Available October 18, New Free Short Stories from the Awesome Authors

My short story, The Falstaff Vampire Werewolves available FREE October 18 in the Awethology Light collection!

This group of stories is suitable for any age readers.

Here's a snippet from The Falstaff Vampire Werewolves:

We met the werewolf at the San Francisco International Airport as I stalked along behind Mrs. Battle and her latest Vampire Survival 101 class. There is no Vampire 201. The rules are simple, set in stone, and those who fail go from undead to true dead in a hurry.

When you disintegrate in open sunlight, your travel options are limited, but after dark the airport is a vast buffet of distracted humanity. When I became undead a few months earlier, I survived Mrs. Battle’s class. She lets me tag along when she takes the newbies to the airport.

The casual observer of our teacher would see an African American woman of middle years with a serious face and a medium dark complexion. Her stout form was clad in a dark-blue trench coat with a matching fedora anchoring her braids. She wore sensible tan shoes and carried a matching huge tan purse.

I followed the three new vampires who scurried along after Mrs. Battle through the airport terminal like a family of baby ducks. I was the most informal in my long wool sweater over a tee-shirt and jeans, running shoes, no hat. I’m short and wiry with curly dark hair shot with gray and green eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. Vampire vision means I don’t need the glasses but they make me look even more harmless. I dragged along a wheeled suitcase-style cat carrier. Brutus, my vampire cat, is a great conversation starter. After a little kitty talk and hypnotic eye contact on my part, we adjourn to a more secluded corner of the airport. Then I open the carrier. Brutus needs to feed too.

Some of the Awesome Awethors have darker visions and their stories are available in the

Awethology Dark volume--also FREE!

More information Sunday, Oct 18th!

42nd Six Sentence Sunday...You thought you could tell the dangerous ones

Kristin meets a mysterious huge old man in a shed. Common sense tells her to run, and yet...here are six sentences from The Falstaff Vampire Files.

You thought you could tell the dangerous ones, but you could make a fatal mistake. I knew a psychiatric nurse who guessed wrong--the patient had always been so quiet--right up until he nearly fractured her spine.

And yet when this man bowed in such a courtly way all my misgivings melted away and I took his outstretched hand, as he bent over my knuckles to kiss them in that European fashion that always causes consternation in American women. He stayed a safe arm's length away and I relaxed a little.

Despite his hair sticking up on all directions and his track suit pants with the stripe along the side that had clearly slept in, he smelled faintly of pine shavings, newly cut grass, and a faint, not unpleasant, overtone--a mushroom-like smell.

He began to cough again, at length, "Beg pardon--the dust--a quintessence of dust as the poet would have it."


All kinds of action in a wide variety of genres can be found by clicking the links to over 150 other writers' six sentence snippets at Six Sunday

Opps, for those who get automatic feed sorry for the duplicate with this not-so-small addition -Merry Christmas (next Sunday all the Six Sentencers will be taking the day off) and Happy New Year to all!

40th Six Sunday sentences - Kristin considers the impossible...

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, a skeptical Kristin Marlowe tries to consider what to make of the man who has just risen up at sunset out of a crate in the shed behind her ex-lover's house.

"Sir John--sorry—I didn’t catch your last name?" I had, I just didn’t believe it.

He examined me with eyes that were bloodshot but not yellowed by the jaundice of liver disease, sighed and seemed to come to some kind of decision.

"The Bard dubbed me Falstaff, and many know that name. But most in your fair city call me Sir John. I was born John and won my knighthood on the field of battle."

For more fun from Six Sentence Sunday writers in all kinds of genres, check out this week's snippets at Six Sunday.

39th Six Sentence Sunday, a Meeting in the Shed

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, Kristin Marlowe meets a strange man, emerging from what had seemed to be an empty crate in the shed beind her ex-lover's house. The huge, deep-voiced man has an unusually hypnotic effect on her. Rather than run, she stays to hear him say:

"Fair mistress, what name shall I call you?" The exotic flavor of the words and his deep rumbling voice somehow didn’t fit with a crate in a garage, yet he seemed perfectly at home.

