I’ve always been an all-or-nothing sort of guy. Back when I trained at my local MMA gym, I’d often do 3-4 hours of cardio in a day because, if you’re going to get your heart beating, you might as well try and achieve Total Cardiac Detonation, right? The alternative was to do nothing at all, and spend the day slowly melting into a human pancake in the shower. (Luckily, my shampoo is syrup flavored. Because it’s just a bottle of syrup.)

This is, of course, merely one example of many. I’ve spent my whole life going to one extreme or another. (Which, according to my user manual, is not an intended feature. My parents should have contacted product support decades ago.) This attribute of Zach also seems to manifest itself in my stories, as I tend to write things that are either dark or (hopefully?) funny. Which brings me to today’s news.

I’ve got three story sales to announce! (Well–four, technically, but one of them I have to keep hush-hush for a few days. Check back on November 5th, dedicated readers!) And, in proper Zach fashion, the stories have hit both extremes on the spectrum of tone: two horror pieces, one humor.

First we’ve got “Servants of Frost and Madness,” which I sold to the Cat Eye Press anthology Modern Mummies.

Don’t let the cutesy cat fool you–this is definitely a horror anthology. And my story definitely includes a mummy. Granted, the mummy doesn’t have bandages, a burial mask, or any of the other usual mummy accessories, but what can you do? The economy’s rough. (And there’s no way I’m partaking in the cheap sarcophagus sale at Costco, because I don’t need eight of them.)

Modern Mummies is already out, because editor A.C. Bauer gets things done efficiently, which means he can assemble and publish an entire anthology before I can even update my website. (Which, in fairness, is a pretty low bar to stumble over.)

On the humor end of things, I’m pleased as heck to announce that I’ll be joining Alex Shvartsman’s Unidentified Funny Objects series for its tenth volume! I’ve been in six other installments of the series (numbers 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9, for those keeping track), and I think this might be my funniest contribution yet. (Although two contenders would be my stories in numbers 1 and 9–the earliest volume, and the latest. Because, again, I avoid the middleground like it’s going to bite me.)

This story’s called “Stupid Cupid,” and it’s got even fewer sarcophagi than the last one.

UFO10 is slated for a May 2026 release date, which means you guys will be alerted about it in November 2032, when I finally post here again.

Lastly, I’ve got another new horror story out–which is likely the one that brought you here, if you’re reading this post somewhere around November 1st, 2025. This one’s called “Please Be Respectful at Little Fawn Park,” and it was published today(!) in Flame Tree’s monthly newsletter. (The newsletter beams two free stories into subscribers’ inboxes each month, so maybe consider checking it out, if you haven’t already.)

This flash fiction piece was inspired by a walk I went on in Bend, Oregon last month, where I passed two unrelated signs that combined to spark an idea: one in a residential yard that read, “Please Be Respectful” (complete with image of a non-pooping, example-setting dog); and one at the entrance to a public space that read, “Little Fawn Park.” It’s funny, the way ideas can coalesce in those dark corners of the brain, where my high school education used to live before it left to travel the world and “find itself.” (I’ve yet to receive one. Single. Postcard.)

So there you have it: two new horror cookies, held together by a cream-filling of humor.

If you want to check back on November 5th, I should have another announcement for you! (Unless I put off writing that post, in which case, I’ll see you all next Procrastiween.)

-Z

Hi, friends. It’s been a while.

I’d love to say this prolonged absence is due to a flurry of activity in my life, but it’s not. Truth is, I could write a post here every day if I wanted. Every hour, even! But then my updates would consist solely of what I’d done since the previous hour, and I don’t think anyone wants to read about how many Oreos I just ate, or how many people I had to fight at the store to secure another package of Oreos. (It was twelve. For both things.)

Anyway, since updates continue to be few and far between here, let’s get right to the cream-filling of the matter: I have story sales to announce! First, let’s talk about some double-stuffed deities.

