I am still so very pressed for time (and having weeks of mental health struggles) so I haven’t gotten these promotional blurbs and pics up as I’d like but for Rainbow Snippets today I have some of my favorite pictures that go with These Haunted Hills.
Today is a snippet at Lake Alma in Wellston OH. At the turn of the last century it was a playground for the wealthier set in Columbus to come down to play. There was a casino (19th century definition, not today’s) a merry go round and more but it’s all gone now, all but the ghosts. This is on the island in the lake. I love walking here.
Today’s snippet: To Brendan’s surprise, Josh parked near a lake with a small beach. A few other cars were in the lot. He could see why. This would be a nice place to come relax in the summer.
“This is different.”
“I was always fond of Lake Alma. Truth be told, this is where I had my first kiss in high school. Well, not here.” Josh pointed to the beach. “Back along the trail.”
Below is one of my favorite pictures from Lake Alma (taken in winter, my favorite time to hike in many ways) I loved the play of light and shadow in this one. This picture was taken 2020 but sadly it fell into the lake last year.
Blurb:
Young wildlife conservation professor, Joshua Zimmerman, adores foxes, steampunk, and paranormal investigation. As a geek of the first order, Josh is a collector of nerdy memorabilia and tattoos, and he’s an avid steampunk cosplayer. When his favorite author hires him for some ghost hunting for his new project, Josh can hardly believe his luck.
As an author of the wildly successful urban fantasy series, The Green Tablet, Brendan Halloran should have it all. And he did until his young son, Connor, died of cancer. Heartbroken and drowning in grief, Brendan stops writing, stops living his life. His marriage has disintegrated, leaving Brendan trapped in the moment Connor died.
When Brendan rents a cabin in Ohio’s Hocking Hills, it’s ostensibly to research his next book, an adult paranormal tale. Brendan hires a local professor who is an expert on the paranormal, thinking if he does pull out of his tail spin and makes good on his plan to write a new book, he might as well do it right. And the perfect place to investigate could be the remains of an old hotel constructed to suit the serial killer who built it.
Brendan finds himself swept away, completely unprepared for the joy and enthusiasm Josh brings to everything he does. Step by step, Brendan reenters life. His head might not be convinced he’s ready to love again, but his heart disagrees. Unfortunately for him, the ghost is every bit as vicious as the killer was in life, and he and Joshua have a target on their backs.
I thought I’d take this week’s rainbow snippets to talk a little bit about my upcoming release and share a snippet or two here over the next few coming weeks.
These Haunted Hills has been shared here before but now the book is almost here and I am excited. So why haven’t I been screaming about this from the hilltops? Life is rough at the moment is the answer.
But this is a book born out of my rough times. Shockingly I started it for nanowrimo in 2017 and then life intervened. In camp nano during the pandemic I wrote more and then while hospitalized after destroying my knee in 2021 I took it back to camp to finish it off. 2022 was cleaning this up since it had taken five years to complete (some of which was written under heavy pain killers after they pieced my leg together and taught me to walk again. So here I am at the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 dealing with my cancer diagnosis and now my uncle’s.
That’s where the book came from, out of a lot of pain but here is what it is about, the joy of the things around me. I live just across the river from the Mothman and within 40 miles of the Hocking Hills and their ghosts and cryptids and ditto Athens and their haunts. I’m about 70 miles from Haunted Marietta. I’m about 2 hours south east of the Loveland Frog monster (though he’s not in this).
Josh represents that joy. He’s a wildlife professor at an unnamed university (but given he lives close to Athens OH and Ohio U is right there… feel free to draw conclusions). His steampunk airship is basically the one I belong to out of Athens (they’re excited about it) His website is based on one by people I know, like me paranormal investigators. So He represents, also like me, the intersection of science and the paranormal.
Brendan is the dream in one way, the author hitting it big, the Stephen King, the one that Hollywood imagines every time we see an author on the screen with the million dollar house. His life, however, collapsed with the death of his son from cancer (ironic as I never thought I’d be dealing with cancer as this book comes out) His is the emotional journey. He was one of the hardest characters to write in no small part because I wanted to get the emotions right.
I’ll start the snippet at the beginning, let you get to know Brendan a bit.
He peered out one rain-streaked window. The only thing in view were trees, mostly pines mixed with something covered in blooms, dogwood maybe. Zimmermann had chosen Brendan the perfect cabin. The green isolation he’d chased after surrounded him. The forest suffocated him, the sheer aloneness of it. Those second thoughts skyrocketed. Heather hadn’t wanted him to come. She didn’t trust him alone. Brendan knew his ex had reason to worry. Both of them were mired in grief, and three years hadn’t moved them past it.
