New Review on Lurid-Lit and it is a bare knuckles classic....

I review "Hills of Fire: Bare-Knuckle Yarns of Appalachia edited by Frank Larnerd and published by Woodland Press. Set a spell, take your shoes off, ya hear?

Christmas in May

I should be happy. My wife told me that my newest story; a Christmas tale titled "There Ain't None", was extremely disturbing, right from the first sentence, "The Devil doesn't exist." No crime story here just supernatural horror. We will see around Christmas, and hopefully someone will publish it. Why Christmas? I have no clue; that is just what came out when I first heard that whisper in my ear....yes, 'The Devil doesn't exist...'

Appearance on Surreal Grotesque Confirmed

I will be appearing on the Surreal Grotesque Podcast this Sunday at 5:30 pm. It will be taped and online shortly thereafter, either later that night or within 24 hours. I will discuss my writing process and will read "A Hint of Cinnamon". A link will follow when ready.

Surreal Grotesque Podcast

We are honored to have been asked, and we have accepted to be on a future Surreal Grotesque Podcast. I will be reading A HINT OF CINNAMON a story that will appear in the June issue.

Since I realize my stories are clearly lodged in the 'weird fiction' pigeonhole, boy this one is in the running as a flag bearer. A HINT was born out of a personal experience of mine, taking walks and discovering one spot that for three months smelled like a rotting corpse. Yes, three months. The odd thing was that the stench was only noticed on the spot --- never in advancement or retreat; just on that spot.

I was by there today and nothing....

More details to follow.

Black Ribbon Society

The link on josephjpatchen.weebly.com is officially working and you can see me as part of that marvelous WebRing; kind of like the Justice League of America or Avengers but of horror. So I'm a geek big deal. Jerry Lee Lewis called me 'Killer' so I'm good...

They're Here.......

Everyone who knows about my writing knows the unusual process I take. I have trouble writing from scratch. My stories and poems come from dreams and nightmares. They appear like live performances in front of my and in order for me to get rid of them I have to write them down; going back and polishing them later for publication.

Well we did hit a dry spell; primarily because of the demands of the day job and that certain side of brain just sat there quiet and all.

Last night I was watching television, my wife went to bed; and in the dark it happened with just one little whisper I heard in my left ear...'the devil doesn't exist'.

I am working in it. The story is titled THERE AIN'T NONE and I'm working on it...

Springtime for......

Spring cleaning. What did you think I was going to say? April was a rough month, just as it was in March. The day job was time consuming and then some. Was it profitable and productive? Hell no; just a lot of nothing except time consuming and angst filled.

So I combed through my few, and I mean few, submissions in search of potential queries. Only one popped up and I should have known the reason why.

Death is final and unless there is a survivor to file an obituary; you simply disappear in an instant without any further notice.

I should have seen the symptoms. My submission was 'lost' twice. I was asked to re-submit and re-submit since April of last year. Oh well, I'm stupid.

Oh well, one less story out there and hopefully in May we will be able to start writing and submitting in earnest breathing life into the stagnation that is my writing at the moment.