It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s 215th birthday! In memory of this great writer of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, I’m offering my observations about Poe’s creepiest tales, the ones that deal with the ultimate terror of human existence — being buried alive.
My tribute to Poe, “The Premature Burial,” is featured in the latest post at the DMR Books blog.
On Spec Magazine has just released its Winter 2023 issue, and I am pleased to announce it includes my short story “Due Diligence.”
Lucille Moon is not your ordinary realtor. Born with the ability to sense the presence of ghosts, she specializes in finding haunted houses for her buyers, mostly rap singers and movie stars looking for the ultimate thrill. However, Grayson and Eve Sterling have their own reasons for moving in with a ghost, which they hide from their realtor. Lucille can’t read the minds of the living, but the ghost haunting the mansion the Sterlings want to buy can. And deceit makes this ghost angry.
A frequent winner of the Aurora Award, On Spec prides itself for being more of a literary magazine than the typical science fiction and fantasy magazine. It is Canada’s longest-running, and, according to Hugo-winning author Robert J. Sawyer, most successful speculative fiction magazine. Since their goal is to highlight mostly Canadian writers, it’s a special honor to have my work appear here.
Two of my beta readers told me this was the saddest tale I’ve ever written. Maybe so, but it ends with a promise of hope and healing. The loss of a loved one is an unending emotional ache, something we cannot conquer or ignore. All we can do is deal with it the best way we can. Writing this story was my way.
Click here to buy On Spec #126 (and support your favorite author).
From July 19th to August 10th, you can snag The Explore Sci-Fi Worlds Bundle, an outstanding selection of ebooks from independent and small press fantasy writers — and support war victims in Ukraine. This incredible offer includes my story A Tree Amid the Wood, as well as bonus volumes for donations of $20 or more, including:
It’s a great opportunity to support a worthy cause and find new authors to love. Or rekindle your love for an old one. Remember, this offer ends August 10. Gift cards are available at Story Bundle.
So honored to be invited back to the DMR Books Blog. My latest post for them, The Riddle of Pulp, looks at my long-running love of pulp fiction, why it’s still being read, and why we need it more than ever.
Earlier this month, Julie and I took a 15-mile e-bike journey across the Sonoran Desert north of Phoenix. Our guide knew the area well. He informed us that broken pottery littered the area. The Hohokom people who lived here for thousands of years believed shattering old pots would release the spirit of the departed artists who made them. While we searched for shards, our guide cautioned us to keep our eyes open for rattlesnakes, Sonoran toads, and spiny lizards. A pack of coyotes shadowed us for much of the journey, yipping to each other as they slinked just out of sight behind the brittle bush and ironwood trees.
A light rain dampened our little trek, but quickly blew east in time to catch the last rays of the setting sun and give us this little arc of a rainbow on the distant horizon. A line from H. R. Wakefield’s “He Cometh and He Passeth By” echoed in memory:
“Arizona is a moon-dim region, very lovely in its way, and stark and old, an ancient, lonely land. One is brought up against the vast enigmas of time and space and eternity.”
I felt that.
I was pleasantly surprised and honored when D.M. Ritzlin of DMR Books asked if he could interview me as part of his series of author profiles. We covered my writing background, the literary and philosophical influences on my fiction, and works in progress.
It’s now online at Independent Author Spotlight: M.C. Tuggle.
I’m thrilled to announce that Quarter Press has released the second volume of The Quarter(ly) Journal. It offers fantastical poetry, fiction, comics, and art by award-winning authors and artists, and includes my story “An Alignment of Wood and Water.”
Zach Benson is a master carpenter who builds special projects for special clients along the North Carolina coast. He returns to a client’s house to handle a complaint, something he absolutely dreads having to do. The disgruntled client is a newcomer to the area who lives in an isolated bungalow on Pamlico Sound. She’s a novice witch who claims Zach did not make a witching floor according to her specifications.
As Zach inspects the floor’s enchanted shapes of ash, oak, and cedar, a mysterious figure shows up outside. It takes Zach a while to get his nerve up, but he decides to confront the intruder.
It’s a scary/fun story featuring a creepy familiar, a dreamy shoreline, blue-collar stoicism, and a magical showdown. It also includes my thoughts on malignant do-gooderism. Please check it out! Quarter(ly) Journal is now available at Amazon.
Flash Fiction Magazine has published my story “Social Network.” This piece represents nearly three weeks of writing and re-writing. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, and I have to thank editor Shanna Yetman for her guidance.
Most of my stories arise from an image I can’t get out of my head. The only relief is to transform that image into a story, and that process inevitably taps into deep-seated concerns. When I recently re-read H.P. Lovecraft’s classic Nyarlathotep, one vivid scene stuck in my imagination:
And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.
“Social Network“ imagines a malignant presence just as frightening as the one Lovecraft described, though in the form of a technological pandemic no vaccination can stop.
“A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the unconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you.”
Ursula Le Guin, from her magnificent essay From Elfland to Poughkeepsie
Now this is an unexpected surprise. The Year One Anthology for Hexagon Speculative Fiction Magazine features all 20 pieces from Hexagon’s successful and groundbreaking first year. There are bonus pieces as well, such as author interviews and new cover concept art.
The anthology includes my flash fiction story Mirrors, which was published in the magazine’s premiere issue. I wrote it after re-reading Dr. Lewis Thomas’ book, The Lives of a Cell, which made me realize how an alien species would marvel at how cooperative humans are despite our aggressive tendencies. I was pleased at Didi Oviatt’s review: “Tuggle’s story of an insight about predatory creatures is a thought-provoking read.”
You’ll find the thought-provoking, the beautiful, and the sublime in the Hexagon Year One Anthology.
M.C. Tuggle, Writer 