Blurb:
Young wildlife conservation professor, Joshua Zimmerman, adores foxes, steampunk, and paranormal investigation. As a geek of the first order, Josh is a collector of nerdy memorabilia and tattoos, and he’s an avid steampunk cosplayer. When his favorite author hires him for some ghost hunting for his new project, Josh can hardly believe his luck.
As an author of the wildly successful urban fantasy series, The Green Tablet, Brendan Halloran should have it all. And he did until his young son, Connor, died of cancer. Heartbroken and drowning in grief, Brendan stops writing, stops living his life. His marriage has disintegrated, leaving Brendan trapped in the moment Connor died.
When Brendan rents a cabin in Ohio’s Hocking Hills, it’s ostensibly to research his next book, an adult paranormal tale. Brendan hires a local professor who is an expert on the paranormal, thinking if he does pull out of his tail spin and makes good on his plan to write a new book, he might as well do it right. And the perfect place to investigate could be the remains of an old hotel constructed to suit the serial killer who built it.
Brendan finds himself swept away, completely unprepared for the joy and enthusiasm Josh brings to everything he does. Step by step, Brendan reenters life. His head might not be convinced he’s ready to love again, but his heart disagrees. Unfortunately for him, the ghost is every bit as vicious as the killer was in life, and he and Joshua have a target on their backs.
If you’re wondering why I don’t have up the lovely cover art, there are a few last minute changes that are all on me and my own scattered thoughts in these last few months. Ninestar is being wonderful about the little changes.
Aik has fallen hopelessly in love with his best friend. But Raven’s a thief, which makes things… complicated. Oh, and Raven has just been kidnapped by a dragon.
Now Aik is off on a quest of his own, to hunt down the foul beast and make them give back his … friend? Lover? Soulmate? The whole not-knowing thing just makes everything harder.
Meanwhile, the world of Tharassas is falling apart, besieged by earthquakes, floods, and strange creatures no one has ever seen before. Aik’s ex, Silya has gone back to Gullton to do try to save her people as the Hencha Queen, and Aik’s stuck in a caravan with her mother and a damnable magical gauntlet that won’t let him be. He has to find Raven, before it’s too late.
Things were messy before, but now they’re much, much worse.
Series Blurb:
The Tharassas Cycle is a four book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.
Both the prequel and book one are on sale for just 99¢:
He has to be here. Aik searched frantically through Raven’s pack as the early morning sunlight slipped across the stone windowsill and across the floor, a long, green-tinged ray of light.
He was anxious to be on his way after Raven. His heart was pounding, his thoughts skipping like a spinning stone off hard waters. No one else was awake yet, as far as he could tell, and he wanted to be in and out of the room before anyone was the wiser. Aik glanced at the unmade bed and blushed at what they’d done there the night before. He could still feel Raven’s touch, their bodies entwined….
The sooner he set off, the sooner Aik could rescue him from those awful creatures. The verent must have coerced him; Raven had all but said so. If he could just find Spin, the little familiar could guide him.
He doesn’t love you.
“Shut up.” Knowing that Raven had chosen the verent over him still burned. And that he didn’t say ‘I love you.’ But surely, he wasn’t allowed to be angry about that in the face of what had happened.
His mind was spinning, looking for answers, scared for his love, returning to old, stupid wounds and weaknesses.
Why?
The question reverberated again and again, but not even Aik knew what he was asking. His panic stripped away reason and maturity, and left him dizzy and afraid.
He got to the bottom of the pack, finding nothing but clothing and some toiletries. Farking hell. Where are you?
He started opening some of the side pouches, checking through each one before tying it closed again. Maybe Raven had taken Spin with him?
“Searching for this?”
He spun around to find Tri’Aya leaning against the doorway, looking as fresh as if she’d just slept ten hours, though she couldn’t have gotten more than four at best. How does she do that?
She held Spin’s silver sphere between two fingers.
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Detective Hanni Nassar finds himself in enemy territory while investigating a string of robberies. After accidentally crossing the Central Empire’s borderline, he comes face to face with Jaemin Yi, a high-ranking Alpha of the Southern Empire’s Elite.
A cop and a gangster, both Hanni and Jaemin are suspicious of each other at first. Jaemin wants to know what Hanni’s doing on Southern turf, and Hanni wants to know if Jaemin’s notorious boss has any involvement with his case. Their initial meeting is tense, but soon Jaemin starts pursuing him for his own dissolute reasons.
