"How Far to Englishman's Bay"

My story "How Far to Englishman's Bay" is now available at Nightmare Magazine for reading, or you could listen to it read by Paul Boehmer on the podcast. There's also an interview with me by Erika Holt about the story, though if you don't like to know any plot elements before reading, you should save the interview for after you've finished the story, because I blithely give away a few surprises.

I thought the above image, based partially on one from a 1909 Harper's Weekly story called "The Queer Folk of the Maine Coast" (which would be a perfect subtitle for "How Far to Englishman's Bay") more or less fit the story, so I put it together during a moment when procrastinating from something more important, and so, well, here it is.

Nightmare Magazine issue 11

art by Lena Yuk

The August 2013 issue of Nightmare Magazine contains my story "How Far to Englishman's Bay", which is all about why people from New Hampshire should be careful when they travel to Maine.

The story will be available online for free next week, but why wait when you can have it for $2.99 and also get stories by Jennifer Giesbrecht, Robert McKammon, and Clive Barker, plus part 2 of a great interview with Joe Hill. There's also an "Author Spotlight" interview with each writer, including one conducted with me by Erika Holt, who asked some fun questions.

I'm especially pleased to be in an issue with an interview with Joe Hill, because years and years and years ago, back when I was young and easy under the apple boughs, I interviewed Joe about his short story collection 20th Century Ghosts, at that time only available from PS Publishing in the UK. Back then, he was just a mysterious short story writer who seemed to have popped up out of nowhere, and I interviewed him because I wanted to know how somebody from out of nowhere had written such excellent fiction. It turned out he'd grown up in Maine, but like any sensible person, escaped to New Hampshire.

Thanks to John Joseph Adams for publishing the story, and for helping come up with the title, which I like very much. Although now that I think about it, I should have just called the story by our NH state motto: "Live Free or Die". Too obvious, though. And too much like a Die Hard sequel.