For me, there is no greater feeling than seeing my name in print. I received that honor a few days ago when my copy of It Calls From Below arrived in the mail, containing my story “The Installation”. I’m eager to see what my fellow contributors wrote. Now that I have three stories published, I've … Continue reading Evolving as a Writer (Update)
What I Read – April 2023
What started as a fruitful reading month turned into a morass of unproductivity as life got in the way. It meant I didn’t read as much as I would have liked. As I mentioned last month, I’m reading all weird fiction, both new and old. Two of the books below were some of my all-time … Continue reading What I Read – April 2023
The Fickle Finger of Fiction
Creativity is fickle, coming and going without rhyme or reason. This month, try as I might, I had a deficit of inspiration, as if my muse took a vacation without telling me. Still, I found ways around this. Short Stories Between now and September, I hope to submit at least one story a month. I’ve … Continue reading The Fickle Finger of Fiction
My Shelf Tour
One of my first posts on this blog was entitled Books as a Drug, in which I talked about bibliomania and my impulsive purchase of 81 Dragonlance novels. Well, four years later, I’ve doubled (or maybe even tripled) the number of books I own. For me, buying books is intoxicating, and once they’re on my … Continue reading My Shelf Tour
Going Weird
Before horror, before bizarro, I was obsessed with weird fiction. For those unfamiliar, it’s a hard to define genre with multiple definitions. Tim Waggoner describes it succinctly as “a mix of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and just about anything else you want to put into it.” The genre often shows the insignificance of human beings … Continue reading Going Weird
What I Read – March 2023
Women in Horror Month just concluded. Each year, I try to read all female authors in March. Unfortunately, this year, I mixed up months and was halfway through March when I realized this. Still, I plan to focus on reading female authors for more than just 31 days a year. Demon Seed by Dean Koontz … Continue reading What I Read – March 2023
Finding My Rhythm (Writing Update)
This was one of those months that reminded me why I’m a writer. I’ve found the right rhythms, balanced multiple projects, and felt part of the community. At the moment, I’m hurrying to get a story finished that has a deadline in a few days (more about that below), but I thought I'd take a … Continue reading Finding My Rhythm (Writing Update)
What I Read – February 2023
This has been a blood-drenched reading month—something that happened quite by accident. Three of the five books below I would label as “extreme horror,” while a fourth had plenty of disturbing imagery. There would be more books on this list, but I gave up on two large novels halfway through each. Next month, I may … Continue reading What I Read – February 2023
I Finished My Rough Draft! (Kinda)
The title says it all. After 2 months of planning and 3 months of writing, my linked collection, Stories From the Infinite City, is finally complete—half a month later than I had originally planned. It is made up of a novella and 12 short stories, coming to a total of 48,000 words. This past month … Continue reading I Finished My Rough Draft! (Kinda)
What I Read – January 2023
I can say this month that I read widely. Each book was a different genre (horror, high fantasy, urban fantasy, meta-fiction, weird fiction) and I must admit that it was refreshing after being locked solely in horror for so long. While I’ll always have a home in horror, the many worlds of speculative fiction provided … Continue reading What I Read – January 2023
Zé Burns | Blog 