Stoked that my noir story, "The Wages of Sin," is up at Mystery Tribune's Daily Fiction. It was originally inspired by the Ramones' song "I Believe in Miracles" -- "Tattooed her name on my arm / I always said my girl's a good luck charm" -- and rolled around in my head for a couple of years before I could get it to work. Thinking of a priest with a gambling problem and a tattoo of the Virgin Mary. My working title was "A Hail Mary Pass."

Futures That Never Were is a sword-and-planet anthology -- think Conan the Barbarian meets aliens. The editors of  Broadswords and Blasters, a "pulp magazine with modern sensibilities," put it out. Sounds fun, right? I thought so, too! And "Get in Line," about a Earthen hunter rescuing her recent alien ex to avert intergalactic war, was a hoot to write. I'm delighted to have it included.

So happy that my story "Plums" has won second place in the Savage Mystery Contest at Toasted Cheese! The contest runs over a single weekend, and the challenge is to write a story using the prompts and word count -- in this case, a mystery of 2,400-2,600 words, featuring an antique dollhouse -- in 48 hours. As soon as I saw the prompt, I knew how my story would end, and then I just had to get there. Writing it was a whirlwind!

I wrote "The Bodyguard" in two days at the beginning of January, sent it off to Guilty Crime Story Magazine on day 3, and got an acceptance the very next day. What a great start to the year! My stories are like children -- they're all my favorites -- but this one, about love and revenge in the Irish mob, is a special favorite.

My first piece of flash fiction has a home at Lucent Dreaming! A murderous pigeon in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And you can read an interview with me about it here.