Caution: Maintain Your Biosphere Regularly
Short story, Grant Price.
From the Sundown universe.
Litro Magazine USA (2024)
"They kiss, they cry, they dance, they drink. Suited and beautiful, cackling while in states of undress, chewed up and wrung out. Each photo offers a wonderfully tense dichotomy, and is likely the reason why the series remains in print fifty years later."
God’s Cruel Joke, Issue 3 (2023)
“I wanna get one thing straight before we begin. If you start bleeding, I’m putting you in a taxi to the hospital. That’s how it is. No negotiation. You tell them you’re miscarrying and they’ll do the rest. But it ain’t going to come to that. I’ve done this a thousand times.”
Green House Literary, Issue One (2022)
From the Sundown universe
“Climate mitigation was one of the few industries left where there was carbon to be made. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to go for it. Getting paid to put sticking plasters on festering wounds would make him no better than those who inflicted them.”
On the Run (2022)
“Cracked, clumsy fingers touch the mug. Hot, like a bowl of sunlight. Hold it to chapped lips. Steam leaves a watery moustache.”
Grim & Gilded, Issue One (2022)
From the Sundown universe
“The man’s name was Tartakower, and he was retired. Where men like him had once bought a yacht on which to idle away their days, in Tartakower’s time the seas were too poisoned and so his craft was the Régence, hurtling through the black at a cruising speed of approximately eighteen-thousand kilometres per hour.”
The Abstract Elephant (2021)
“Cyberpunk has long since become predictable. What was once invigorating is now enervating at best and downright outdated at worst in a world that has weaved a dystopian narrative far darker, in many respects, than anything that appears in the literature.”
The Sea Letter / Issue 10 (2020)
“The artisan didn’t know how she’d created the chandelier. She’d simply worked, driven by a desire to make the best piece she could using the skills and materials she had available. And this was the result. Its body so heavy that it could be borne only by the strongest of ceilings. Its crystal prisms so fine and sharp they could draw blood. Its splendour so encompassing that all else became dull alongside it.”
The Ocotillo Review 4.2 (2020) - Pushcart Prize nominee
From the Sundown universe
“The child thought that when he died, he would like to be on the beach so that he, too, would be pulled under the waves. It was better than lying out in the open on the dusty land where nothing grew.”
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Bluntly Magazine, Issue 4 (2019)
“Why is the Western back? For that, we have to answer another question first: What is the one topic that is currently inescapable, that is shaping policies, thoughts, discussions and behaviour all over the world? Look closely and the answer is obvious.”
Cleaning up Glitter (2019)
“My life has largely sidestepped the spectre of death; I haven’t had to deal with loss. No friends, no pets, no family members under the age of 60. This seems to me like an unnecessarily cruel way to introduce how it feels to lose somebody you once shared a bond with.”
Allegory Ridge (2019)
“This wilderness is the key that unlocks the chest in which we hide our primal emotions. Thoughts slow; ancient organic memories reveal themselves to us. We plunge into Ballard’s archaeopsychic past.”
Lemon Theory (2019)
“Hadir lives in the knowledge that he could be told to present himself to the police within 48 hours, so that he may be transferred to Tegel Airport and onto a flight to Kabul. It’s a city he’s visited only once in his life, in a country he hasn’t been to for many years and which is still rocked by bombings and shootings and death on a daily basis.”
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Wordrunner eChapbooks (Spring 2019 anthology)
“Every activity, conversation, decision and remark would be used as ammunition in the battle between him and my mother, my brother and me. Before long, it was all against all. We were tectonic plates: part of the same world yet doing our best to destroy it whenever we rubbed up against one another.“
Nabu Review (Issue 3, 2018)
“Hud knew she was about to say it. And he felt the terrible pressure in his chest as he waited for it to play out like he’d imagined so many times before, at night, in the dark minutes before he succumbed to sleep and after he woke up screaming.”
