More free e-books!

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A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about FREE e-books, notably the Yin and Yang Book by eMergent Publishing. Well they're at it again, and this time you can pick up the Eighty Nine anthology, which features my own story, Thirty Years In The Bathroom. Based on the song title of the same name by The Wonderstuff, released in 1989, I went for a Hollywood twist on the Dorian Grey story, set against the backdrop of the Batman premiere.

Eighty Nine is free from Amazon US and Amazon UK until 8:59am on Friday (UK time) and 11.59pm on Thursday (US Pacific time).

Some Background
The third literary mix tape EIGHTY NINE, based on a playlist of 26 songs from the year 1989, went on sale in October 2011. Editor Jodi Cleghorn randomly assigned a song per author and asked them to create a story around the song that reimagined the events of 1989 through a speculative fiction lens. The 26 authors from the Nothing But Flowers anthology chose the songs for the playlist. Blake Byrnes, a final year fine arts student, turned an accidental promo photograph into the ‘eighties grunge’ cover, based on the character “Amiga” from Dale Challener Roe’s story Shrödinger’s Cat. Byrnes’ artwork provided the visual template for the character of “Amiga” in Devin Watson’s live action book trailer.

Blurb
1989: a cusp between decades. The year the Berlin Wall came down and Voyager went up. Ted Bundy and Emperor Hirohito died. The birth of the first Bush administration and computer virus. In San Francisco and Newcastle the ground shook, in Chernobyl it melted. Tiananmen Square rocked the world and Tank Man imprinted on the international consciousness. Communism and Thatcherism began their decline, Islamic fundamentalism its rise. It was the year Batman burst onto the big screen, we went back to the future (again), Indiana Jones made it a trifecta at the box office and Michael Damian told us to rock on. Based on a play list of 26 songs released in 1989, Eighty Nine re-imagines the social, political, cultural and personal experiences at the end of the decade which gave the world mullets, crimped hair, neon-coloured clothing, acid-wash denim, keytars, the walkman, Live Aid, the first compact disc and MTV.

Eighty Nine Launch Day

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Today is Launch Day for the latest Literary Mix Tapes anthology, Eighty Nine. My story, Thirty Years in the Bathroom, is online now, but only for the next 24 hours.

This is the third LMT anthology I've been in, having also had stories appear in the first Deck the Halls collection in 2010, and the Nothing But Flowers anthology released earlier this year. The thinking behind Eighty Nine was to collect stories inspired by or based on songs released in 1989. Each author nominated a song, and titles were assigned following a random draw. I nominated Bon Jovi's Lay Your Hands On Me, which went to Adam Byatt, while I got 30 Years In The Bathroom by The Wonderstuff, originally suggested by Dan Powell.

As you can imagine, the song title doesn't immediately suggest many story possibilities. I had a few ideas involving someone literally spending thirty years in a bathroom but when I tried to set up a story structure using this plot, I found it nigh-on impossible to get the narrative framework to stand up. On the one occasion that I did, I realised the plot was too similar to that of Blast From The Past for it to work. Luckily a lot of swearing and lateral thinking ensued and I came up with my story, involving the Batman premiere, Greek mythology, and a mixture of Faust and Dorian Gray.

You can read it here until tomorrow, or you can buy a copy of the anthology here in the UK, or here in the US! We also have a Facebook event here, so get involved!

More books!

Tweet Not only will I have a short story appearing in the upcoming anthology by Pulp Press and For Book's Sake, I also have stories in TWO anthologies put together by Emergent Publishing!

I wrote my story for the Chinese Whisperings anthology, The Yin Book, which I blogged about here, back in October 2010. The Strangest Comfort comes from somewhat personal experience and it's wonderful to finally see it in print. The book is already available in Kindle format from Amazon, but as you can see by the photo, it'll also be out in paperback format! It's a wonderful collection of interrelated stories, all located in an airport at the moment when an airline collapses. It's quite a bold fictional experiment, and pulls together work by a diverse group of upandcoming writers. I also owe Emergent somewhat, since it was on the Chinese Whisperings project that I met Rob Diaz, who has gone on to become a trusted friend and beta reader! It's also nice to see the Yin and Yang books collected alongside each other - there are plenty of interesting characters to get to know here!

As well as The Yin & Yang Book, I also have a story in the forthcoming Literary Mix Tape collection, Eighty Nine. All of the stories were inspired by songs released in 1989, my own being 30 Years in the Bathroom by The Wonder Stuff. Some of the stories are testament to the social and political upheaval that characterised the end of the Eighties, while other stories (mine included) pay homage to the rich pop culture of the era. Thirty Years in the Bathroom stars an ageing actress who'll do anything to maintain her youth, in a bit of a twist on the Dorian Gray idea.

Both books will be available for purchase very very soon, and I'll post more details once they're on sale!