"I'm Kristin," I managed to say, "and you are?"

He cleared his throat. "Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe. At your service, my lady."

For more fun in six-sentence snippets check out the dozens of writers at Six Sunday.

38th Six Sentence Sunday - an unlikely predator

Searching the shed behind Hal's house for a stolen item, Kristin finds herself confronting a man who suddenly rears up out of a crate she had thought empty. Large and rumpled with a white beard and drinker's red cheeks and nose, yet the man is eerily poised and confident,

No shaking from alcohol withdrawal as some drinkers have on arising. No, he was totally still, his eyes sharp and piercing as the eyes of a hawk, but with a most unhawk-like twinkle.

Turn and run, I thought, But I stood frozen, not so much terrified as stunned, like a small mammal suddenly confronted with a large snake.

"You can't be a dream. It's dusk and I'm awake," the man said.

For more than 150 snippets from a wide range of genres, check out the talented writers at Six Sunday

36th Six Sentence Sunday - The Coffin...Well, the Crate, Opens...

Back in September I posted some sentences from Chapter 1 of The Falstaff Vampire Files where psychologist, Kristin Marlowe, went to her cheating ex-lover's house to retrieve an irreplaceable item he stole. She was advised to stay out of the shed:

The shed in the back yard was the very last remotely possible hiding place. I went down the hall bathed in red light of the sunset. A few minutes later I was standing in the shed under the glare of the electric light bulb, watching the lid rise on a crate that should have been empty.

A pudgy hand, followed by a large, rounded arm appeared in the gap and pushed the lid up. The rest of the man followed it, raising the lid until it rested against the wall. He sat up, still coughing, as I watched, frozen in shock.

For more surprises and fun in six-sentence doses, check out the many other writers at Six Sentence Sunday

35th six sentence Sunday, sometimes it's hard to be a vampire hunter...

Back into the six sentence Sunday habit, from The Falstaff Vampire Files. Psychologist Kristin Marlowe meets a vampire hunter who has never met a real vampire:

I stopped halfway in the middle of sitting in Larry's cozy, burgundy-colored wing chair. "Did you say vampire cults?"

"Wait a minute," I said putting the name and the subject together. “Wasn’t there a Professor Van Helsing in Dracula?"

"That was fiction, but as a kid when I found Abraham Van Helsing in Dracula, I got interested in the culture," Bram said, settling back on the sofa. "Even if it were in my blood to hunt vampires there would be the small problem that really aren't any, so I have to make do."

Meanwhile over at at Six Sentence Sunday Central, upwards of 160 writers are massing for Halloween snippets Six Sunday

Dreams and nightmares

The Six Sentence Sunday site is taking a vacation weekend Sunday.

After 34 weeks, I've got the habit of posting something, so I thought I would share how dreams sometimes make their way into my books. We talked about this a little during the last Pearlsong Conversation. The entire call is available at Pearlsong Conversations

Sometimes a dream just offers a fragment or an attitude that I use the way a quilter would cut up and stitch in an interesting fabric to contribute to an overall pattern. I think they actually do serve a purpose but I don't always know what it is for quite a long time afterwards.

While I was writing Larger Than Death I had a dream that I pretty much put verbatim into the book. Josephine Fuller has just rescued Raoul, the cat, from his hiding place from her murdered friend's apartment, and both she and the cat are on edge.

From Larger Than Death:

I lay down for a moment on the day bed. Suddenly a mass of aches and pains surfaced that I hadn't felt until then. The cat put his paws up on the bed and gave a meow of inquiry. "Well, I'll forgive you for scratching me, if you'll forgive me for scaring you," I told him. He regarded me steadily for several seconds and then hopped up beside me. His coat was slightly matted. "I'll get a brush for you," I promised. He purred in answer and I slipped into a dream.