Despite the clandestine rumblings through the streets of Luxor City, this isn’t about a case anymore.
Jaemin Yi is persistent. He thaws Hanni’s frigid airs and shows him there’s nothing wrong with caving to his more primal desires once in a while. As an Omega working in an Alpha-dominated field, Hanni has buried the Omegan side of himself, and Jaemin seems keen to draw it to the surface.
But where did his sudden interest come from? And will the lines crossed be too much for Hanni to handle or will adversarial passions heat up the borders between Empires?
Being an officer of the law in a gang-run town like Luxor City was an admitted contradiction. Hanni Nassar had accepted this fact as soon as he’d decided to join the force. The entire experience had been what some might call a bit of a rough ride, but he’d survived the salacious comments about his small Omegan build, his cute curls, and his lovely tan. He flew through basic training and even surpassed some of the Alphas on his final scores. It was an accomplishment very few Omegas could attest to.
Years later, he was still one of only two Omegas in his precinct. Exhausting as it was trying to prove day in and day out that as an Omega he could hold his own in even the most Alpha-dominated environments, Hanni stuck it out.
After the academy and basic training, he took an assignment at the Central Empire’s Southern Border Precinct and had been working there ever since. He was a Central Empire brat, born and raised, proud to serve his community. However, with every business on every street corner being owned or operated or protected by Luxor City’s old crime families, in reality, Hanni served the Central Empire first and the law second. His work and the work of every officer in the Central Empire was to protect the interests of the Empire and its Alpha leader, Dominik Wesa.
The job paid well, but Luxor City wasn’t an ideal place to fight crime. The list of actual laws the police could meaningfully enforce was short to say the least. Some laws were obvious, of course: break-ins, theft, vandalism, speeding…but even then, if you stopped the wrong car and a member of the Wesa Family stepped out, well, that was asking for trouble.
As the leader of the Central Empire, Dominik Wesa’s interests were typically aligned with those of the police force. He didn’t want drug dealers on his streets, neither did they. He didn’t want disorderly conduct running rampant, neither did they. He didn’t want thieves stealing from his businesses…and that’s where they’d run into serious issues lately.
Through hard work and perseverance, Hanni had moved up through the ranks and was now a detective for the Southern Border Precinct. His jurisdiction extended over a strip of the Central Empire that ran across the island, coast to coast, just north of the Southern Empire. There had been a spate of robberies in the area at a few of the bars in the Central Empire’s lower downtown. Over the course of two months, more than a hundred thousand dollars had been stolen. It was pennies to a man like Dominik Wesa, but as the Alpha of the Central Empire, he had been very firm in letting the police force know he was going to make sure his interests were protected one way or another.
“I don’t think I need to explain that the police force doesn’t have any sort of monopoly on violence in this Empire. So if we don’t want Dominik Wesa and his lot handling this, we’ve gotta get on it,” Hanni’s police chief, Noor, had said as she handed him a file. “Consider it a mercy if we can get these guys behind bars before they end up in a heavy, metal shipping container a few thousand leagues under the sea.” She had chuckled before patting him on the back and leaving him with the case.
At least Hanni could be tempered by the fact that he was never bored on the job. He sighed as he looked over the case file. Scrolling through the tablet, he saw the main suspect of the three hadn’t been quite good enough at asymmetries in his disguise to block his appearance from the AI security systems at the last place they hit up. Using footage from the heist, Hanni was easily able to uncover the suspect’s identity and track him to his place of work on the edge of the border.
Hanni spent a few tedious days at his desk staring at holo-screens, tracking the man’s comings and goings. The video surveillance footage followed the man from his work to his car to his home. Running a security algorithm showed Hanni that with only five percent deviation his suspect went to work then went straight home except on Thursdays. On Thursdays he went somewhere the cameras couldn’t track him before returning home much later that night.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough of a lead to give Hanni something to do other than sit at his desk staring at grainy security footage. And so that next Thursday, he took the logical step and followed the suspect from work to the unknown location.
Hanni waited until the end of the day and parked a few blocks from the factory where the suspect worked. The sky was overcast, pitch black, and the streetlamps barely lit the alleys Hanni was traveling through to keep out of his suspect’s sights.
Like every previous Thursday, the suspect left his work walking with a casual ease. Whistling to himself, unaware he was being followed, he made his way through Luxor City’s back alleys.
Hanni twisted and turned through the dark, tailing the man across the city for a good half hour. The suspect walked into a dead-end alley and his whistling stopped.