I mentioned in my last post (just six short months ago!) that I’d sold a story to Medusa, one of the first installments in Flame Tree’s gorgeous new “Myths, Gods & Immortals” anthology series. Well, good news! Medusa has slithered into existence, carrying with it my weird cyberpunk/Frankenstein/feminist/Greek-myth revenge story, “Snakes and Stones, We’ll Break Their Bones.”

I’m very proud of this one. It makes me want to write more modern stories about women from Greek myth.

. . . Which brings me to my next announcement: Circe! I made it into this volume of Flame Tree’s new series as well, with a present-day story set in Miami that does its best to clean up the crummy reputation all the old Greek and Roman poets gave Circe.

The book is available now, and my contribution is called “From Darkness, Awake.” I’m very proud of this one. It makes me want to write more modern stories about women from Greek myth.

. . .

(You can probably see where this is going.)

Guess what! I’ve got another story coming out in the Myths, Gods & Immortals series: “The Love Goddess’s War,” in Aphrodite. What happens when a love goddess in the year 2047 gets a sudden dose of reality, and realizes the world’s not what it used to be? Heck if I know. But I decided to write about it anyway! And now YOU have to read it. (Or not. We could also just split a package of Oreos and then fight over the last sixteen Oreos. I’m flexible.)

Aphrodite is scheduled for publication in June of 2025–just in time for Valentine’s Day! (But only if you’re below the equator. And on Venus.)

But wait: the ever-gracious editors at Flame Tree aren’t done publishing my stories! They also included a few of my flash fiction pieces in their monthly newsletters.

For their “Galactic Bazaar” theme, I wrote an SF piece called “The Love of the Hunt.” It’s got some action, some drama, and at least one (1) galactic bazaar. The newsletter that included the story has been archived here.

For Flame Tree’s “Clone Claus” issue, I wrote a Christmas/SF/humor tale called “Ho Ho Toe.” It’s definitely a lot goofier than any of the above stories, and should become an instant Christmas-Eve tradition for anyone who appreciates both holiday magic and feet.

You can read “Ho Ho Toe” here.

Lastly, I had a drabble (a story of exactly 100 words–about 1/6 the length of this post) published in January. I’ve only ever written two drabbles, and now I’ve sold them both. I currently have a 100% success rate on drabbles. I am just dribbling drabbles over here. It’s the reason I own so many mops.

This one is called “Now to Eric,” and you can read it over at 100-Foot Crow. Interesting tidbit about this story: I wrote it in October of 2015, as then-topical social commentary. The fact that it’s still relevant ten years later is kind of depressing.

That’s it for today, friends. Check in next time, to find out how many new cavities I have!

-Z

There are a lot of things I’m bad at.  I can’t roller-skate, I swim like a cinder block, and there are at least three perfectly normal activities I’m not allowed to engage in without fire-department supervision.  Of course, there are also a few things I’m good at, but they aren’t worth mentioning because fitting an entire pancake into your mouth is not a marketable skill.

One of the things I’m positively terrible at, though, is keeping this site updated.  Which is why there’s a good chance no one knows about any of the following:

1.  “The Woman With the Long Black Hair” was published in Fantasy & Science Fiction.  You can get the issue online or at Barnes & Noble, though the latter will probably only be displaying it for a few more weeks at the most.  
2. After nearly five years of being stuck in editorial quicksand, “The Horror at Hatchet Point” has finally clawed its way to the surface and been published in the Lovecraftian fairy-tale anthology Twice Upon an Apocalypse.
3. I recently sold to Unidentified Funny Objects 6 a story titled “Tyler the Snot Elemental Scours the Newspaper, Searching For Change.”  It’s about exactly what you think it’s about.

(Special thanks to UFO editor Alex Shvartsman for helping turn my hideous rough draft into something publishable.  Without your guidance, the world would never know what struggles a snot elemental faces in its daily life.)

And that’s it for now.  See you all at the next update!

-Z

I’m by no means a prankster (unless you count the time I tried to convince a stranger I had diplomatic immunity to local laws, which seemed like a great idea until she asked for my license and registration), so I’m not going to pull your leg with some false news here.  After all, I have no idea what your medical history is like; your leg might come clean off, and then I’d be stuck with some horror-film version of the “Major Award” from A Christmas Story.