In the dream I was trying to take Elvis Presley to detox. I was helping him down the front steps of a mansion very much like Claude Rains' mansion in Rio from the last scene from Hitchcock's Notorious. Like Ingrid Bergman in the film he was too drugged to cooperate or resist. I kept encouraging him, "Come on, Elvis, we're going to the Betty Ford Clinic. You'll meet lots of other famous people and you'll feel much better." But it was hopeless. His handlers spirited him away as a crowd of screaming fans drove up.

I woke up. The shrieking was Groucho, the Macaw, demanding attention in the front room. The cat had deserted me. I heard him in the kitchen row-ow-owling at Maxine, probably begging food. Maxine said something. A man's voice replied. I got up and went to investigate.

I'm still not sure what it meant, but it made me smile and I couldn't resist using it. After seven years I think it expresses Josephine's wish to help and frustration at not being able to do anything.

Now about nightmares. I'm not going to quote from The Falstaff Vampire Files, but the really shuddery critters in that book came from a nightmare that scared the hell out of me.

Oddly enough fearsome things from my nightmares don't terrify me as much as my basic homegrown phobias. Those things scare me so much that I'll never use them in my stories. I also refuse to read about them when other writers use them. And no, I am not going to tell you what they are. But using material from my nightmares somehow takes away the reality factor enough that I can handle the material.

34th Six Sunday snippet - enter the vampire hunter

From The Falstaff Vampire Files. Therapist Kristin Marlowe is shocked to discover that the client she mainly thought of as having a vampire fixation has just got engaged to Kristin's own, younger lover, whom the client describes as a wannabe vampire. Kristin goes over to a fellow therapist's place to vent, but his door is opened by a most interesting stranger:

"I'm Abraham Van Helsing," he said over his shoulder, leading the way down the hall. "But please call me Bram. Abe just didn't suit me--Honest Abe Van Helsing sounds like an accordion-playing, used car salesman."

I laughed and felt a little better.

"Did Larry warn you about me? He can't have that that many friends who’re researching vampire cults."

For more fun in six sentence snippets check out the 160+ writers at Six Sunday, where the cover to The Falstaff Vampire Files still occupies part of the right hand frame--yay!

33rd Six Sentence Sunday...From The Falstaff Vampire Files - a little hope at the end of the day

From The Falstaff Vasmpire Files, therapist Kristin Marlowe's day goes off the rails when her client's vampire-obsessed fiance is revealed as Kristin's own younger lover. After this bombshell, she must listen to a married client whine for an hour about how he can't find "no strings attached" romantic love in the personals. Kristin walks over to a fellow therapist's house to vent and a stranger answers the door.

This man was not handsome, but commanding with unruly gray streaked dark hair cut short but starting to curl already. Startlingly black eyebrows framed penetrating green eyes with sparks of hazel. What really caught my attention was the mischievous quirk of his mouth as if he were just about to tell a great secret. I liked and trusted him instinctively without knowing why.

Of course, I’d been wrong before--witness my reaction to Hal. But something about this man drew a pang of attraction from me that was welcome in that it dulled the pain of Hal’s betrayal.

For six sentence snippets in many different genres, check out the talented writers at Six Sentence Sunday...you might happen to notice The Falstaff Vampire Files cover in the left-hand frame of that page--an appreciative "thanks and YAY!" to Sara Brookes for this opportunity!

32nd Six Sentence Sunday - When therapist and client have way too much in common

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, Kristin has discovered that her client's fiancé is her own lover.

I wouldn’t say anything till I confirmed it with Hal, but my gut told me Mina’s fiancé was my Hal. She had shyly showed me the exotic, blue diamond engagement ring Hal had found for her in some Eastern European capital and as I leaned forward to look, I noted that I had been touching the antique amethyst necklace Hal had brought back for me from his last trip. I dropped my hand as if the stones had turned red-hot. Dammit, Hal!

Now my hands were shaking and I wondered if I could make it through the next hour, the next client, who of course chose that day to be a quarter hour early.

Luther Kemper was the absolute worst client to follow Mina's announcement.