Hanni froze in the shadows. The alley was barely lit by the red glow of a set of bulbous neon lamps hanging outside a small import-export business at the far end. The crimson glow hardly brightened anything in the shadows between buildings.
Standing between the mouth of the alleyway and the dead end, the suspect glanced around quickly before opening a door and dipping into a ramshackle old building. A warehouse of some sort. It sat tucked away and probably was being used to house something illicit. Hanni planned to find out just what that something was.
A broken window, open just a crack, allowed him to see his suspect walking into a room where a few others had clearly been waiting for him. Their voices reverberated through the big empty space as they spoke, making it hard to distinguish their words. Hanni leaned into the window, trying his best to get close enough to hear.
“Took you long enough,” one man huffed.
“Some of us have to work,” his suspect replied.
A third man chuckled. “Huh, well, you’ll be able to quit that shitty day job of yours once all of this is done. I heard we’re going to hit up something bigger than Wesa’s little bars next month.”
“Oh yeah?”
Hanni frowned upon hearing those words. Next month they were changing tack? What could they be planning?
Sasha Hope is a lover of story, art and design based in Canada. As a writer and an artist, she enjoys having the opportunity to create new characters and build new worlds for readers to explore. Having studied linguistics and a myriad of languages from a young age, she is passionate about including characters of different backgrounds in her work. Whether the setting is fantasy or reality, she believes that a diverse cast with diverse languages and cultures is a wonderful thing.
Crafting stories that embrace MM romance and erotica is her modus operandi. When she is not creating new worlds she is travelling this one looking for inspiration or enjoying her career in the videogame industry.
Four definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell:
1) Coherent and intelligible
2) Transparent or pure
3) Attaining certainty about something
4) Easy to see or hear
Clarity features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.
Series Blurb:
Every year, Queer Sci Fi runs a one-word theme contest for 300 word flash fiction stories, and then we choose 120 of the best for our annual anthology.
Non-Exclusive Excerpt:
From the Foreword
It’s hard to tell a story in just 300 words, so it’s only fair that I limit this foreword to exactly 300 words, too. This year, 312 writers took the challenge, with stories across the queer spectrum. The contest rules are simple. Submit a complete, well-written Clarity-themed 300 word sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal or horror story with LGBTQ+ characters.
For our ninth year and eighth anthology, we chose the theme “Clarity.” The interpretations run from an “Aha!” moment to the bubbling laughter of water to a private, life-changing realization. There are little jokes, big surprises, and future prognostications that will make your head spin.
I’m proud that this collection includes many colors of the LGBTQ+ (or QUILTBAG, if you prefer) universe—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and asexual characters populate these pages—our most diverse contest yet. There’s a bit of romance, too—and a number of stories solidly on the “mainstream” side. Flash fiction is short, fun, and easy to read. You may not fall in love with every story—in fact, you probably won’t. But if you don’t like one, just move on to the next, and you’re sure to find some bite-sized morsels of flash fiction goodness. There are so many good stories in here—choose your own favorites.
We chose three winning stories, five judges’ choice picks, and one director’s pick, all marked in the text. Thanks to our judges—Angel Martinez, B.A. Brock, Ava Kelly, Lexi Ander, and J.M. Dabney—for selflessly giving their time, love, and energy to this project. And to Ryane Chatman too, for editing.
At Queer Sci Fi, we’re building a community of writers and readers who want a little rainbow in their speculative fiction. Join us and submit a story of your own next time!
