The Snowman Three Doors Down is now available from Black Scat Books! It has 24 stories! It’s 246 pages! Hapless characters slog through tangled plots and formal constraints in this bracing collection. Will the Chromatologist find the shade of green that identifies the adulterous cosplayer? Will a group of tipsy scholars discover the secret to […]

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Black Scat Books has released a free Peek-A-Book of “An Interview with Horace Ballantine,” from my upcoming collection The Snowman Three Doors Down. The veteran cartoonist has to contend with an interviewer who never heard of comic strips, and it’s not easy for either of them. You can download your PDF here.

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Here’s another story from my upcoming collection, The Snowman Three Doors Down. In “Gumball Gaffigan,” our protagonist goes to great lengths to procure and promote his favorite food. At a crossroads, he meets his old friends Gerhardt Goldicote, Gabby Gilfeather, and Hilarion Hachementier, all on quests of their own. Many things could go wrong. Here’s […]

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We have here another excerpt from my upcoming collection, The Snowman Three Doors Down. In “Herbert’s New Profession,” our protagonist chooses a rather unlikely job to earn some extra money. Here’s how it begins… HERBERT’S NEW PROFESSION My name is Herbert Shrike. I’m 75 years young now, as of my last birthday. I’ll be 76 […]

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The February issue of Le Scat Noir awaits you! This one contains the latest page of my musical instrument drawings, my story “The Snowman Three Doors Down,” and many other delights by other people! You can find it here.

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My upcoming collection, The Snowman Three Doors Down, also includes a few tales in verse. I should add that I write in strict verse forms simply because I like formal constraints. Here’s the beginning of “Pan and Kettle,” originally written for a nonsense issue of The Black Scat Review. PAN AND KETTLE Beneath an oak […]

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Here, as an appetizer, is the beginning of “The Royal Touch,” from my upcoming collection The Snowman Three Doors Down. Our story hinges on a dilemma: which is better, leprosy or scrofula? THE ROYAL TOUCH King Theobald hobbled to the throne, and, setting aside his crutch, sank slowly onto the cushions. Stroking his beard with his […]

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To whet your appetite, here’s the beginning of the title story from my upcoming collection, The Snowman Three Doors Down. It entwines several subplots, and is the only story I’ve written that uses prosopagnosia as a comic device. THE SNOWMAN THREE DOORS DOWN “What’s that picture doing here?” Brick asked, indicating a photo on the […]

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For The Black Scat Encyclopaedia (see previous post), I contributed several entries on poetics. Here’s one of them: IAMBIC CENTAMETER: A line of a hundred iambic feet: Beloved, when I saw you standing there beside that picturesque gazebo by the crumbling garden wall, as bluebirds gaily sang their hearts out high atop the willow tree […]

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Le Scat Noir Encyclopædia offers “All human knowledge in a single volume.” It contains entries from Acrostic to Zwine, and features contributors from around the world—some of whom are distinguished professors at prestigious universities. Others are Nobel Prize winners, while a few have been arrested on felony charges. Discover rare factoids, flash fiction, nubile moon […]

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