Daily Bites of Flesh - In Print!

At last, Pill Hill Press' horror anthology Daily Bites of Flesh is in print. You get a tasty bite of flash fiction horror for every day of the year - what could be better than that?

Two of my pieces - Spangles and Pustula Peculiar appear in 'June'. You can read excerpts below.

I've had a sneaky peek at some of the other stories in the collection - and ooh - are you in for some delicious treats from some excellent writers.

You can buy Daily Bites of Flesh direct from the Pill Hill shop for $22.49. Or if you can bear to wait, it will soon be available on Amazon (UK and US) and at Barnes & Noble.

Many thanks to Jessy Marie Roberts for her astonishing work in compiling and editing this anthology.

Excerpts:

Spangles

They found sequins in my knickers. The silver disks filled my crevices, finding their way into folds of flesh where they cut and sliced me raw. The question the cops asked themselves – did a killer place them there, or did I?

Hudson swore as his boss gave him the best job of all; standing between my legs to catch the corpse as they cut me down. The wind was ferocious. My body swung in circles from a creaking oak, a pendulum. Hudson danced like a girl, trying to avoid the spillages splattered over the forest floor beneath me. Evacuation - the elegance of death.

Pustula Peculiar

Ginger limped sideways to reach for another bottle. Taking a swig he gazed at the dancing dead.

“More,” the woman called from her shackles. “I need more”.

She widened her mouth to accept the Absinthe. The excess ran in rivulets down her neck raising the skin in blistering welts. Labella took the full mouthful into her throat in a single, rasping gulp.

The men looked on. No more smiles, just pant-pissing terror as the drumming began to slow.

“Quickly,” they begged. “Do it now.”

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David Sylvian - Exquise

How disturbingly beautiful is this? The title track taken from David Sylvian's new compilation "Sleepwalkers"


David Sylvian "Sleepwalkers" from Samadhisound on Vimeo.

Photography by Kristamas Klousch.


Go to David Sylvian's website for more info...
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Lily's Friday Prediction

This Friday's three words are short and sweet. With every week bursting afresh with such talented writes I'm wondering what delicious delights you can make with these.

Firstly, congratulations to Antonia Woodville for winning last week's Prediction and well done to AidanF as runner-up. Excellent. Thanks to everyone who entered and commented.

Today's words are:

• Peacock
• Lime
• Skinny

Make of those what you will.

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have all week until 9pm UK time Thursday 02 December to enter.

Winner will be announced next Thursday or Friday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

I've got something in the pot already. What ya got bubblin' in yours?

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Prediction Winner

And we have a winner.

But first let's summarise last week's very ecletic entries - which surprised me by their distinct lack of mention of bodily functions. Or maybe that's just my toilet-humoured mind.

Great entries, all. And suberly supportive comments too which I know we all appreciate.

• Bill Owens graced us with diametrically-opposed twins. A heart-breaking tale of tragic first love versus mystical power and dark favours.
• Susan May delivered a satisfying and happy ending to her love story Back In The Saddle.
• Chris Allinotte's manly characters Milton and Blackwood vied for their own series in the very noir Shortcut.
• Michael Solender's confession by kissing cousins was short - and not sweet, except for them.
• My 'Scratching The Itch' had jealous horsey types fighting over a tosser. Girls - he wasn't worth it.
• Asuqi raged through Solomon Kane-style medieval scenery. Revenge through suicide.
• William Davoll evoked a tumbleweed of ghostly despair in his Wild and tragic West - Cousins of the Saddle.
• AidanF blasted our senses with a violent funerary card of colour in his apocalyptic offering.
• Antonia Woodville slapped indifferent horror onto the family palette, all the more terrifying for it.
• David Barber repulsed and disgusted us with his rotten Mud Bath; he obviously attends the same beauticians as me.
• AJ Humpage squeezed in with Abner, an horrific reminder of war and the deceit between families - for survival's sake.
• Pixie J. King's Assault and Attack had us shivering with beautiful description and cold revenge.

Because I loved its coldheartedness so much, this week's winner is Antonia Woodville with her visceral pony ride, chased very closely up the backside by AidanF's astonishing attack. Well done both.

Thanks to all entrants - come back tomorrow/next week and bring your friends!