Allan Dyen-Shapiro – Oysters and Other Slimy Creatures
Alma Nilsson – Meet Me at the South Gate
Amanda Meuwissen – Willows
Andrea Stanet – Bathtub Gin
Anne Smith – A Glimpse
Anton Kukal – Detonation
Antonia Aquilante – Through the Glass
Avery Vanderlyle – Taking the Plunge
Barbara Krasnoff – Age Cannot Wither Her
Beáta Fülöp – The Unicorn Handler
Belinda McBride – The Choice
Blaine D. Arden – No Crime Unseen
C.T. Phipps – The Chase Was Enough
Camryn Burke – Burden of the Blurred
Caro Soles – The Truth Sayer
Catherine Yeates – Outpouring
Chloe Schaefer – Matthias
Crysta Coburn – The Ghost Maid
D.M. Rasch – Crystal Clear
Daria Richter – Make Me Real
Darrell Z. Grizzle – The Vampire and the Werewolf Priest
David Viner – The Best Solution
Derwin Mak – Software Update
Devon Widmer – Post-Apocalyptic Goo
Drew Baker – The Only Question I Could Ask
E. W. Murks – Earth Day
Elizabeth Hawxhurst – Inflection Point
Emmy Eui – Sunset
Gina Storm Grant – Clearing the Heir
Ginger Streusel – Lovers’ Letters
Gordon Bonnet – Refraction
Isa Reneman – The Furthest Horizon
Isabel McKeough – The Art of Not Blowing Up
Isobel Granby – Sea-Glass
Izzy Tyack – Magically Induced Clarity
J Sigel – Hindsight
J.S. Gariety – Bloom
Jaime Munn – Impulse
James Dunham – Brain of Theseus
Jamie Lackey – The Cursed Princess
Jamie Sands – Remote Working Gothic
Jana Denardo – Unexpected
Jane Suen – Bowls of Steaming Noodles
Jason Sárközi-Forfinski – ACAB
Jaymie Wagner – Harmony
Jendayi Brooks-Flemister – Heartsbeats
Jennifer Haskin – Cold Conviction
Jess Nevins – Stagecoach Mary Versus the Ghost of Cascade
Joe DeRouen – The World Around Her
Jordan Ulibarri – Franklin
Josie Kirkwood – The Blue Capsule Experience
Julie Bozza – Verity
K.L. Noone – The Unicorn’s Knight
K.S. Murphy – Looped
Kaje Harper – Beneath the Surface
Kayleigh Skye – Blue
Kim Fielding – Shared Language
Kiya Nicoll – The Satyr and the Wishing Pond
Kora Knight – Sunrise
Kris Jacen – Visus
Krystle Matar – My Poppy Fields Are Burning
Lloyd A. Meeker – Ruti’s Prayer
Lori Alden Holuta – Magic Mirror
M. X. Kelly – Muddy the Waters
Marie Victoria Robertson – As Foretold
Mary Kuna – Late Bloomer
Megan Baffoe – Ribbon Thread
Megan Diedericks – The Closet is Made of Mahogany
Megan Hippler – The Gift
Mere Rain – With Clear Eyes
Minerva Cerridwen – Secundum Artem
Monique Cuillerier – Through This Window
Nathan Alling Long – The Shadow of Doubt
Nathaniel Taff – The Gauntlet
Nicole Dennis – Orange Dust
Oskar Leonard – Murcorpio
Patricia Loofbourrow – There’s Something Weird About Joe
Phoebe Ching – The Killer Cupid
R.L. Merrill – The Sitter
Rainie Zenith – Crystal Clear
Raven Oak – Wrinkled
Rdp – Alice!
RE Andeen – Male Female Nonbinary Other
RE Carr – A Woman’s Reward
Rie Sheridan Rose – The Night Witch
Rin Sparrow – Never Alone
RL Mosswood – A Trick of the Nerves
RoAnna Sylver – The Face in the Mirror
Rob Bliss – PSI Ecstasy
Rory Ni Coileain – One Night in Troy
Sacchi Green – The Star Beast
Sage HN – Impact
Scott Jenson – Cycles
Sheryl Hayes – A Smoking Hot Proposal
Shirley Meier – Upon Reflection
SI CLARKE – If the Shoe Fits
Siri Paulson – Blood and Water
Stacy Noe – Demons Need Love Too
Stephen B. Pearl – Sad Reality
Stephen Dedman – Through a Glass Clearly
Steve Fuson – Translucent
Steve Rasnic Tem – The Man in the Mirror
T.J. Reed – New Memories
Terry Poole – A Grey Man
Tori Thompson – A Visage of Home
V. Astor Solomon – Blood Will Show Us Who We Are
W. Dale Jordan – Ascension
Warren Rochelle – Ghosts
William R. Eakin – Overcoming Entropy
Yoyoli – If Deliberate Avoidance Fulfills No Dream
About QSF:
Queer Sci Fi is the brainchild of J. Scott Coatsworth, a blog and website that’s all about LGBT characters in science fiction, fantasy, paranormal and horror fiction. We’re dedicated to promoting the inclusion of LGBT characters in these genres.
We started the site in January of 2014, with the intent to create a community for writers and readers of LGBT-themed speculative fiction. We post regular discussion topics, news, book announcements and reviews. We have an AWESOME Facebook discussion group, and a great admin team – Angel Martinez, Ben Brock, Ryane Chatman, and J. Scott Coatsworth.
Once a year, we put out a call for flash fiction submissions based on a single word theme, and get anywhere between two hundred and four hundred entries. Clarity is our eighth annual anthology.
Jana Denardo 