magic beneath the waves. Making a world for himself within his own world gives him solace.

 

Can you explain your version of the mermaid? They were terrifying, and I loved that.

There are usually two types of mermaid – the Disney variety and the horror variety. Mine are most definitely on the horror side of things. I’m a little obsessed with the sea, and I think that if mer-people do exist, they would have to do so in the deep. And to do that, I imagine they would have characteristics of deep-sea creatures. I mean, down there, you have things more nightmarish than anything you could dream up, translucent, glass-like teeth, dead, white eyes, bioluminescent lures to trap prey. Not to mention the fascinating life cycles – creatures that are functionally immortal, enormous females that collect tiny males on their bodies as portable sperm banks, worms that live in boiling water over sea vents and more. I took elements from these creatures and fashioned them into a society I thought might come of it if they were mixed with humans.

 

Tell be about the setting you chose and how it influences your work.

All my life, I have lived on and holidayed all along the east coast of Australia. The ocean and life on its edge are a big influence on this work as they have been, and continue to be in my life. The feeling of the salt and sun on my skin, warm rocks under my feet and the rolling, endless ocean before me is a thing of singular beauty that I hope I relayed in this story.

 

You also made the ocean a bit horrifying (that may be me), do you find the ocean equally as frightful as it is beautiful?

The short answer is yes. I go to the beach a lot, I live nearby to the ocean and swim 3-4 times a week at it, but I still can’t stay in too long before my mind wanders to what else might be sharing the water with me. I have almost a pathological fear of sharks and monsters of the deep. I once snorkeled away from a reef and over what appeared to be an abyss and panicked instantly. So I suppose the long answer is no, I find the ocean absolutely stunning and awe-inspiring, but the things within, some of those can and do strike fear in me constantly.

 

What would you like readers to know about “Mischa and The Mermaid”?

I hope that when they read it, they can be transported to this idyllic memory and have it torn to pieces along with Mischa.

 

Adrik Kemp is a published author with short stories appearing in web based and print anthologies. He holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing, which he enjoys looking at from time to time, and is an avid reader, writer and copywriter by trade. He also likes spending his time eating, swimming at the beach and playing house.

You can follow him on facebook, twitter, or  his author website.

Mini-Author Interviews: Jean Roberta

Tags

18th century, 19th century, anthology, ballads, called, Canada, church-run institutions, Dorcas, England, erotic, gothic, Idaho, interview, Jean Roberta, life of service, loving Christians, Mini-Author Interviews, nobleman, properly domesticated, Rebecca, sagebrush, servant class, sexually-exploited maid, technology, The Water-Harp, Underwater, water

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

Jean Roberta

What inspired your story? 

Reading old ballads as well as gothic stories and novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, and imagining what a jealous upper-class husband could get away with in an era before modern forensic technology was developed!
Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn? 

I didn’t do any research specifically for this story, but I love to read factual details about past eras. Although I don’t have much respect for organized religion in general, I have known some loving Christians who feel “called” to help those in need. I can easily imagine such people finding their way to Church-run institutions in the past, simply because that was where one could live a life of service.
Can you tell me a little bit about your protagonist? 

Dorcas is practical, and also in touch with her instincts and emotions because she has always been able to escape to the natural world. Most other people feel uneasy in her presence because they find her startlingly beautiful, and she is not a “properly” domesticated woman of the “servant class.” She never rebels openly against an unjust social system, but her spirit is never broken, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to survive.
Was Rebecca sent to Dorcas on purpose?

No. Rebecca found her way to the convent because she wanted to escape from her job as a sexually-exploited maid for a nobleman. She prefers the company of women, and hopes to find a home with the nuns who run the orphanage where Dorcas has been raised. There is no safe place for her in the culture she is living in, but Dorcas never forgets Rebecca, and intends to look for her. (Rebecca might be a central character in another story.)
Tell me about the setting you chose and how it influences your work.

The setting is an older version of England, full of forests and streams. When I was growing up in southern Idaho, I spent much time in the sagebrush-covered hills where my family lived beyond the town limits. I wanted to capture the feeling of a barefoot childhood in the wild but in a place where English-speaking people lived before the 1860s (when white North Americans discovered the “West”).
What would you like readers to know about “The Water-Harp”?

The exact nature of this instrument that creates music when water flows through it is meant to pique a reader’s curiosity. However, it’s not fully described until the last scene.

 

Jean Roberta lives on the Canadian prairies, where the vastness of land and sky encourage daydreaming. She has taught English in the local university for over 25 years, and now teaches creative writing there. Her diverse fiction (mostly erotic) has appeared in many print anthologies, an out-of-print novel, two out-of-print story collections, and two available collections: Obsession (Renaissance), The Princess and the Outlaw(Lethe Press) plus The Flight of the Black Swan: A Bawdy Novella (Lethe, also in audio). She coedited Heiresses of Russ (Lethe), an annual anthology of the year’s best lesbian speculative fiction. The opinion pieces she wrote for a monthly column, Sex Is All Metaphors (based on a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas), are available as an e-book by that title (www.eroticanthology.com). She looks forward to revising her backlist and doing more writing during her sabbatical (2016-2017).