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I humbly accept...

In a drawer there are
pink-ribboned slippers,
full of meat.
I stole the pretty shoes
from a libidinous girl
I found larding
on chocolate at the
back of a theatre in a
bulimic frenzy.

Woke up to some lovely emails of congrats for winning New Flesh's short story competition - on the theme of  "...And that's why I keep my eye in a pickle jar."

I'm well chuffed that so many people voted for my little number Dressing Up Box. So thank you all very much.

Dressing Up Box is a nasty old tale but the main character believes him or herself (depends what s/he's wearing) to be a thing of beauty. You can read it in full here.

My prize for winning is paperback copies of the TOE TAGS 2: BLOOD & BIZARRO anthology, DOOM MAGNETIC! by William Pauley III and STATE OF THE DARK by Brian Barnett. I'm looking forward to receiving them and will post up reviews. I'm also reliably informed that Lee Hughes has a story in Toe Tags so if that's not a bonus, I don't know what is.

The New Flesh is a fabulous site dedicated to the weird, the bizarre and the horrific. Check it out. Subscribe to it to receive regular doses of distracting delights in your Inbox.

Lily's Friday Prediction

The temperature has plummeted in the south of England, the daughter is sleepwalking and the cat is flailing around as though possessed. None of which bodes well.

Many congratulations to the winner of last week's Friday Prediction, Aidan Fritz with his beautiful yet cold myth of Scandinavian heartbreak. Also to Ally Humpage as runner-up with Uriel's Punishment.

My fingers are trembling over the book as I choose this week's words. They are:

• Saddle
• Cousin
• Stagnant (I'll accept stagnate, verb)

Okayyyyy. These have a different feel to the last couple of weeks. Alons-y; let's see what y'all can do.

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have all week until 9pm UK time Thursday 25 November to enter.

Winner will be announced next Thursday or Friday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

Brrrr. Warm me up someone with your words...
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Prediction Winner

I truly, madly, deeply don't know where to start. Were we (nearly) all on the same wavelength this week or what?

• The heat and smoke of Michael Solender's self-made hell in Fate's Cruel Deliverance stifled our desperate senses.
• Uriel's Journal, Day 2 by Chris Allinotte sees the Archangel trapped - in solitude and punishment, surrounded by freedom.
• David Barber's Two Blokes should be on stage. Brilliant play on words and an almost deliberate beligerence. Who's playing with who (or should that be whom?)
• AJ Humpage chilled us to the very bone with her extraordinary detail and vivid conclusion, in Uriel's Punishment.
• The terrifying and destructive Cult Kestrel crept silently in the background of Pixie J. King's fairy tale Message From Uriel.
• AidanF's Scandinavian myth tore cold scars through this heart, as it broke with the kestrel's distress.
• Dangerous bondage fluttered yet stiffened as Uriel prepared his lover in R.S. Bohn's peep show.
• The chilling Final Prophecy by William Davoll introduced us to cult-murderer Alan, killing in the name of...
• My own entry What You Wish For played a game between good and evil, suggesting what you pray for won't necessarily be what you get.
• We drift in and out of consciousness with Bill Owens' disturbing telling of a dark and twisted magic, and the death of a bride.
• Sean Patrick Reardon flies in with kestrel's wings and gives us something completely different with Wholesale; modern day thiefs and priests, potentially interchangeable.
• In Sue H's The Sentinel Uriel is the ultimate guardian angel, throbbing with the golden light of protection.

Because of its cold, stark and truly heart-breaking quality I am choosing AidanF as this week's winner. I genuinely felt pain as I read this, despite its white and wild beauty. Congratulations Aidan.

AJ Humpage's stunning use of description in Uriel's Punishment means she receives the runner-up's virtual silver statue. Well done Ally.

Not long until UK midnight. Reckon 19th November's Challenge will be an early one...
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Shameless

The 'Eye in a Pickle Jar' themed  comp at the darkly bizarro The New Flesh is closed for entries - BUT IS NOW OPEN FOR VOTING.

In a blatant and shameless whoring session I am asking you to skim through the excellent and varied entries - and vote for ME your favourite at http://newfleshmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/11/vote-for-your-favorite-eye-in-pickle.html.

