Barry Lyga's Blog: The BLog, page 14

I’m so happy to announce that later this year — September 10, to be exact — you’ll be able to get your hands on some more Jazz.

The Mystery Writers of America anthology Life is Short & Then You Die (edited by the redoubtable Kelley Armstrong) is collection of new short stories and it includes my own “Six Ways to Kill Your Grandmother,” an I Hunt Killers prequel.

More details on the anthology:

Life Is Short and Then You Die is the Mystery Writers of America’s first teen anthology, edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.

Adolescence is a time of “firsts.” First kiss. First love. First loss. First job. The first taste of adult responsibilities, and the first look at an independent life away from both the restrictions and the security of home.

And in this case, a very different type of “first”: murder.

This short story collection of murder mysteries adds a sinister spin to the joy and pain of firsts that have always been a major part of life, whether it be high school cliques who take the term “backstabbing” too seriously, stumbling upon a body on the way home from school, or receiving a Snapchat message that promises something deadly.

Contributors include Barry Lyga, Caleb Roehrig, Emmy Laybourne, Jonathan Maberry, R.L. Stine, Rachel Vincent, Y.S. Lee, and more!

Here are some preorder links for ya…

Amazon | BN.com | iBooks | Indiebound | Kobo

Like the headline says: My Flash “trilogy” has become a…six-ology? Entertainment Weekly has the deets, along with an excerpt.

The story continues with the new trilogy, Crossover Crisis! This time, it’s not just Team Flash trying to save the world. Now, you’ll also get to see Team Arrow, Supergirl and Superman, and the Legends of Tomorrow as they face a threat to all of reality!

Hey, it’s got Crisis in the title. It’s gotta be big.

The first book — Green Arrow’s Perfect Shot — comes out in August. Preorder links below!

Amazon | BN.com | iBooks | Indiebound | Kobo

Ever wonder what serial killers do on vacation?

Yeah — me, too.

So today, with the help of the folks at my publisher, I dropped a new I Hunt Killers prequel, just like that time Beyonce dropped an album without telling anyone ahead of time.

(Exactly like Beyonce. We’re practically indistinguishable.)

Separated at birth?

The story is titled Down Time and it’s available right now. As in “Why are you still reading this post — go buy it!”

But wait! Actually, before you scurry off to your favorite e-tailer, let’s chat for a sec…

In the years since the series ended, I’ve gotten a lot (a lot!) of requests to continue the story of Jazz and his friends. The prequels have not diminished these cries — if anything, they’ve amplified them. Readers like seeing how we got to the trilogy, but they really want to know what happens next.

And believe me — I want to tell them. I want to tell those stories.

I’ve been planning for a little while now to put together a new series — The Jasper Dent Mysteries. It would pick up years after the end of the original trilogy and you’d get to see what everyone is up to. All your old favorites are there, along with some new faces.

The problem, though, is this: It’s been awhile since the last book came out. Five years is a long time in publishing. Publishers don’t think there’s a demand for more I Hunt Killers. Crucially, they also don’t think my readers want to read about a slightly older group Jazz and company.

If you want more Jazz, more Connie, more Howie and the rest, we have to prove them wrong.

Fortunately, we have an opportunity to do just that, right now.

If you want more Killers, you have to buy Down Time. It’s only $1.99.

Here’s a little something to sweeten the deal: If you use the form at the bottom of the page to send me your proof of purchase (please blur out your identifying info, such as name, credit card, etc.), I will send you (drum roll, please!) the first chapter of THE BRIDEKILLER, the first book in what I hope will be a series of new Jasper Dent tales. (The chapter will be sent out by Friday, August 10 as a PDF!)

So: Buy Down Time. Send me a pic. And get a brand-new bit of Jazz in your life.

Questions? Yeah, I anticipated that. Here are some answers:

But I don’t like ebooks. I want a print book.

I’m sorry. This is an ebook. If you want to see more print books, you need to buy the ebook. It is literally the only possible way to convince publishers to make more print books for you. 

I’ll just wait for print.

If you wait, there will be no print.

I don’t have a Kindle or a Nook or any sort of e-reader.

Yes, you do. Whatever you’re reading this web page on is an e-reader. Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo… These people ALL give away absolutely free software that you can use on your computer, phone, or tablet to buy and read DOWN TIME. All you pay is the $1.99 for the ebook itself. See? Easy!

What’s Down Time about?

