Yes, gang. You read that right! I wrote a POEM for the Wishing Weird, the second book in the Wishes anthology series! In fact, I was driving home from the very first horror con I’d ever attended for an entire weekend as just a fan (I’ve been a vendor selling movies and books at more than 50) when I received a social media notification that the call for submissions, particularly for poetry had been sent out for the second Wishes book.

I really like the energy the Fireside Press peeps, Sheila Hall and M.C. O’Neil put off. They’d included my story THE BURNING RIVER in their first Wishes book, paid me quickly and sent out contributor copies without hesitation. I like that shit. You never know when or if a small press publisher is going to go up in flames, but Fireside Press burns bright by its own light. (see what I did there?)

Anyway, so I’d never written a poem before. I was driving and thinking about how much I like the Fireside folks. I hate poetry. I mean I really do. Literary people are mostly a snobbish, stuck up, intolerant bunch, and nothing is more snobby to me than adults writing poetry.

But somehow, a poem just crept into my head and laid root right there as I was driving down the highway. Slowly at first. Just a couple of lines. It was like a dark and twisted Shel Silverstein poem but still full of the same wit and wonder. Then I remembered how much I absolutely LOVED his poems when I was a kid and I relaxed and let the poem finish in my head. I laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was. But I loved it the more I thought about the imagery and how well it would fit a book called The Wishing Weird.

I repeated it out loud about twenty times till I had it memorized. Then, when I got home from the con, I dropped all of my bags right there in the kitchen, pulled out my laptop and wrote the poem then and there so I didn’t forget it.

Luckily they accepted it. 🙂

Anyway, that book is out now on Kindle for just $1.99 and paperback for $7.99. Pick it up and give it a go. You won’t be disappointed.