Monday, September 19, 2011

Dark Moon Digest #5 featuring "Pearls"



About a year and a half ago I wrote a story called "Pearls." I was and continue to be proud of the piece--in fact, I think it's one of my best--but I had a great deal of trouble finding a home for it due to it being so, well, nasty. "Pearls" is a gut-churner, to be perfectly honest. I have a close friend who couldn't finish reading it because he was feeling too queasy. I submitted the hell out of it but I kept hearing variations of the same line: wonderfully written but too gross for us.


This summer, however, "Pearls" finally found a defender in Stan Swanson, editor of Dark Moon Digest, who decided to publish it in DMD #5, which came out this week. The issue is available on Amazon and is included in their 4-for-3 deal, which is awesome for everyone involved. Check it out. Or don't. It's your life, spaz.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Sawbones: A Serial Novel




Today I kick off my serial novel, Sawbones. I actually wrote the first draft prior to Bleed, though I’ve obsessively toyed with it ever since, and I’ve decided to serialized it online after seeing quite a few fun and successful ventures other authors have done similarly (Dan O’Shea’s Rotten at the Heart comes to mind).


My intent to post a new chapter three times a week—Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays—with occasional breaks for when I’m at cons and such. I encourage comments and emails and general word-spreading. A synopsis/blurb is below, along with a link to find Sawbones. I genuinely hope you enjoy reading it.


In the summer of 1865, a man who calls himself Dr. Septimus Whitehall arrives in war-ravaged Southern Alabama with murder on his mind. Whitehall has come to make himself into a killer, armed only with a list of names and a savage rage. First, he practices his craft. Then he begins his mission in earnest: killing each and every person on his list in revenge for an ambiguous crime against a loved one. From Mobile to Little Rock, Nebraska to the Dakota Territory, Whitehall slashes, shoots and burns his way across the country in the name of vengeance, all of which leads to the final showdown with the architect of his anger in New York City.


As Whitehall’s list grows shorter and the trail of blood, bodies and flame grows longer behind him, the origin of his resolution to kill gradually becomes clearer. He kills to avenge a mysterious red-haired beauty from the Bowery, but his sworn mission may be the result of delusion and fevered fantasy.


Begin reading Sawbones at edkurtzsawbones.wordpress.com.