When the world’s most notorious serial killer goes on vacation, you’d expect murder to follow, right? And, yeah, it does. No shocker, there. But what will surprise you is who dies…and how…and why. And for the first time in his life, it’s possible Billy isn’t the hunter, but rather the prey!

I’m psyched about this! What can I do other than buy Down Time?

Thanks for asking! I hate to ask for favors beyond buying the book, but…

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Basically, tell everyone you know to spend a mere $1.99 for a fun, crazy, incredibly disturbing story so that someday everyone can enjoy even more, even longer fun, crazy, incredibly disturbing stories!

Put the word out on social media. Talk up the book online, including a link either to this page or to the page where you bought the book.

Last but not least: Review it! While I would never presume to tell you how many stars to give, I’ll just say that if you really, really like the book, a slew of early five-star reviews would be hugely important and much appreciated!

Anything else?

Nope! Enjoy!

Submit your Proof of Purchase to receive the first chapter of THE BRIDEKILLER!

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So, back when I blogged about my 2017, I mentioned a couple of mystery projects. The first one is a collaboration with my wife, Morgan Baden, about which I will have more to say at a later date.

Today, though, I am happy to pull back the curtain on the second mystery project:

Yep, that’s Big Purple himself, Thanos. The Mad Titan. And yours truly has written (and is at this very moment playing hooky from revising) a novel about exactly how he got to the point that he could, y’know, credibly threaten to extinguish half the living souls in the universe.

It’s been a hell of a journey and it’s not over yet. I hope after y’all see Avengers: Infinity War next week that you’ll want to head into a bookstore in November and buy a copy of the book that builds on its mythology.

I’m sure there’ll be more to say in the next few months. But until then, enjoy that gorgeous cover!

Over on the Cynsations blog, I was asked to contribute to “Survivors,” a series of blog posts from and about authors who’ve been in children’s publishing for a long time. How have they managed to stay in the biz? What have they seen come and go?

Given that I perpetually feel like the new kid in any endeavor, it was a little strange to wrap my head around the idea of being a “survivor.” But, yeah — I’ve been doing this for a dozen or so years at this point, with nineteen books in print as I type these words. So, I was happy to contribute whatever meager words of wisdom I possess.

Here are some excerpts:

I’m not the greatest writer in the world, but I’m good enough that publishers seem interested in seeing what I can do for them.

 

If you have books coming out constantly, well, familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt, but it sometimes midwives apathy.

 

I think YA is in the process of changing from marketing category-cum-genre into a political movement. I can’t think of another example of this sort of transmogrification in the art-space and I’m very curious to see where it leads.

Read the complete interview over at Cynsations!

My 2017 began in November of 2016 and ended in March 2018, so I had five extra months. Lovely.

If you are a living human being on this planet, your 2017 probably sucked, too. I had almost 50% more of it, so…yay, me?

I recently had dinner with a friend I’d not seen for most of the year, and when I tried to catch her up, I realized two things: 1) I was constantly having to back up to explain how some stupid thing had made some terrible thing both more terrible and more stupid, and 2) she was looking at me with increasing horror the more I spoke. So I figured I would write it all down so that I could keep it straight in my head and refer friends to it.

This way I don’t have to see the horror.

It all started out so promisingly, too! My 2017 began in November of 2016, when the phone rang, with the call that I’d basically been waiting for my whole life: A publisher wanted me to write a series of novels based on the Flash.

Ho. Lee. Crap.

This instantly shot into dream-come-true territory. The only problem was this: They wanted the first book to hit when Season 4 began in Fall 2017. Which meant I would need to have it written by February 15.

That was a pretty tight deadline, given that I hadn’t even come up with the story yet! Plus, there were the holidays right around the corner…and my wife was due to give birth to our son sometime in January. It was going to be really rough to meet that deadline. I told my wife that I couldn’t see how I could do it, not with a new baby in the house.

She said, “If you pass on this opportunity, I will kill you.” And it wasn’t just the pregnancy hormones talking.

So, I went ahead and agreed to do the series, then spent a little time figuring out the story. I handed off the outline a couple of weeks later, in early December.

Time passed. The holidays came and went. As January plodded along, my son resolutely refused to be born, despite all the medical science telling us it should be “soon.” And in the meantime, my outline had apparently fallen victim to holiday malaise, as we’d heard nothing.

At last, on January 25, I received word: The studio was A-OK with my outline and I could begin writing.

