On the 11th of October Soft Star Magazine published my story The location of the house was perfect but there was too much space in their inaugural issue online. I really like the ethos of this new mag which features “…stories of science fiction, futurism, and speculative fiction with a healthy dose of optimism. …Soft Star stands for curiosity, openness, and the inherent magic of the unknown,” to quote their About page.

I was really pleased to find a home for this story which is one of my favourites. It was was the first story I was ever asked to read at the Writers HQ‘s Flash Face Off night. I’ve tweaked it a bit since then and am very pleased with myself for giving each of the three characters a motivation which gets resolved after a mere 500 words.

I’m really glad it is finally out in the world. It’s available online now, and it will soon be available in an actual physical magazine too – my first printed story in 3D reality! I’ve just seen a proof and it looks awesome!

The other story I had published was at the very end of the month, on the 31st October to be precise, in Issue 3 of annual mag, The Hallowzine.

Boo!

Mwa ha ha haaaaa!

And so on.

It is another of my favourite stories and I have been trying to find a home for it for some time. I think The Hallowzine is the perfect place. It is called: A free ghost with every cup and it is about a haunted cup of coffee.

Lastly, I have two stories that will be published soon in quite contrasting publications. I will be going back to home to comforting weirdness of Bear Creek Gazette for the first one. It’s been nearly a year since the end of my alien invasion gardening column so it’s good to be back with a very short story about a wall.

The other is in the classy, literary, quarterly-published, Isele Magazine. It has arty pictures in it. And poems! They have accepted a story from me which has no jokes in it (!) and is rather dramatic and sad. It is, however, told through the medium of sandwiches. So it’s still me.