Behold, proud spider /
Web in our condo window /
You’re gonna starve in here!
–Phil Temples
Author: Phillip Temples
Michael C. Keith Featured at the Dire Literary Series, September 1, 2018
Allston Variant Comes to Life
WCVB carried this interesting story today entitled, “High-security Boston lab begins growing Ebola virus for experiments“.
It’s similar to the BSL-4 high security lab I describe in The Allston Variant. However, in the novel I go into far greater detail about the BSL-4 safety features in the fictional Allston lab.
“Whirlwind”
I’m shopping around a 100-word micro named “Whirlwind” about two boys who encounter a dust devil in a Kansas cornfield.
“Yeah, Machine Feelings”
The Scientific Case for Two Spaces After a Period
From The Atlantic:
This is a time of much division. Families and communities are splintered by polarizing narratives. Outrage surrounds geopolitical discourse—so much so that anxiety often becomes a sort of white noise, making it increasingly difficult to trigger intense, acute anger. The effect can be desensitizing, like driving 60 miles per hour and losing hold of the reality that a minor error could result in instant death.
One thing that apparently still has the power to infuriate people, though, is how many spaces should be used after a period at the end of an English sentence.
[Full story]
“Fake News” Accepted for Publication
My satirical piece “Fake News” was accepted for publication by the online ‘zine Children, Churches and Daddies, Volume 287 which will debut in November, 2018.
Michael Keith’s “Let Us Now Speak of Extinction”
I wanted to put in a plug for my friend Michael C. Keith’s latest book, “Let Us Now Speak of Extinction” from Mad Hat Press.
Keith’s opus possesses shades of Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, and aNew Yorker cartoon for extraterrestrials. Let Us Now Speak of Extinction is eerily addicting. ––Jo Maeder
Michael C. Keith’s short pieces seem relatively benign at first, but wait a moment and you feel the snap of his literary whip. Keith subverts things with a smile––like putting a dagger in the back of the iconic Jack Kerouac by posing whether his girlfriend was a better writer than this Beat patriarch. He brings an amused eye to our inevitable demise, our strutting and posturing before the black void. Keith is a writer who can shake your hand or use a well-appointed whoopee cushion to blow the hot air out from where the sun don’t shine. He keeps you honest. He keeps you thinking. He keeps you reading. –– Doug Holder
Buy it. It’s money well-spent.
“The Kanawha Conundrum”
I’m approximately 14,000 words into my next novel, The Kanawha Conundrum. I won’t post a synopsis or plot just yet. Suffice to say it’s a mystery-thriller (no murder, this time!) taking place in the present. It could be construed as science fiction depending on where I go with it.
Kanawha is a county in West Virginia; also, Kanawha was a proposed name for the 39 counties which later became the main body of the U.S. state of West Virginia, formed on October 24, 1861. Finally, the Kanawha River flows through West Virginia. It’s said the river was named by the Native American Delaware tribe. The story takes place in coal mining country in West Virginia, and has a strong First Nation theme.
Duotrope
I wanted to put in a plug for Duotrope. It’s a fabulous resource for writers. I’ve been a subscriber now going on six years.
Duotrope is a subscription-based service for writers and artists that offers an extensive, searchable database of current fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art markets, a calendar of upcoming deadlines, a personal submissions tracker, and useful statistics compiled from the millions of data points we’ve gathered on the publishers and agents we list.”