Many of you were kind enough to read my entry Dressing Up Box already, but if you want to read it again - or you missed it - there's a teaser below and you can read the full piece here.

Opening Excerpt from Dressing Up Box by Lily Childs:

Swivel.

Awkward, I turn to pick at the flesh adorning my wardrobes, and sigh. The dance has left me ragged; exhausted from the relentless flamenco. Elegant feet I had chosen especially, bleed in stinging shreds. I have worn them to calluses. Yeast stinks between the slender toes.

A fine week’s work.

Ruining beautiful things is part of the pleasure.

Yesterday’s body was squat and dark, an aged gypsy. I slough off the old man’s skin, marvelling at the bruises incurred from seven solid days of stamping and click, click, clicking of heels. Yellowed stains litter the shins and I poke them hard, revelling in the pain before grasping the blackened feet that I pull off like old shoes; the toes broken and seeping with infection.

Spin.

Today I am a ballerina, wanting the fairy tale. In a drawer there are pink-ribboned slippers, full of meat.

Read the full story...

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Lily's Friday Prediction

Oh for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a plate of Eggs Benedict for breakfast, but instead - with a stewed cuppa char and dry cereal too close to its sell-by date, I give you ... Lily's Friday Prediction.

Congrats to Sue Harding for winning last week's Friday Flash Prediction challenge with her moving poem In Memorium, and also to runner-up Erin Cole for her fast and passionate Love and Hate, and Somewhere In Between.

I'm liking this week's words - a lot. It still amazes me that in a huge encyclopaedic dictionary of 80,000 words my finger falls on such good ones. So:

• Kestrel
• Bed-chamber
• Uriel [the Archangel]

The list contains no verbs/adjectives/adverbs this week. Interesting - freeing, or limiting? We shall see.

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have all week until 9pm UK time Thursday 18 November to enter.

Winner will be announced next Friday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

Is it possible to outdo last week's fine delectations...?

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Prediction Winner

As I read each one of last week's Friday Prediction entries I was struck, as always by how much talent there is out there, and knew I was in for a hard time again in judging.

Your comments are all really valuable and are appreciated by everyone. So please - don't stop!

Let's summarise the offerings:

• R. S. Bohn kicked off with a gorgeous, earthy bit of slap and tickle tinged with regret.
• Chris Allinotte smooched onto the stage and drummed up some ghosts of music past with Midnight at the Bluenote Lounge.
• Bill Owens' neighbour wrote a diabolical note that sent out a terrifying message
• Sue H's chilling poem In Memorium screamed of the waste of war, and the pride we should feel in our dead.
• David Barber cleverly tricked us into believing his character was a poor, forgetful old boy in A Dark Past.
• Erin Cole's brutal fight of passion and anger spat out the hopelessness in so many love affairs, in Love and Hate, and Somewhere In Between
• My Waste Away found an ignored and neglected woman taking her final breath of revenge
• Antonia Woodville doubled up, causing us to applaud when Ted has enough of the gossiping, nagging Flora and then shudder as grave robbers unearth their decaying treasure
• AidanF whisked us away to a magical land of warted and clawed battling gremlins
• AJ Humpage sang a sad song of sweet regret as rain poured down on an addict's escape into oblivion, in One Last Look
• Pixie J. King's narrator in Broken Dreams turned her back on the boss and lived the dream. One day...

Honestly, this was so difficult; I loved each one for different reasons, but the winner is Sue Harding's poem In Memorium because its subject is so tragic, so poignant, so timely. It touches us all. In Memorium is beautifully written - and reads so well out loud too. Congratulations Sue.

I also have to give a runner-up statue (big silver thing) this week, to Erin Cole, because Love and Hate, and Somewhere In Between truly left me breathless.

Well done everyone. The Prediction will be back with three new words for breakfast in the UK, maybe a late supper (?) on the other side of the Atlantic.

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Their Dark Masters Release Date

The final release date of Their Dark Masters vampire anthology  has been announced by Red Skies Press editor Mark Anthony Crittenden.

1st January 2011

Featuring dark and dangerous tales from Lee Hughes, Brian K. Ladd, Erik Boman, Paul Anderson, Erin Cole, Gregory Miller, Marissa Farrar, Henry Brasater, Tyree Campbell, Rebecca L. Brown, Barry J. Northern, ed. Mark Crittenden - and some old writer named Lily Childs.