The deadline was February 15. Remember? And I was going to have a new baby any second.

My agent intervened and got me an extra month. I started writing in earnest.

My son was born February 1. By then, I’d made a lot of progress, actually, which was good, and I hit the deadline no problem.

But then a couple of things happened: The deadline for the second book hadn’t been bumped — it was June 15. Three months to write a book wasn’t insurmountable, but… But…

I couldn’t start the second book until I knew that the first one was approved by the studio. So I had to wait.

Around the same time, I got a call from my agent, telling me that a publisher was interested in having me write a book based on an outline they’d bought. This isn’t the way I normally do things, but I was intrigued, so I agreed to read the outline. The timing of the project was problematic — it was due January 1, which would be super-tight, considering I had to write Flash #2 by June 15 and #3 by October 15. Plus, I wasn’t sure I was right for the project.

But…after some time for thought and after some discussion, I realized that my wife was perfect for the project. And if she and I wrote it together, then she could handle the stuff I was unsure of and the deadline would be doable.

Due to a variety of scheduling issues and such, we weren’t able to nail down this agreement with the publisher until sometime in May, which meant a serious cut in the amount of time we had to write it. And for boring, technical reasons that amount to insider baseball, we couldn’t even start writing then. We had to wait.

Oh, and lest we forget: 2017 was the also the year I did my ACLU short story project, publishing a new short story every month, with proceeds going to the ACLU. This meant that on top of everything else, I had to spend time each month writing and/or editing a story, as well as formatting ebooks, posting the stories on the various e-tail sites, and — oh, yeah — designing covers.

What the hell was I thinking? (In fairness, I came up with the idea in December of 2016, when I thought I would just be working on the three Flash books for 2017. It seemed very doable at the time.)

So, early April hit and Bang landed on bookshelves. I was on tour for eight days and had to handle all of the usual, time-consuming stuff that comes with a book launch.

And don’t forget — in the midst of all of this, I had a newborn baby at home, too! While my wife was on maternity leave, things went well, but right around the time Bang was published, she went back to work. Now I was a stay-at-home Dad with a baby and multiple book deadlines.

A lot on my plate, right? Well, I got permission to write the second Flash book and a little extension on my deadline. All was well, and seemed manageable…

Until early July. When I developed a pain that just would not go away. Turns out I had a hernia, and I would need surgery to fix it!

So on August 1, I had hernia surgery. Which is a joy, let me tell you. Stupidly, I thought that I would be recovered quickly enough that I would be able to take care of the kids on my own, but this was not the case. It took about five weeks before I could really lift them as needed, and in the meantime, I was doing all sorts of things to compensate, including some pretty bad lift-and-carry strategies.

All of which led to Labor Day weekend, when I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible pain in my lower left back that radiated into my left thigh. It was some of the worst pain I’ve experienced.

I could barely stand, much less walk — it felt like a rusty spike had been driven into the meat of my thigh and was being twisted every time I even thought about moving that leg, with pieces of metal breaking off and crunching through the rest of the thigh. It was bad.

And I was still supposed to be taking care of my son during the day. As anyone with babies will tell you — they need to be held a lot. You have to walk around holding them a lot.

I could barely get myself in motion, much less with twenty pounds of wriggling baby in my arms.

Fortunately, the day care that lovingly looks after my daughter agreed to take my son for a few weeks while I worked on my back issues. I tried a chiropractor and physical therapy as well as some nice drugs from my family doctor, but eventually an MRI revealed that I’d managed to rupture a disc in my lower back. Yay!

So, let’s recap — I am trying to write two books at once, while also dealing with massive pain and absolutely failing as a stay-at-home Dad.

You see what’s coming, right?

That’s right — another #&^@! writing project!

At this point, you probably think I’m a glutton for punishment or a complete idiot. And I can’t say you’re entirely wrong. Because God knows I had more than enough on my plate in late September, so I can’t say exactly why I agreed to have more piled on.

But one day late in that month, I was talking to my agent about something or other and she said to me, “Oh, by the way, I was just talking to [PUBLISHER REDACTED] and they want to talk to you about a new book.”

“Really?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Yeah. They want you to write a book about [CHARACTER NAME REDACTED].”

I paused for a moment. I asked her clarify the name for me. She repeated it.

Holy…

Look, I’ve signed so many NDAs on this particular project that I can’t tell you the publisher, the concept, the nature of the intellectual property, or the character itself. But it was one of those moments where you go, “Whoa! Are you serious?”

