Election Day Fiction: Participatory Democracy

The new issue of ThugLit is out and I'm delighted to say my short story "Participatory Democracy" is one of the stories therein. The issue is ONLY 99 cents, so fire up your reading device or kindle app and go get it. Special thanks to editor Todd Robinson for his excellent suggestions for making the story better.

Our fellow citizens need us... and the Red Cross is there

I grew up in hurricane country. When I was a kid, Hurricane Camille roared through Richmond. The James River rose out of its banks. The Army (from nearby Ft. Lee) flew in water but we got ours from a spring in a park that was walking distance. Snakes slithered up from the river. Our cat, Purry Mason, picked up a poisonous snake and dropped it in our kitchen. It was, "they" said, a "hundred year storm."  Three years later, Hurricane Agnes did even more damage. (At the time, it was the costliest hurricane in history.)
My brother joined a volunteer crew sandbagging downtown buildings against the hurricane-driven flood surge. The water peaked many feet above where they thought it would.
I have friends who were living in New Orleans when Katrina hit. They were lucky--the roof blew off a storage facility they used and they came back to mold in their house but both of them survived without losing a day of work--one is a web designer, the other teaches for Tulane's online classes.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime storm.
And now we have Hurricane Sandy. Someone on Facebook posted a comment that the storm should hve been called something dark and dire because "Sandy" sounds so chipper and cheerleader-y.
I like the way New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is looking at the disaster--tabling the divisive discussion of what is causing these super weather events and getting down to brass tacks--what can we do to protect and prevent such future disasters.
But in the meantime, it's a mess.
And we all need to pitch in and help.
Donating to the Red Cross makes it easy.  Here's where to go. Donate money. Donate blood. Every little bit helps.

It's been said before, many times, many ways...

Don't just stand there...vote!

New Fiction for November--Automaton

Credit: Oliver Brandt

My story "Automaton" is in the new issue (issue #3) of Inner Sins. I'm very pleased with how the story turned out and would like to give a shout-out to editors J. Scott Kunkle and Michael Martin for going the extra mile to help me shape the story and then accepting it.  Thanks guys.
You can read "Automaton" here.http://www.innersins.com/

Friday Film Recommendation

I read film scripts for a living and there aren't many that capture my imagination. Two movies I recommended my clients buy are coming out tomorrow. You should go see them.
When I read The Bay, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It's a terrific found footage film about an ecological disaster.  Barry Levinson is the director. Michael Wallach wrote it. The distributor is positioning it as a horror movie, but I'd call it more of a disaster movie. If the movie is half as good as the script, it'll be worth your entertainment dollar.
From the trailer, it looks like the marketing campaign is really pushing a sort of Paranormal Activity vibe and that's not the way it was originally written. But I'll be in line.
I also read and loved A Late Quartet, which is a very different film and Oscar-bait for sure. It stars Catherine Keener, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Wallace Shawn.  It's so uncommercial it's not even funny but a movie filled with great performances. It's a story about the coming of age and tensions among friends and all in all, it's a movie for grownups. Check it out.

Halloween Fiction--Mutton Dressed as Lamb

A short little Halloween story:

MUTTON DRESSED AS LAMB

By Katherine Tomlinson

Vannetti sighed when Bruce knocked on the door of his study. He could tell from the sheepish look on Bruce's face that the reason for his unannounced visit was not anything good.

It was Bruce's first Halloween after his second birth and Vannetti had hoped he was out on the town, making the most of his new status and moving about freely, his pale skin and red-rimmed eyes dismissed as just another costume by the human revelers.

"Yes Bruce?" he asked, irritated by his passive body-language he displayed, more appropriate to prey than to his position as an alpha predator.

"Um," Bruce said, which annoyed Vannetti even more. He hated indecision of any sort and verbal hesitancy drove him mad. He'd been born into an aristocratic Venetian family that had valued intellectual rigor. He'd been thoroughly trained in the art of conversation by his father's courtesans and his mother's priests. Of all the changes that had occurred in the long years since he'd been born into the blood, Vannetti mourned the decline of meaningful discourse the most.

"I have a problem," Bruce said and Vannetti sighed again, which is actually not that easy for someone who doesn't need to breathe but a useful trick he'd found to communicate his emotions noverbally.

"I need to show you," Bruce said as he retreated from the doorway in the direction of the Grand Hall.

Vannetti wanted nothing more than to return to the book he was reading, but he knew Bruce would give him no peace until he attended to whatever drama had been created.

There was a masked woman standing in the Grand Hall.

Her figure was sublime, enhanced by a tight, long-sleeved gown of peacock silk that was wrapped around her like a present.

Eye of the beholder

Water Lilies by Monet

I don't much like hospitals. My father was a chronic invalid whose health problems required frequent hospitilization and my sister continued that tradition. I would be really happy if I never had to go into a hospital again. But  what with one thing and another, hospitals happen.  I spent eight hours at the Jules Stein Eye Clinic in LA yesterday, watching over a friend who needed eye surgery and then needed significant aftercare for pain management and blood oxygen levels.  Around one I wandered out of the recovery room looking for someplace to grab a bite.  I noticed the corridors were lined with cheery posters, including a version of Monet's "Water lilies" I'd never seen before. I stepped closer to the "poster" and discovered ... it was an original painting.  I went back and looked at the other "posters" I'd bypassed.  A Picasso. Another Monet. A Raoul Dufy.  There was a Van Gogh.  A treasure of art just hanging on the walls in an otherwise featureless corridor in a maze of featureless corridors. 
Wow.