Got a new shortie published in Out of the Gutter today, called “Waiting for the Man.” It’s about remembering faces and, just as importantly, forgetting them. There’s a bit about George Leslie in there too – one of my favorite mythical criminals.
Check it out here: WAITING FOR THE MAN. It’s always great to be back in the gutter.
Late posting this bad boy, but hell, it’s never too late to keep the Christmas spirit alive. Consider it a belated gift, you ungrateful swine.
I was part of a fun series of fiction over at Out of the Gutter called the 12 Daze of Christmas. The premise was simple: 12 crime-orientated pieces of flash for the 12 days leading up to Jesus’ birth (alleged).
My shortie “Dead Letter” made the cut. Enjoy it here along with the 11 other wicked yuletide fools.
Back in the ’90s, ambitious crooks in Orlando used to grind a caper on tourists that revolved around pizza delivery. They’d make up phony flyers for non-existent pizza joints, leave them on windshields in hotel parking lots, and wait for the unsuspecting tourists to order. Then they’d show up at their hotel rooms with an empty pizza box and the marks would just let them in.
That dated caper was the inspiration for this story, “95 Degrees,” published on the UK crime site Near to the Knuckle. Thanks for having me!
Spinetingler published my first crime story, “Gun Coven,” back in September 2014. I’m happy to return to the site years later with “One Gold Tooth” – a punchy short I wrote, hated, refined, hated, and wrote again.
There’s a new literary mag out of Orlando called Ghost Parachute and I’m stoked to have a story in the November issue. “Erosion” is a departure from my usual crime output and started out as an exercise in indirect answers. Man, I dig indirect answers.
Anyways, the November issue is up now so CHECK IT OUT. Each story is accompanied by original art, which is really wicked. There’s a warm pencil drawing with mine that I like a lot.
Wicked excited to have a story in this new anthology Fast Women & Neon Lights: 80s Inspired Noir, edited by the mighty Michael Pool. Featuring 18 bitchin’ tales of the ’80s, including my story “Alone Now.” Want to see what happens when two desperate burglars get trapped in a Foot Locker overnight with Tiffany blasting on repeat at deafening volume? Of course you do!
I’m really stoked to have a story in this anthology “Shadows in Salem: Wicked Tales From the Witch City.” I’ve lived in quite a few cities, quite a few states, and my heart always beats for Salem – a place I called home for a decade or so.
My story “No Hopeful Verse” has crime elements, ah duh, but is more macabre than any shortie I’ve done before. I drew a lot of inspiration from the almighty “Young Goodman Brown” (for Hawthorne nerds, the title of my short is a dead giveaway). There’s a ton of other great stories in it as well that I can’t wait to dig into myself.
Pick up a copy of “Shadows in Salem” over at Amazon, B&N, etc. Thanks to Amber Newberry and the FunDead Pub crew for having me!
I love Akashic Books’s regional noir series. Their first Boston Noir anthology is a classic in my book and at the release party during the Boston Book Fair, I got to meet Dennis Lehane, which was tremendous for me. And I never washed my hand again.
Anyways, Akashic published my shortie “Swans Mate for Life” as part of their “Mondays Are Murder” series. It’s about a guy trying to steer his own life while steering a swan boat at Orlando’s Lake Eola.
Bit late posting this one because I just moved 1,000 miles to southeastern PA. Flash Fiction Magazine posted my quickie ‘Jawbone’ on July 25 and their summary of it is real good, so I’ll just let them take it away:
“Two men burying a man near a river come across an animal’s jawbone, which becomes the symbol of the unspoken bond between husband and wife, reaching beyond wedding vows.”
Read it HERE. I’ve got another flash coming out August 15, then I think I’m done with the quickies for a while. Got three longer ones in the pot and now that the move is over, it’s time to finish em up. Take it easy.
Holy Moses. I recently watched One False Move (1992), a thriller directed by Carl Franklin and written by Billy Bob Thorton and Tom Epperson. I’ve never heard this film come up in conversations about ’90s thrillers, but my Lord is it an apex of the genre. It’s a genuinely character-driven story, where the “twists” actually make sense in regards to the drama and the players occupying it. Heck, even Ebert gave it a perfect score when it came out. Uncompromising, authentic to the location, and wicked intense, One False Move needs to be up in your eyeballs ASAP. It’s available to rent on iTunes.
Patrick G. Cooper 