To find all kinds of action in six-sentence doses click the links to other writers' six sentence snippets at Six Sunday.

31st Six Sentence Sunday...when therapy goes terribly wrong...

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, therapist Kristin's client, Mina, explains that she's just got engaged to a man who wants to become a vampire, though she doesn't understand why:

"I'm not sure if he wants power, or if he just wants to be immortal--he's an older man--he's thirty-five."

I sat back just a little, partly to keep from smiling, remembering my own twenties when thirty-five had seemed impossibly old to me, while now, in my late forties, it seems impossibly young. Scratch that, I happened to be dating--well, sleeping with--a thirty-five-year-old man, so I couldn’t call it impossibly young.

"His name is Henry Roy," Mina said, happy to say his name.

It became very hard to breathe in my office at that moment because Henry Roy was the name of my own thirty-five-year-old lover, though everyone called him Hal.

"Everyone calls him Hal," Mina said.

For more fun in six-sentence doses check out Six Sentence Sunday where at last count 186 writers are sharing snippets in a wide array of genres.

30th week of six sentence Sunday - Vampires & Therapy

The Bookbuzzr widget provides a sample of the first chapter of The Falstaff Vampire Files, including an encounter with the Thing in the Shed. So I'm using today's 6 sentences to introduce therapist Kristin's relationship with her client, Mina:

For several months my client, Wilhelmina--Mina--has come in twice a week to talk about her fears of being stalked by vampires who wanted to make her undead. I don't believe in vampires, but something was scaring the hell out of Mina and her terror came along with her into my consulting room with a presence strong enough to make my own throat tense up. So I wasn’t prepared when Mina started off the session with a shy smile and announced, “I’m engaged!”

I smiled back and almost said, "Congratulations," but stopped myself and retreated into my therapist role and said, "Tell me about it."

She lowered her voice, "He wants to become one of them."

To sample a generous assortment of six sentence snippets from authors in a wide range of genres, check out Six Sunday

29th Six Sentence Sunday, how badly does she want her stolen property back?

Kris Marlowe ventures further into the creepy old house in The Falstaff Vampire Files.

"The corridor on the left leads to the back door," Hal had told me on my first visit. "I keep my coffin in a shed out there--did I tell you I was a vampire?"

Strange how I forgot those words until I stood on the red stone floor again and started up the chilly staircase, also red stone.

A scrabbling sound nearby made me freeze in my tracks. I stopped to listen. The house seemed to shudder like a ship in the wind.

More six sentence snippets from over 160 writers writing in all kinds of genres at http://sixsunday.com/

28th Six Sentence Sunday, a dangerous seach

Further into forbidden territory in The Falstaff Vampire Files

I knew I could be arrested and lose my license if the old lady called Hal or the cops. But I needed to get my property back and I was still enraged that Hal had taken it. I walked into the darkened foyer. It was paved in dark red stone. It was late afternoon but very little daylight filtered in and the lights mounted on the wall glowed already in their twisted copper fittings. The veins in the alabaster seemed to pulse like reptilian eggs.

For more fun snippets check out the talented writers in many genres sharing six sentence glimpses into their work at Six Sunday

27th Week of Six Sentence Sunday ushers in The Falstaff Vampire Files

The Falstaff Vampire Files arrived earlier than its scheduled September publication date. I'm celebrating by selecting six sentences to share from Chapter 1:

My name is Kristin Marlow and I'm supposed to be sane for a living, but my ex-lover stole the one irreplaceable item I own, and god help me I broke into his creepy old house by the ocean to get it back. As a psychologist I know a dozen techniques to calm down and think rationally, but I was too angry to use any of them.

Technically I didn't break in. I had Hal's key, but before I could use it, the front door flew open and the old woman caretaker came bustling out like a wool-clad force of nature. I caught the door and edged past her, mumbling something about getting my stuff.

She stopped right in front of me and warned me in a hostile tone, "Don't go in the shed."

For more fiction action in six-sentence doses, check out sixsunday.com where well over a hundred writers share their work.