Warlocks, Libraries, and Art Museums

I told you in my last eclectic post about stuff I’m doing that I’ve had to schedule posts like this after my writing. Yes, Diving is still eating my brain. I’m fighting back with sticky notes and reminders on my writing computer calendar.

Tonight’s reminder told me to do something hard. Which I’m punting, because I want to research my next blog post. Instead, I’m going to tell you about three fun things.

First, the latest Uncollected Anthology has appeared. The title? Warlocks. I was grumpy about the topic when it came time to write it…until my run that day. I had picked a Spotify Classical music playlist for cardio and what came up but Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” By the time I finished my laps of the tiny park near our house, I had “Oathbreaker.” Then Allyson Longueira came up with the best cover possible for the short story. I love it, and hope you will too.

I haven’t yet had a chance to read the other stories in Uncollected: Warlocks, but I will. You can get the story all by itself by clicking here, or you can get the collected Uncollected by going to Bundlerabbit and seeing all of your choices for ordering it.

The next completely fun thing I have to share is one Paula Guran’s anthologies. I love her editing. We seem to have similar tastes in fiction. This time, she edited a book about libraries, because a book containing lots of stories should be about a place containing lots of stories, right? You’ll find one of the world’s greatest cats in my story “The Midbury Lake Incident” because the cat is based on Sir Galahad of Kitten, who until he passed away in June, graced my office with his presence daily. I’m going to give you the Amazon link here and below, because it’s easier, but you can get the book at any of your favorite retail sites.

The third thing? Lawrence Block decided to edit a sequel to last year’s amazing anthology, In Sunlight or In Shadow. This year’s has a great collection of mystery writers as well, and I’m humbled to be in their number. This time, we got to choose our artwork (last time, we all wrote from Hopper paintings). I was going to do something arty, and then I found out about a 1970 bombing at the Cleveland Art Museum, and ooh, boy, the story wrote itself.

The book is beautiful, and filled with some of the best mystery writers around. So pick up a copy if you love mysteries.

And since you’re picking up bundles of stories here, remember the Christmas book bundle with one of my Grayson Santa series tales. 10 ebooks for a great price. Lots of holiday reading. It disappears two days after Christmas, rather like Santa himself…