Short Story Madness

[lilithsaintcrow]

Today I blazed a trail down to the store and sorted 16 boxes of books. It was a lot of fun–made me think of working for the bookstore I started out in, nights when we’d get pizza and beer and do inventory. (It’s more fun than it sounds, and yet…not.) On the way home we stopped at what has got to be the last Dairy Queen in America without a drive-thru. It is a surprisingly clean, jolly, and lovely place to stop on a whim. I haven’t had a dipped cone in literally a dog’s age.

So, news! My story A Standup Dame, originally in the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, has been reprinted in Night Shade Books’s By Blood We Live, which also has stories from Stephen King, Tanith Lee, Joe Hill, LA Banks, and a whole slew of awesome authors.

Vampires. They are the most elegant of monsters—ancient, seductive, doomed, deadly. They lurk in the shadows, at your window, in your dreams. They are beautiful as anything you’ve ever seen, but their flesh is cold as the grave, and their lips taste of blood. From Dracula to Twilight, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to True Blood, many have fallen under their spell. Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams brings you 33 of the most haunting vampire stories of the past three decades, from some of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

Charming gentlemen with the manners of a prior age. Savage killing machines who surge screaming from hidden vaults. Cute little girls frozen forever in slender bodies. Long-buried loved ones who scratch at the door, begging to be let in. Nowhere is safe, not mist-shrouded Transylvania or the Italian Riviera or even a sleepy town in Maine. This is a hidden world, an eternal world, where nothing is forbidden…as long as you’re willing to pay the price.

By Blood We Live is 245,000 words of the best in vampire fiction. Thirsty? By Blood We Live will satisfy your darkest cravings…

I’m kind of geeked-out giddy at being in an anthology with so many luminaries. I am a screaming fangirl of Stephen King and Tanith Lee is only my favorite author EVER, and LA Banks is one of my favorite human beings bar none. I’ve met Harry Turtledove and he is a Class Act. (There’s even a Sergei Lukyanenko story in there, and we all know how I squeed over his Night Watch series.) Can you hear my inner Geek Girl screaming her fool head off? So, if you’re craving some awesome vampire stories, you know where to go to find them.

There’s also my short story in The Eternal Kiss, titled Ambition. SciFiGuy did a reviewette of it, and I’m breaking (kind of) my rule about responding to reviews long enough to say that I’m very, very happy with the review. This is exactly the reaction I wanted to provoke in the reader. It’s nice to know I achieved my goal, if only for one reader. It makes me very very happy.

I’m also happy to report that I’ve finished a Jill Kismet short story, tentatively titled Holding The Line, for an upcoming anthology edited by my good friend Justin Gustainis. Further bulletins on that as time and information permit.

Now I’ve got to go get some work done. No rest for the wicked, no sir…

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