The 2018 Short Story Anthology is available for pre-order!

Print editions will be available at MAGFest, as well as copies of Rhest for the Wicked, Samifel, RocKaiju, Proton, and the 2017 Anthology.  I’ll be selling them as well as bundles just for MAGFest.

It is interesting that short stories have become such a cornerstone of my artistic and professional career.  For much of my literary life, I avoided short stories.  I struggled with them for ages.  In 2003, when I launched TeachTheSky.com originally, complete with my original serials, I had to reconcile many of the challenges of writing short stories by doing so in shorter-form fiction.  Serials, intended as a means of competing with web comics (the then-seemingly dominant up-and-coming art form), required shorter length, but they allowed me to bridge the gap between longer forms (novels and novel series) and shorter modalities.  As time would go on, I would keep picking away at it.

These days, I enjoy writing short stories a lot.  It’s fine to try to limit myself to one general narrative tale, which is how I view them.  I still engage in the longer-form narrative, as evidenced by the on-going series like Zeta Danger and Chip Masters, Ninja.

I plan to keep producing these anthology collections every year.  While I publish twelve stories a year, I write fifteen to twenty shorts, so these anthologies are the only way to read some of these stories.  Eventually, I plan to collect some of them into thematic collections.  Whether it’s by tale (the afore-mentioned on-going series like Zeta Danger) or maybe genre (a horror collection, perhaps), it’s fun to consider.

Naturally the books aren’t going anywhere.  RocKaiju 2, Proton 2, Rhest for the Wicked 2 (and more) remain in development and will be published sooner rather than later (Rhest 2 is damn-near release as we speak).  And I remain committed to finishing the Crossworld Saga eventually.  Might even get back to Ghee and the rest of them while I’m at it.  Shrewd fans may have even spotted the connections between Ghee and some of my other books, but it’s still a ways off to explore that.

And the serials.  I’m simply not done with Red Moon Rising, Deadman, and the Responders.  I don’t know how they’ll return but they will.  There’s still too much story to tell.

Some days, I’m ready to hang it all up.  And maybe I will.  But that’s the professional side.  The artistic side, the writer…he’s never going to quit.  These stories are too much fun.

The best is yet to come.  Stay tuned, and I hope I’ll see you at MAGFest.