Tag: Fantasy

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with an introduction to the anthology as a whole:

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson’s point has been echoed by many, but in the Land of the Weird the question arises, “A journey to what destination?” At the same time, you might ask, “Is the journey therefore the destination?” The journey may well be an individual’s destination, because it will define them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in the Land of the Weird, that journey can take twists and turns that amuse, sadden, or horrify.
This trip into the Land of the Weird offers you 39 unique trails to follow, assisted by 35 different guides, each leading you down their own singular paths, manifesting their own view of journey as destination, some laughing, some weeping, and some, eyes wide with fear, shaking as they point out the spectral footpath for you to follow on your way down The Rabbit Hole.

A Writers Co-op Production
Stories by: Chere Taylor, Brian R. Quinn, Arthur M. Doweyko, Donna J. W. Munro, Tom Howard, Kayla Whittle, Leslie Muzingo, Pete Barnstrom, Emmie Christie, Thomas Nicholson, GD Deckard, Richard DeRobertis, M.C. Schmidt, James Dorr, Rosalind Goldsmith, Margaret Karmazin, J.W.Wood, James Rumpel, Bill McCormick, v.f. thompson, Fran Tabor, David K. Slay, Joseph Carrabis, Jane Frankel, Alice Baburek, Susan R. Morritt, Bobby Rollins, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denice Penrose, Stephen McQuiggan, H. Donovan Lyón, Anna Ross, Michael Pudney, Beth Gaydon, and Tom Wolosz.

Tom’s contribution is OUROBOROUS. Here’s the opening:

Standing by the pond he was struck, as always, by what was missing.
The mixed stand of maples, paper birch and evergreens swayed gently, a palette of gentle pine- and deep forest-green needle and leaf, with the nut-browns, greys and dirty streaked whites of trunks and branches peeking out from within and beneath the canopy. Sapphire pond waters rippled gently in time to the swaying of the trees, and fluffy cotton-ball clouds gently frolicked through the azure sky; all crying out to him that a gentle breeze caressed them, propelled them, danced with them.
Yet he felt nothing.

How the story came about:
I’ve been fascinated by the prospect of emulations — basically the copying of human consciousness into a computer, creating a facsimile of a human being within the machine which could perform all the tasks the original could. Of course, there are downsides to everything…
Continue reading “Tom Wolosz’s ‘OUROBOROS’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology”

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with an introduction to the anthology as a whole:

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson’s point has been echoed by many, but in the Land of the Weird the question arises, “A journey to what destination?” At the same time, you might ask, “Is the journey therefore the destination?” The journey may well be an individual’s destination, because it will define them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in the Land of the Weird, that journey can take twists and turns that amuse, sadden, or horrify.
This trip into the Land of the Weird offers you 39 unique trails to follow, assisted by 35 different guides, each leading you down their own singular paths, manifesting their own view of journey as destination, some laughing, some weeping, and some, eyes wide with fear, shaking as they point out the spectral footpath for you to follow on your way down The Rabbit Hole.

A Writers Co-op Production
Stories by: Chere Taylor, Brian R. Quinn, Arthur M. Doweyko, Donna J. W. Munro, Tom Howard, Kayla Whittle, Leslie Muzingo, Pete Barnstrom, Emmie Christie, Thomas Nicholson, GD Deckard, Richard DeRobertis, M.C. Schmidt, James Dorr, Rosalind Goldsmith, Margaret Karmazin, J.W.Wood, James Rumpel, Bill McCormick, v.f. thompson, Fran Tabor, David K. Slay, Joseph Carrabis, Jane Frankel, Alice Baburek, Susan R. Morritt, Bobby Rollins, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denice Penrose, Stephen McQuiggan, H. Donovan Lyón, Anna Ross, Michael Pudney, Beth Gaydon, and Tom Wolosz.

James’ contribution is Marcie. Here’s the opening:

There were two kinds of zombies. Of course, Marcie realized that — she wasn’t stupid. There was the bad kind, the kind they were always showing in movies, that ate human flesh. Sometimes, even, they only ate brains. But that was just an addiction, she understood. Like coke or meth, it got you all screwed up — not that she was into those kinds of things herself. Well, maybe she and her sisters a little bit in college, but. . . . But the point was, you couldn’t condemn a whole class of people because of the bad habits of just a few of them.