“Are you interested?” she asked.

“Hell, yes!” I responded.

So while she put the machinery in motion, I got my first epidural designed to kill the swelling in my back so that I could start exercising and strengthening the area. It sorta-kinda worked. I had reduced pain for a little while, but then it flared again.

In the meantime, a different sort of pain flared: That new, special project? The deadline was February 15.

Let’s recap, shall we? As of the time of that first epidural in October, I had:

copyedits and page proofs on Flash Book 2, due soon
Flash Book 3, due now in November
Mystery Project #1, due in January
Monthly ACLU stories
And now, Mystery Project #2, due February 15

I didn’t see how it could all get done. I was barely sleeping at night, for the pain, and I was dropping balls everywhere. I was the world’s worst dad, a terribly inattentive husband. I was in physical and psychological misery, and yet I still agreed to do the second Mystery Project because…

Because…

Because I wanted to? Because it was a great opportunity? Because I thought I could get it done? Because I’m a total moron? Because I hate pleasure and love pain?

I dunno. All of the above, maybe. At the time, it all seemed to make sense, but in retrospect I honestly can’t tell you what I was thinking. I  think it’s entirely possible that I was so stressed and so in pain that some part of me figured that if I were perpetually working, I wouldn’t have time to think about the stress and the pain.

This is not a viable life strategy, kids.

My agent worked some magic and got Mystery Project #1 pushed back to February 15, too. Some breathing room. There were issues with the contract, anyway, so no one was breathing down our necks. And fortunately, Morgan was there to handle half the load.

In the meantime, I was killing myself on the final two Flash books. I couldn’t even think about Mystery Project #2 yet because I needed information from…from…

Jeez, I have play coy here. I needed information from the people who owned the character before I could start. And that call kept getting put off. I was glad because it meant I could focus on the other four (!) things on my plate, but in the back of my mind, I knew that every day of delay meant one less day of writing between then and February 15.

Got another epidural in November. This one seemed to do less than the first. I was still going to physical therapy three times a week, and now my daycare provider had handed my son back to me. I was writing during his naps with ice packs stuffed down the back of my pants, eating painkillers like candy, even though they had less and less effect. (My hernia doc had prescribed some opioids for me, which were great during surgery recovery. I somehow resisted using the leftovers for my back — I didn’t trust myself with a baby while on them.)

In early November, I finally got the meeting I needed to discuss Mystery Project #2, only to learn that everything I already knew about [CHARACTER REDACTED] was being modified, so all of my original research and planning was moot. I scrambled to come up with something new and submitted an outline in record time. It was approved just before Thanksgiving.

So as of Thanksgiving, here’s where things stood:

Flash Book 2 — DONE
Flash Book 3 — Revisions, copyedits, and page proofs still to come
Mystery Project #1 — Started, due on February 15.
ACLU Project — Only one more to go, thank God.
Mystery Project #2 — Haven’t even started yet. Due date pushed to March 1, meaning…

I had three months to pull all of that off.

Oh, and because my idiocy knows no bounds, I was also giving my agent the occasional pitch to go out to publishers with.

Anyway, I got through December, landed a third epidural, and this one seemed to do the trick. I was able to cut physical therapy down to once a week, which freed up some time. And with the new year, there was an opening at daycare, so my son joined his big sister there full-time and they started plotting to take the place over.

Now I had all day, every day to work. And I plowed through everything on the list above.

Somehow, by March 1, it was all done.

Now, there will still be revisions, copyedits, and page proofs on the Mystery Projects. But Flash and the ACLU are done with. I can take a deep breath. Have a day or two where I’m not trying to grind out between three and five thousand words before my kids need to be picked up.

For months, my days were, quite literally:

Wake up
Take Morgan to the train and the kids to daycare
Write
Get the kids
Morgan comes home
Kids to bed
Dinner
Write
Sleep
Repeat

I’m glad to be done with the meat-grinder of it all. I’d be lying, though, if I said I didn’t look back with some pride as well as self-recrimination. Yes, it was a stupid amount of work to attempt. Yes, it wrecked my health (or at least made it harder to improve my health). Yes, it took a toll on my relationships.

But, damn, I got it all done!

