A Little Ghost Story

It’s Halloween and while I feel dead, I’m not quite there (yet). The past two weeks of “vacation” from the dayjob consisted of the Viable Paradise Writing Workshop (VPXX represent!) followed almost immediately by the World Fantasy Convention, to say nothing about all the requisite travel. So given the holiday and my current state, how about I share an old ghost story…

***

Sitting in the kitchen, staring out the patio door into the darkness past the deck, I’m reminded of the story of my grandmother, one of many things my mother handed down to me:

At midnight, every night for months, my Lola dressed in her finest Spanish gown, went out on to her front porch, and screamed for her husband to come home. No one tried to stop her. See, her generation wasn’t unfamiliar with visits from the dead. A young woman calling out into the humid, Philippine night, was pitiable, but not beyond the bounds of reason. My grandmother’s family and townmates shrugged it off, until the night the screaming stopped after only a few moments. They rushed outside, afraid she’d hurt herself, or worse. Instead, they found her standing on the porch, smiling.

“He heard me,” Lola told them. “He came home.”

***
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Today: New Pub at LAKESIDE CIRCUS. Tomorrow: Readercon!

A flash piece o’ mine called “Life After Wartime” dropped today over at Lakeside Circus!

“Bu-bu-but… I like my stories read to me out loud,” you say.  That’s cool, because you can have that, too!

And, if you want to tell me to my face what you think about this story, I’ll be at Readercon tomorrow night through Sunday.  Let’s hang out!

Bibliotheca Fantastica Is Out!

I’ve been remiss in announcing that at long last, the anthology Bibliotheca Fantastica, is finally out from Dagan Books!  Here’s my introduction to the book.  Trust me, this one is worth the wait!  (Not that I’m biased or anything…)

You can pick it up through Amazon for your Kindle, or in a DRM-free format–the epub file epub, mobi, (which also works on your Kindle), or PDF either individually or as a bundle!