How the story came about:
“Marcie and Her Sisters” was first published in the cinema-horror anthology REEL DARK (BlackWyrm, 2015), in part for thematic similarities to the Woody Allen film HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, though oddly that hadn’t been a factor in my original inspiration. Rather, it was a thought that just came to me, of a couple of women where one says to the other, “Let’s go to the zombie store and buy ourselves husbands.” That led to my thinking of the medieval tale of “Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell” (one variant is “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in Chaucer’s THE CANTERBURY TALES — so, okay, I have a MA in English Lit with specialization in the Middle Ages) in which he marries a woman under a spell where she can be either beautiful at night when they’re alone together, but hideous by day when they’re with others, or vice versa. So too perhaps with zombies then, where the women must choose between these different aspects — and why not, for that matter, add a third? And then — one more notion — some stories don’t always have entirely reliable narrators.
Continue reading “James Dorr’s ‘Marcie’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology”

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with an introduction to the anthology as a whole:

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson’s point has been echoed by many, but in the Land of the Weird the question arises, “A journey to what destination?” At the same time, you might ask, “Is the journey therefore the destination?” The journey may well be an individual’s destination, because it will define them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in the Land of the Weird, that journey can take twists and turns that amuse, sadden, or horrify.
This trip into the Land of the Weird offers you 39 unique trails to follow, assisted by 35 different guides, each leading you down their own singular paths, manifesting their own view of journey as destination, some laughing, some weeping, and some, eyes wide with fear, shaking as they point out the spectral footpath for you to follow on your way down The Rabbit Hole.

A Writers Co-op Production
Stories by: Chere Taylor, Brian R. Quinn, Arthur M. Doweyko, Donna J. W. Munro, Tom Howard, Kayla Whittle, Leslie Muzingo, Pete Barnstrom, Emmie Christie, Thomas Nicholson, GD Deckard, Richard DeRobertis, M.C. Schmidt, James Dorr, Rosalind Goldsmith, Margaret Karmazin, J.W.Wood, James Rumpel, Bill McCormick, v.f. thompson, Fran Tabor, David K. Slay, Joseph Carrabis, Jane Frankel, Alice Baburek, Susan R. Morritt, Bobby Rollins, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denice Penrose, Stephen McQuiggan, H. Donovan Lyón, Anna Ross, Michael Pudney, Beth Gaydon, and Tom Wolosz.

Jane’s contribution is Sadie. Here’s the opening:

Ellie’s mother shot herself on Ellie’s eighth birthday. She went into the bedroom, saying she was going to get Ellie’s ‘big surprise,’ and then, ‘Boom,’ what had once been her mother was now just a splatter of brains on the wall.
Ellie didn’t cry. She never cried. Instead she creeped into the bedroom on tippy toes and leaned over her mother’s dead body, taking in the strange combination of odors, urine and shit and perfume that smelled like lilies. What her mother called ‘her signature.’

How the story came about:
I love the idea of possessed dolls and wanted to write a story that compared the horror of the supernatural to the horror of real life tragedy. I also wanted to explore the vulnerability and strangeness of childhood and how children perceive what’s real and what isn’t. The idea of ‘life sized dolls’ has always intrigued me. I think it’s interesting how things that are made to be cute or fun can also be terrifying.
Continue reading “Jane Frankel’s ‘Sadie’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology”

I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with an introduction to the anthology as a whole:

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson’s point has been echoed by many, but in the Land of the Weird the question arises, “A journey to what destination?” At the same time, you might ask, “Is the journey therefore the destination?” The journey may well be an individual’s destination, because it will define them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And in the Land of the Weird, that journey can take twists and turns that amuse, sadden, or horrify.
This trip into the Land of the Weird offers you 39 unique trails to follow, assisted by 35 different guides, each leading you down their own singular paths, manifesting their own view of journey as destination, some laughing, some weeping, and some, eyes wide with fear, shaking as they point out the spectral footpath for you to follow on your way down The Rabbit Hole.

A Writers Co-op Production
Stories by: Chere Taylor, Brian R. Quinn, Arthur M. Doweyko, Donna J. W. Munro, Tom Howard, Kayla Whittle, Leslie Muzingo, Pete Barnstrom, Emmie Christie, Thomas Nicholson, GD Deckard, Richard DeRobertis, M.C. Schmidt, James Dorr, Rosalind Goldsmith, Margaret Karmazin, J.W.Wood, James Rumpel, Bill McCormick, v.f. thompson, Fran Tabor, David K. Slay, Joseph Carrabis, Jane Frankel, Alice Baburek, Susan R. Morritt, Bobby Rollins, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denice Penrose, Stephen McQuiggan, H. Donovan Lyón, Anna Ross, Michael Pudney, Beth Gaydon, and Tom Wolosz.

Denice’s contribution is Castles in the Sky. Here’s the opening:

“Oh no! What was it I needed?” Katie stared at the supermarket aisles. She’d been distracted by the sale on those little camisole tops that had been such a life saver this summer. When the hot flushes struck, she could strip right down to the skimpy top for relief. With a light wrap, they even looked decent enough in public. She stuffed two hangers into her basket. She’d have to start at the beginning and see if she could work out what she needed.

How the story came about:
Stories often start with random snippets that eventually coalesce into something meaningful. This one started with watching Sherlock Holmes, and hearing him talk about using a ‘memory palace’ to remember information. It coincided with conversations on ways of remembering information, and then I started wondering about how it worked, and what happened if it worked too well..
Continue reading “Denice Penrose’s ‘Building Castles in the Sky’ in Writers Co-op Production’s The Rabbit Hole Weird Stories Destination:Journey Anthology”