So instead of tempting fate with a good-natured lie, I’m going to give you some real news:  two pieces of it, in fact, because today is a holiday, and this is how we’re going to celebrate.

Firstly, I recently sold a story to The Binge-Watching Cure, an anthology designed to relieve people of their Netflix addictions by getting them to read again.  “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” (which I wrote way back in September of 2012) should be published sometime later this year.

Secondly, let’s talk about “The Black Clover Equation.”  This is another one I wrote in 2012 (August, in this case), and it only ever made the submission-rounds at a few markets before I forgot about it, leaving it to decompose in my trunk of cringe-inducing unsold fiction.  But something made me dig it up in 2015, and after just barely failing to sell it to Unidentified Funny Objects 4 (possibly because I sold editor Alex Shvartsman a different story:  “Champions of Breakfast”), I promptly got distracted by something and let my weird little tale of good and bad luck sink to the bottom of my trunk once more.

This brings us to late last year, when I got word that Flash Fiction Online was itchin’ for some humor stories.  FFO was the site of my first-ever fiction sale (professional or otherwise), so I dug up “The Black Clover Equation” and sent it on its way.

Now, about five years after that first publication, I’ve returned to FFO.  “The Black Clover Equation” went up today, and you can read it here.

Part of me feels like I should celebrate the occasion with a wild and crazy party.  After all, today’s a holiday, and if the neighbors complain about the noise, it’s okay–I’ve got diplomatic immunity.

-Z

EDIT:  Because I’m an idiot (or maybe just because I’m bad at updating my site–but more likely both), I’ve forgotten until now to mention that “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” is not my first sale of the year:  I’ve also sold a piece of flash fiction called “Tessa and the Troll” to Galaxy’s Edge.  This will be my second publication in Galaxy’s Edge (the first being “Tomorrow’s Forecast,” from issue #20), and I can’t wait to see this lighthearted humor tale appear in the pages of Mike Resnick’s magazine.

Hello again, imaginary friends!  Today I’m pleased to announce that Alex Shvartsman has decided to buy my story “Prophet Margins” for his Unidentified Funny Objects 5 anthology.  This will be the third time I’ve appeared in a UFO volume, giving me a 60% success rate.  According to most grading systems, that’s a D-minus–or as I like to think of it, “A noticeable improvement over my junior year of high school.”

I owe Alex not only for buying my story, but for using his razor-sharp editorial skills to shape that dingy lump of fiction into something respectably shiny.  I guess this is why he’s the guy in charge, huh?

UFO5 will showcase a host of great authors, including big names like David Gerrold (whom you may know as the man who invented Tribbles) and Mike Resnick.  And speaking of Mike Resnick, I’ve got another piece of news.

Galaxy’s Edge #20 was published on May 1st, containing my story “Tomorrow’s Forecast.”  The current issue of Galaxy’s Edge is always available for free online, so if you’d like to check out my story there, be sure to do so before July.  (Alternatively, you could buy the ebook or one of those handsome physical volumes–both excellent options.)

And that’s it for now.  Until next time!

-Z

. . . And like any good king, I hibernate every other year.  But now I’ve emerged from my Cave of Reclusivity (it’s a word, trust me–I’m a king), and come bearing a medley of news that’s one part recent, two parts outdated.

– News the first:  Bloody Knuckles has been published, which includes my science fiction/MMA story “The Miracle Man.”  You can check it out here.

– News the second:  I sold a flash story called “The Hornet’s Sting” to Abyss and Apex.  It’s due out in 2015, meaning you’ll see me mention it again sometime in 2037.

– News the third:  Not only did I sell a story to Intergalactic Medicine Show, but as of last night (11/25/2014), that story has been published!  You can read “Eli Whitney and the Cotton Djinn” here, and while you don’t have to be an American history buff to appreciate the story, being a cotton enthusiast would certainly help.

-Z