I keep telling myself I won’t let this happen again. I can’t let this happen again. In the meantime, I’m resting when I can and I’m working on a couple of short stories in order to keep the writing muscles from stiffening up. And, yeah, I’ll have revisions to do soon enough, but I won’t start working on another book until…

Until…

Yeesh. I honestly don’t know. At least June. Maybe later.

Although, I say that now, but the truth of the matter is that as I write this, my agent is submitting at least three different projects of mine. So maybe I haven’t learned my lesson.

I don’t know. I wish I could say there was a lesson, that I came through my 2017+ with some kind of wisdom to impart to you. Something about biting off more than you can chew or having eyes bigger than your stomach or some other food-based metaphor. Maybe something involving eating until you puke, then eating the puke. Because that’s disgusting, but also sort of accurate.

But…

But…

I ended up with five novels that I’m proud of, so it would be hypocritical of me to say, “Don’t do this!”

And at the same time, it would be irresponsible of me to say, “Go ahead and do it!” My situation, if not unique, was at least uncommon. I was lucky that I had people who helped out at crucial moments. And I had the good sense to marry a woman who understands my obsessions and tolerates me when I indulge them, even if I go overboard.

YMMV.

All these words I’ve written, and I think it comes down to Stephen King’s dictum/epiphany that Life is not a support system for Art — Art is a support system for Life.

Writing professionally is a dream for so many. And getting to write some of the stuff I’ve been lucky enough to write is a dream on top of that dream. It can be easy to lose yourself in those dreams, but eventually you have to wake up.

Follow your dreams. Live your Art. But remember just to live, too.

There’s a video I shot literally one minute after my son was born. In it, hands bearing towels descend ominously from out of frame, rubbing his bloody body clean as he makes a sound that is something between a cry and a wheeze. In the background, you can hear a very high-pitched voice uttering, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” over and over again.

That voice is mine.

I think a part of me thought he would never come, that he would just remain in my wife’s belly until sometime around 2027, when he would emerge on the cusp of tweendom. Since my daughter’s delivery was (relatively) quick, we assumed our son would come early, as second children so often do. Our OB-GYN cracked jokes about moving into the hospital sometime in the ninth month, just in case. His due date was January 25, then January 19, then back to the twenty-fifth, but everyone — even the doctor — figured he would come a week or so earlier than that.

By mid-January, my wife was inconsolable, miserably pregnant for a million years, it seemed, ready to get. Him. Out.

Stubbornly, he refused to come out. As Trump’s inauguration came and went, we joked darkly that our son was protesting by refusing to be born.

But then at around 11:30 PM on January 31 — nearly a week past the latest due date — Morgan looked over at me and said, “Oh, yeah. It’s gonna happen.”

We called her mom and her sister. By 1:00 AM, we had a full house, with Grandma and Auntie set to take care of Big Sister Leia. I transferred Leia’s car seat to her aunt’s car and planned on staying up, thinking we were close. My mother-in-law insisted I get some sleep, and I’m glad she did: We didn’t know it, but we were still twelve hours away from Baby Boy.

So we both slept. In the morning, with contractions coming reliably, we headed to the hospital. And that’s when things got fun.

With our daughter, we got to the hospital way early, and spent an entire sleepless night and the entire morning there before she was born. This time, we arrived at around 8:00 AM. Strangely, our son was born at the same time of day — almost to the minute — as our daughter.

My mother-in-law and my wife’s twin arrived about an hour after we did. Morgan was as comfortable as you can be, just relaxing in her bed. There seemed to be no particular urge to proceed. The midwife checked her and assured us that everything was fine.

Time passed. At around noon, the contractions were faster and more painful, and my wife called an audible, saying she was ready for a sweet, sweet epidural. The nurse informed us that the Bringer of Epidurals was currently in surgery and that it would be a little while.

Well, OK.

We waited. My wife panted. And then, right before 1:00 PM, she made The Sound.

It had been more than two years since I’d heard The Sound, but I recognized it instantly nonetheless. The baby was coming. She was ready to push.

My sister-in-law darted out into the hallway to get someone, anyone. The nurse came in to tell us, patiently, that the anesthesiologist was still in surgery and would be in as soon as —

“The baby’s coming!” I told her.

She didn’t quite believe me, but she got the midwife anyway, who took one look between my wife’s legs and went into panic mode.

My wife pushed.

Once.

Understand: When our daughter was born, I had prepared a little pep talk to buck my wife up for the ordeal. I barely got out the first sentence when she pushed twice and bang — there was Leia.