More details coming soon so that you can put it on your Amazon Wish List. In the meantime, here's the gorgeous full cover:

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Femme by Lily Childs

I have no excuses, no apologies and certainly no explanation. My story Femme is up at the marvellous Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers.

It's nasty. It's painful, and sorry - but it's bloody horrible.

If you are of a delicate disposition, then I'm not really sure what you're doing here, but don't - especially if you're a bloke, whatever you do - read the story.

Dare you...

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Lily's Friday Prediction

Eastbourne Bonfire Seafront 2010

Well done to Pixie J. King for winning last week's Friday Prediction with her tragic story One Man's Debt. This young woman has a very distinctive voice we need to listen out for.

***

So it's Bonfire Night. Fireworks a plenty. Smokin' fire and all that. In the South of England we have an ancient and rebellious adoration of Mr Fawkes - the ancient town of Lewes in East Sussex being the protector - and deliverer - of the best and most dangerous of English bonfire tradition.

However - no bonfire here. Today - and the entire week's flash fiction challenge - touches on different matters. Your three words (and you may use them in various tenses) are:

• Admonish
• Percussion
• Belong

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have all week to enter. 

Winner will be announced next Friday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

Come on, tease us with your talent...

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Prediction Winner

Goat's Eye - John Brody Photography

You lot have given me a hard job this week, especially with the last minute entries. The already-outstanding quality gets better week by week, so much so that it's a real privilege to 'host' your entries, even more to judge them. Should I win the lottery or get a 7-figure book deal (yeah, right) then I'll start giving out prizes.

In the meantime I, like all of us appreciate how everyone contributes their own thoughts on the entries. For me, that is reward enough.

So, comments already provided on last week's Prediction challenge, here is the summary:

• Chris Allinotte tricked us with fairy tales and sharp-toothed nymphs
• David Barber offered a dodgy box of chocs and slaughter with The Sacrifice
• Aidan F's ethereal jungle wedding (or not) spangled with supernatural tingles
• Antonia Woodville cleverly exposed the self-absorbed cynic vs. the philanthropist
• My 'Oracle' saw Roman/Celtic lovers go their separate spiritual ways - for the moment
• Bill Owens' FREE FILM FEST FRIDAY! could compete with Dave Barber's Two Blokes. Hilarious tale of a genuine but lazy love of film.
• Pixie J. King's One Man's Debt poured with poignant tragedy; leaving home - against all odds.
• Sue Harding's Not-So-Dumb Animal perfected the attitude of the goat as he chewed away at her beloved books. Until...
• AJ Humpage evoked ancient sacrificial days of golden Mayan desperation with empathy and understanding, with Shadows of Kukulcan.

I loved the variety this week - and was stunned no-one did the the scapegoat aspect or the old Devil worship goat thing (I've got one of those coming up soon - no pressure Lee - at Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers, even though I don't believe in Mr D.) Fabulous entertainment and all so well written and constructed.

This week's winner is Pixie J. King's One Man's Debt. Her words chilled me to the bone. I felt drenched by her piercing rain; desperately sad for the man leaving everything he loved behind. At sixteen years old, Pixie's writing continues to astound, and improves day by day. Can't wait to read more. Well done Pix.

Bonfire Night's Prediction coming shortly - with not a banger in sight...

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Deafening Hush - brief poetry

This was my entry to October's One Word (poetry) Challenge over at Writers' News and Writing magazine's online Forum Talkback. For non-Brits, WH Smith is a huge Stationers with branches in more or less every town in England.

The theme of the challenge was 'Silence.'

DEAFENING HUSH

I’m standing still in WH Smith.

All is numb.
All is quiet.
Staff chatter, making Os and Es
with empty mouths.
Eyes wide open
I stare around,
newspaper in hand –
my shuddering hand.
Crowds mill
hustling, bustling, shuffling
past me.
I’m in their way.
I don’t feel their elbows,
don’t see their looks,
can’t hear their tutts,
their complaints.
The world’s fallen silent.
All I can do
is stare at your face.
The front page.
You’re on the front page.
And I know
that you know
where I live.

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