Digital Fiction |
A Twine game/hypertext adventure created for the You and CO2 project supported by Welsh Crucible. Its aim is to create a compelling entertainment narrative that also encourages teenagers to take action regarding climate change.
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The Fracture of 2018 ended the United States as we know it. The fear, the violence, the bombs...where did it all orginate? And can the box of destruction be closed once it's been laid open?
A short story in hypertext form, created as the second in a series of experiments into commercial publishing options for hyperfiction.
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Images of you: with a stranger. Images of you: dead and broken. Images of you: in the future. Are they a trick? Are they prophecy? What will you do?
A short story in hypertext form, created as the first in a series of experiments into commercial publishing options for hyperfiction.
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A fantasy tale told through Flash, interactive fiction, blog, and hyperfiction.
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A prototype multimodal fantasy story. Chapter 1 coming soon.
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Novels |
La Llorona Gringa
Someone is after Charlotte, a bruja eager to steal the unborn child Charlotte isn't even sure she wants. All the gods in the New Mexico pantheon may not have enough power to help Charlotte save her baby and her sanity...In Progress
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The Pathfinder
Gloria loses Earth in the culmination of the worst day of her life. She enters a new world full of parallel Earths, magic, and a shadowy man who wants her to save all that he knows...Sample Chapters
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Chasing Dust Devils
Jake Fuller has never doubted his place in life, where he’s headed or how to get there – mostly because his granddaddy would whip off the snappy belt any time Jake got out of line. Left alone, he’d have graduated life with a perfect attendance bumper sticker and a citizenship plaque from the local Chamber of Commerce.
But from the first day his step-cousin Chrissy saves him from a boy-hungry goose to the day he cleans out the remains of her life, she pulls him off the rutted rural route of good intentions. Obsessed and in love with her until the end of her life, Jake endeavors to save Chrissy from her destructive lifestyle – slowly realizing she is only taking him down with her...Sample Chapters
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Current Project
Download a preview of this hyperbook as a mobi (for Kindle) or epub (for other ereaders).
Seven Sisters Unmet (working title), is an experiment with the digital affordances of the e-book. Dedicated eReader devices (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.) seek to reproduce the print book experience as much as possible, from simulated page turns to e-Ink, eschewing many "new media" options such as multimedia and hyperlinks, apart from contents pages and links for further purchase — with one exception. Endnotes are, by necessity, hyperlinked; as there are no clearly delineated physical pages, the technology of dedicated eReaders and the formatting of their digital files requires endnotes to be linked in a loop, from text to note and back again. In a technology that seeks to remain as close to the physical medium as possible, this small concession to the digital medium opens up the traditional book to digital experimentation. Likewise, the minimally experimental step of simply adding optional hyperlinks to an otherwise straightforward novel (although it is somewhat postmodern, it is still intended to be of mainstream readability, a la Cloud Atlas), published through what is now mainstream means, permits examination of reader response to this one targeted aspect of digital experimentation with the novel. By writing a novel incorporating internal hyperlinks that exploit this functionality, and publishing it as both e-book and print-on-demand book, I am exploring numerous aspects of writing and publishing in the 21st century, including:
- How does the writer approach a novel that may be read with varying chronologies, structures, and orders?
- What type of novel emerges from the intent to include hyperlinks in an otherwise traditional reading experience?
- What response will readers have to a "hypernovel" appearing in the familiar medium of print-mimicry?
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Short Fiction |
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I sent out a throwaway tweet one day about publishing a short fiction anthology based on a weird-ass picture. My followers urged me to actually do it, and my good friend and colleague DeAnn Bell said she would help. A year and a bit later, we published it! Buy it in paperback and ebook on any Amazon site.
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I don’t know why I’ve never opened the suitcase. I used to fantasize about it when I was a kid. That I would open it and it would be full of books. Nothing but books. Especially once I’d read everything in the colony at least twice. Something new would have felt like the richest find in the world. The locks aren’t heavy-duty; I’ve broken tougher ones on scrounging runs, no problem. But here’s the thing: this isn’t just some hunk of junk I found while sifting through the remains of a burned out car. This was mine, and it was my dad’s before me, and I didn’t want to destroy something that was wholly mine, wholly his, something that wasn’t communal, something that no one would ever see the worth in fixing afterward...More
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Two short lengths of PVC pipe form a cross, their junction secured with duct tape. The top of the makeshift crucifix holds a fat pink candle, dripping halted wax. Two words and a date are carefully inscribed in permanent ink on the crossbar: "Sweet Jenny 8/8/2008." The cross's faded garland of silk flowers rustles irritably in the wake of a passing truck. A film of desert sand sifts over their aging petals.
A hundred yards down the road, the truck pulls into the parking lot of the Last Stop Bar & Grill...More
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The bathtub is beautiful. Stunning. Majestic. Strong. Its talons span the cracking floor, casting an invisible net that keeps the ancient tiles from falling to the lower flat. The porcelain, chipped and abused though it is, carries her weight in its belly, her water-lightened body floating in the cooled pool...More
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I often have a moment upon waking where the line between dreams and reality blurs. I dream I'm a fashion model; an idiot one who falls gracelessly from the catwalk, and when I wake it's to find my body half off the bed, nose-deep in carpet.
I thought this was yet another manifestation of my waking dreams. I woke up, and I looked down, and there it was. Tiny, really, about the size of an eraser-head. A hole in the middle of my abdomen...More
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She flitted among the trees like a dragonfly. Her dress glittered, alternately sheer and opaque in the piebald light rippling over the forest floor. She laughed, and he heard bells.
He didn't stop to wonder what she would be doing in delicate skirts in the middle of Newborough Forest. He should stop, of course. His father's voice vibrated in his head, a lifetime of pious warnings jumbling around his skull. But he followed her anyway. He was eager to see her clearly, the freckles on her nose, whether her teeth were crooked, whether her eyes were blue or green...More
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I wish Ieuan would talk to me.
Not specific enough. I can't do anything with that, really. My luck, I'd put all that effort into getting old Ieuan to talk to her, and he'd blather about football. I'd never get a penny from the git again.
I wish Mummy wouldn't die ever.
Bit ambitious, that one. I might be capable of living forever down here, but I'm no god (Thank the Fates! Gods have crushing workloads.). And I can't share my immortality. Next.
I wish for her to say yes.
Ugh. A marriage proposal. How droll. Wrong number, mate. Cupid's exchange is 588...More
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He entered the bar, the neon beer signs dripping fake rainbows over his granite face, turning the gray in his short, curly hair into dimly lit strands of rose, turquoise, and lemon. He settled his large dusty frame onto a barstool covered with cracked and leaking vinyl. He nodded to the bartender, and she poured his Wild Turkey, leaving the bottle on the bar. Her mixed blood shone through her high black eyebrows, supple dark skin, and high flat cheekbones. As always he wanted to ask her who broke her nose so long ago, who couldn't leave that beautiful exotic face in perfection. But he didn't ask...More
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