So this time I didn’t even bother with a speech. I kissed her forehead, said, “You can do this” and she pushed one time — once! — and…

My son shot out of her as though someone had set fire to the womb.

Now, I’m a writer. I live in my imagination, and I know I’m prone to hyperbole. But I’m not exaggerating. I’m not lying. I’m not sweetening the story for dramatic effect.

The kid was airborne for the first second or two of his life.

I’m a comic book geek; I remember blurting out something about a yellow sun and earth’s lower gravity. For real.

I have witnesses to all of this. The midwife, for one, is totally unbiased. Later, she looked at me said, “I’m glad I caught him!” The kid was totally flying when he came out.

One push. Jesus.

I think that’s why you hear me saying, “Oh my God!” over and over in my best falsetto. I can’t believe it’s actually real. I can’t believe that he’s there, in the real world, that he shot out like that.

From birth, he had total head and neck control. I watched him turn his head a few minutes into life. Yellow sun, indeed. The kid was Kryptonian, all right.

And now?

The cliché is that the time flies, and damn does it ever! A year has passed. He’s so big. So strong. The other day, he ripped a kitchen cabinet off its hinges when the baby lock kept him from opening it. He climbs everything he shouldn’t, everything that he can. He tries to eat the steel mesh covering our fireplace.

I’m beginning to feel sympathy for Ma and Pa Kent.

Last night, my wife pried off a tiny piece of our daughter’s peanut butter sandwich to give to him. He ignored her offer and instead snatched the sandwich from Leia and proceeded to shove the damn thing in his mouth.

My brother jokes that the kid is ready for steak and beer. I don’t think he’s that far off.

He was a big, strong baby, and now he’s a big, strong toddler. He runs like the wind. He loves to explore, to smash things, to lift things. He’s so physical, in ways his sister was not. Leia examined things. She could spend long minutes staring at the screws on the underside of a toy, probing the recessed heads with her little baby fingers.

My son… He knocks things over, laughs at the crash. Shoves everything and anything into his mouth. And good Lord, does he eat. As long as you keep putting food in front of him, he’ll keep eating. If there’s a bottom to his stomach, we haven’t found it yet.

A year old. In the blink of an eye. From the wheezing cry to a raspy laugh, from soaring out of his mother to delighting in being held upside-down. He’s a daredevil, a dervish, an endlessly exploring Indiana Jones who falls down, picks himself up again, and goes off to the next thing that will knock him down. Utterly fearless and totally enamored of everything he encounters. At least ten times a day, he terrifies me into a heart attack.

But this is him. This is who he is. He’s wild, yes, but also possessed of a great inner calm. He’s relaxed and chill where his sister can be high-strung and anxious. He cries for precisely one reason and one reason only: He’s hungry. No guessing with this kid.

He’s a year old and he’s a minute old, just born, bloody and gasping for his first breaths as I cut the umbilical cord.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

This month’s fundraiser story is “Meet Me Tonight.”

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THIS STORY BENEFIT THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION!

In a small town that is more than it seems, Alex Beckman confronts the woman he loved and left, a deranged homeless man, an innkeeper who may be living in the past, and most important of all, himself.

As with all of the fundraisers, this story is only available for one month and costs $1.99. Please buy the story and spread the word!

Amazon/Kindle
B&N/Nook
iBooks
Kobo

This month’s fundraiser story is “The Autopsying of Michael Edward Morgan.”

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THIS STORY BENEFIT THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION!

From Manhattan to Baltimore to Vietnam to Iraq, a coroner reflects on his life, his experiences, and his relationship to violence.

As with all of the fundraisers, this story is only available for one month and costs $1.99. Please buy the story and spread the word!

Amazon/Kindle
B&N/Nook
iBooks
Kobo

This month’s fundraiser short story is “When I Die.”

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THIS STORY BENEFIT THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION!

Robert Ogilvy served his country, just as his father and grandfather before him did. There was never any question; never any doubt.

Then Robert’s son is killed during a routine training drill en route to Iraq. Suddenly, Robert questions everything. Suddenly he doubts everything.

And then the angel appears to him. And explains that he can have his son back. All he has to do is give up everything. All he has to do is turn his back on everything he’s every believed in…

As with all of the fundraisers, this story is only available for one month and costs $1.99. Please buy the story and spread the word!

Amazon/Kindle
B&N/Nook
iBooks
Kobo