You can follow her on facebook or her author website.

Mini-Author Interviews: Lilycat Adams

Tags

cry, cryptozoology, DJ, erotic, family guy, fantasy, FCCFreeradio, humor, internet radio show, interview, Jaws, Land Shark Lover, lilycat, lilycat adams, lilycat on stuff, merman, Mini-Author Interviews, paranormal, romance, saturday night live, scuba dive, shark, sharkey, skit, Underwater, urban fantasy

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

Lilycat Adams

What inspired your story?

Staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live and my stuffed shark. Oh, and
there was an episode of Family Guy were they had a similar designed
merman.

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

I did have an actual Cryptozoologist on my internet radio show (Lilycat on Stuff – Sundays 12-2PM PST on FCCFreeradio.com) – once , and I found him amazingly interesting.

Can you tell me a little bit about your protagonist?

I want to be like her when I grow up – with a crazy interesting degree
and job and ability to scuba dive.

Tell be about the setting you chose and how it influences your work.

I live in California and can only hope there are such creatures out there.

What would you like readers to know about “Land Shark Lover”?

Yes, it is based on Saturday Night Live.

The Saturday Night Live TV skit started in 1974 after JAWS and continued as a re-occurring skit for a while.
More details here.

 

Lilycat is a home care worker, DJs for FCCFreeRadio.com, and writes. She has stories in “Chemical Lust,” “Whipped,” “More 5 Minute Erotica,” “Surprise,” and ” Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys.” She like to thank her biker daddy, “Jaws” – which she saw at an early age, and her stuffed animal – Sharkey.

 

Mini-Author Interviews: Cape C. Capehart

Tags

anthology, Axelrod, Beyond the Hell Cliffs, Blood Daughter, case c. capehart, crushed, dark, Death, folklore, influences, interview, lamia, mermaids, Mini-Author Interviews, Murina, myth, mythology, Nikki the Beast, odd girls, oddball, Oklahoma, predator, protagonist, rape victims, research, river, river mermaids, setting, She's All That, struggling with identity, troubled kids, Underwater, unwanted kids

Mini-Author Interview for UNDERWATER:

Case C. Capehart

What inspired your story?

She’s All That, and movies like it. We have a creepy abundance of stories about odd, young girls who have a hard time fitting in socially, but they solve all of their problems by losing their glasses and learning to do their make-up better. Whether the authors intend it or not, we’re sending a message with these stories to young girls that their value is tied solely to their appearance. I wanted to write a story for readers who had weird thoughts and weird hobbies as teens, because many oddball kids grew up to be very important figures in history. And they didn’t have to adopt a new hairstyle or get better at applying foundation to move mountains.

 

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

My day job actually helped out with this story, because I deal with troubled and unwanted kids every day. I used some of my training and what I read about children from terrible families to form Murina’s background and psyche. At Alisha’s suggestion, I looked further into rape victims, for Tetra’s story. That was probably the most difficult part, because I don’t like to think about those things, but you can’t write well if you don’t have a clue what you’re writing about, and her retelling of the event is stronger due to my research.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about your protagonist?

Murina is an exaggerated reflection of foster kids. Her thoughts are extra dark due to her childhood trauma; she is literally a different creature than her sisters, and Lord Axelrod is taking a huge risk placing Murina among his daughters. As a Lamia, Murina is a natural predator, which boldly contrasts her natural urges with those of the civilized and amorous mermaids. The features that make her a better predator (bony body, muscular tail, dark colors) are a defect in the mermaid world; one that her sisters are compelled to correct to make her life better.

 

Tell be about the setting you chose and how it influences your work.

I kind of messed with the mermaid mythology out of necessity. Traditionally, mermaids dwell in the high seas, far away from land, but Lamias are snakes, even the most aquatic of which still need dry land in close vicinity. The only way I could reconcile this was to create “river mermaids.” That’s the great thing about fiction, though: you can create and change whatever you need, as long as the writing is done well. “Crushed” isn’t about the feasibility of freshwater mermaids or the logistics of dwelling within a moving current; it’s about a young girl struggling with her identity.

 

What would you like readers to know about “Crushed”?

I had to go to some dark places to write it, and I think the excursion paid off.

Also, it used to have a much more pretentious title that was total nonsense. Some writers can easily dream up an awesome title and then have trouble writing the coinciding story. I wrote the entire story, proofread it, and then stared at the screen for thirty minutes, knitting my eyebrows and sipping a beer to come up with something to title the thing so I could submit it.

 

Case C. Capehart is from a microscopic town in Northwest Oklahoma and currently works for the state. He served as an Infantryman in the U.S. Army for six years and is most proud of his Air Assault wings and Expert Infantry Badge. He is the author of BEYOND THE HELL CLIFFS and BLOOD DAUGHTER, as well as the short story, NIKKI THE BEAST, soon to be released by Cohesion Press. He has a supportive wife and hilarious son, as well as a demonic Xbox One that unceasingly beckons him away from his writing.