Leaf~Land Journal (2018)
“Scooters flitted between buildings like sonic butterflies. This was her favourite part of the day, the only time she truly cared for when she was in the city, so far away from her family. She was not yet visible. Nobody called out to her, took photos of her, looked at her clothes with disdain. The city smelled of moisture and concrete and restaurant kitchens, and for now the air was free of the petrol fumes that stuck in her throat. “
Silver Needle Press (contest winner, 2018)
“If nobody spoke to him today, he would put on a shirt and go to Jorda, the restaurant in the village. Rabbit or fish. That was what the chalk said on its menu. Not much meat on the rabbit bones, but the fish was more expensive. So maybe he would eat at home first and go to Jorda for a glass of wine only. The waiter would talk to him.”
Lou Lit Review (Issue 1, 2018)
“The bales were our bricks. The farmer didn’t mind because it saved him the job of having to go around the field collecting them later on. All he had to do was drive his truck up to where we’d been and they’d be waiting for him. He used to pay a couple of the older boys in the village to throw the bales onto the bed. We knew one day we’d take over from them. That was how it worked.”
OUT OF PRINT
The Write Launch (October Issue, 2017)
“By the time I reached the top, my calves were burning, my t-shirt was soaked in sweat and I was covered in thick white dust. I brushed my legs and my sweater, but it wouldn’t come off. It was in the cracks of my hands and under my fingernails.”
Secrets & Lies (2017)
“The men jumped back and pressed themselves against the sides of the seiner. The shape twisted in the net and tried to pull the fibres apart with knotty bluish fingers. It flipped itself over onto its back. Blood poured from underneath one of its arms and mixed with the water on the deck. Then it lay still. “
ISBN: 9781786979544
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Obra / Artifact (Mythos Issue, 2017)
“The man is called Jerome. Strictly speaking, his name should be spelled with an acute accent and a circumflex, but he dropped them long ago in an attempt to become a streamlined, unencumbered version of himself. That was back when he’d had ideas about how he’d find his Purpose in Life and Live the Dream. Ah, ambition. Such is youth.”
*82 review (Issue 5.2, 2017)
“In my head I always had some words that meant one thing. But now I am learning other words that also mean the same thing. The sounds are very different. My tongue moves like I’m rolling ice cream around my mouth.”
ISBN: 978-1546607298
$11.95
DASH Literary Journal (Volume 10, 2017)
“You nod in gratitude at the cosmic coincidence that caused you to be born into a life that allows you to have coffee and apple pie with a hint of cinnamon for breakfast on an oddly warm January day instead of, for example, rising at 3 am to work in a hazelnut-picking field or waking in the dead of night to screams and gunshots or resting your forehead against a set of chipped metal bars.”
OUT OF PRINT
Maudlin House (2017)
“He sees this advert right here. For a stylish hearing aid remote control. It rubs salt in the wound. It cannot and never will be stylish. Remember when Morrissey wore a hearing aid? Even he couldn’t make it look good.”
Citron Review (Winter Issue 2016)
“The number has barely started, but already people are rearranging their hands in their laps and swallowing more than they otherwise would because they know what’s coming, and the old boys in their suits are staring into the middle distance with jaw lines tight and gazes hard.”
Five2One Magazine (Issue 14, 2016)
“brown paper bags, mountains of them. overflowing with artificial fibres. they rattle and hum against each other. twine handles cut into grabby hands and leave red welts but the mums and daughters consider the discomfort worth it.”
ISBN: 978-1540510440
$7.00
The Bookends Review (2016)
“The only thing he had to look forward to was food, which was served on a tray with plastic cutlery by God three times a day, albeit not at regular intervals. The Caged Man wondered if God prepared His own meals at the same time, but he’d never asked. The notion that the Caged Man would be in his cage, chewing carefully, while God was up there eating His own dinner fascinated him.”
The Daily Telegraph (23 March 2012)
“English, American, Australian, German and Irish accents give the text their own unique character, and for half an hour that tiny pharmacy becomes turn-of-the-century Dublin. Our hunger is forgotten as we feast on one of the city’s literary greats.”