THE MOJAVE TWO-STEP

The desert, just past midnight. A lone truck on a scorched black licorice strip, two men—Anshutes and Coker—inside.

Outside it’s one hundred and twenty-five degrees under a fat December moon. Frosty weather in the twilight days of global warming…and just in time for the holiday season.

Sure, driving across the desert was a risk, even in such balmy weather. Not many people owned cars anymore, and those who did avoided the wide white lonesome. Even roadcops were smart enough to leave the Mojave alone. It was too hot and too empty, and it could make you as crazy as a scorpion on a sizzling-hot skillet. If you broke down out here, you ended up cooked to a beautiful golden brown—just like Tiny Tim’s Christmas goose. (more)

10 TIPS FROM MR. FOX & MR. PARTRIDGE

A few years ago, Subterranean Press published my collection, Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales. If the title seems a little familiar, it should—the original Roadkill Press edition of Mr. Fox was my first book way back when in 1992, and it brought me my first Bram Stoker award.

But the SubPress edition of Mr. Fox was a different animal. The subtitle told the story: A Collection/A Recollection/A Writer’s Handbook. Or, to put it another way, there were stories in the book—the seven tales from the original edition, plus eleven other early stories and an excerpt from an unfinished novel—and there were memories, too... (more)