You can follow him on facebook, twitter, or visit his website.

Mini-Author Interviews: Diana Hauer

Tags

childhood, diana hauer, echidna, Echidna's Cave, fantasy, fecund, folklore, god, Going Deep, heroes, inspiration, interpretaion, interview, legends, lust, Mini-Author Interviews, monster, myth, ocean, Oregon Coast, Pacific Northwest, paranormal, personification, romance, sex, storm, storm surge, thrust, touching the unknowable, Typhon, typhoon, Underwater, underwater sex, writing

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

Diana Hauer

What inspired your story?

I have loved mythology since I was young. I started thinking about what might have happened to inspire the myths and stories surrounding Echidna and Typhon. If there were beings that had inspired our ancestors to weave such stories, what would they be like now, and what if modern humans encountered them?

Echidna is the mother of monsters, a fecund creature. Typhon is her mate, and the father of most of them (depending on your source). I think my train of thought was, “Ocean, storm, typhoon, underwater sex, how would a human have sex with a god?”

 

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

I looked up where the scholars think that Echidna’s Cave actually was, because I wanted to have a nod and a wink for people who would know such things. There are a couple of those that I hope fans of old myths will notice and appreciate in my story.

 

Can you tell me more about Echidna and Typhon?

I left what they are open to reader interpretation in a lot of ways, like so many myths.

What struck me about the old stories is how many children they had. Depending on which versions you read, they had anywhere between three and twelve kids. So to me, it made sense that they would have a passionate, lusty relationship. From there, I just followed the logical path and wound up with what might be going through Echidna’s mind if someone encountered her today. What form might that encounter take?

Typhon and Echidna could be seen as real, physical entities. Monstrous creatures in truth, as they were written. Or if one takes a more symbolic bent, then Echidna (in my story, anyway) is the personification of ocean-land while Typhon is the personification of ocean-sky. When land and sky meet, then storms (monster children) are born.

Legends are born from the deeds of heroes and monsters. Erotic fiction is born when we start thinking about what happens when the monsters meet in passionate embrace. In ancient times, Typhon visited his lover and she rose to meet him as he thrust down into her channel. Whether you read that as a woman rising to meet a man or the ocean rising in response to a storm, it still works.

…I just realized that could give a whole new meaning to the term “storm surge.”

 

What would you like readers to know about “Going Deep”?

I would like them to imagine that it could be true. The swimmer in the cave could be you; it could be me. We are only ever seconds away from touching the unknowable, if we but open our eyes and allow them to look upon the world with a sense of wonder.

I would also like them to know that there is no correct interpretation of this story. Whatever you get out of it, that is what is right for you.

 

Diana Fey Hauer lives and works in the Pacific Northwest. While she loves the Oregon Coast, she also finds time to write, knit, create, and explore in other biomes and mediums.

You can follow her on facebook.

Mini-Author Interviews: R. Judas Brown

Tags

adapt, Baiting the Hook, encroachment, evolution, good-ol' boy, hunter, interview, micro-art-moments, microfiction, Mini-Author Interviews, Oklahoma, perish, predator, R. Judas Brown, realism, territorial, Texhoma, Underwater, Wichita Mountains

Mini-Author Interviews for UNDERWATER:

R. Judas Brown

What inspired your story?

I had written the original version for a microfiction contest; however, there just wasn’t enough space for a proper treatment. The idea of the juxtaposition of a predator/prey relationship had caught me. The concept of someone who know they are master of their surroundings finding out abruptly that they are mortally wrong is not just an interesting study of the character. It is the exaggeration of a fear that most of us feel on a day to day basis, so it is relatable.

 

Did you have to do any research? If so, what kind? What did you learn?

I had to do a bit for the setting. I have fished plenty of docks, dams, and banks. Navigating a boat down a river is not in my experience set. The last five years in north Texas we had a persistent drought, so I wasn’t able to experience that first hand. Luckily, I have friends who have worked jugs and limbs, so I was able to draw off their experience and understand Teddy’s mindset.

 

Do you feel that your setting becomes as much a predator as your characters do?

The environment is almost always the penultimate predator. When a territorial hunter migrates, it is the changing environment that necessitates that move. Whether it is encroachment by another species or natural evolution of the landscape, the land does what it will and those who live on it adapt or perish.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about your protagonist?

Teddy is a good-ol’-boy’s good-ol’-boy. Not a bad sort really, just the guy who buys a 12-pack of Beast at 6:01 AM before hitting the river.

 

Tell me about the setting you chose and how it influences your work.

I grew up near the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma and spent most of my life in the Texhoma region. I drew heavily on the land I’ve seen, its geography and people, in creating this story. I hope it lent a certain amount of realism to the work.

 

What would you like readers to know about “Baiting the Hook”?

I sincerely hope you enjoy it, and should you find yourself presented with an unexpected delight, that you pause, just for a moment, thanks to this story.

 

R. Judas Brown has appeared in several anthologies, is working with The Ed Greenwood Group, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Quincy Writers Guild in Quincy, IL.

You can follow him on twitter, at facebook, or visit his website.