Saturday, February 15, 2014

Who was the First Englishman to Write a Vampire Short Story?



The first Englishman to write a vampire story was John Polidori. He was a physician and traveled with Lord Byron as his personal doctor. He was with Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley when they made their famous dare about who could write a supernatural story. Mary, of course, would go on to write Frankenstein and Percy had nightmares about his tale, as recounted in BlooDeath: The Best Vampire Short Stories 1800-1849. Lord Byron started a fragment that he never finished. Polidori wrote "The Vampyre" in 1819 and in it he included Lord Byron as the evil vampire Lord Ruthven after a bad falling out with Lord Byron. Now that is scary.


Friday, February 14, 2014

My Scary Short Story "Azra'eil & Fudgie" is Free This Weekend on Kindle



My short story Azra'eil & Fudgie is free on Kindle through January 19, 2014. A little scary action on Valentine's Day, anyone?

In "Azra'eil & Fudgie" a group of marines stationed in Afghanistan meet a cute little girl who is not all that she seems. This only adds to the tension for Private Fudgerié ("Fudgie") who is on his first mission to diffuse IED roadside bombs that the team calls "skulls". The question is, can Fudgie overcome the demons of his past and those of the present to triumph in the ever shifting sandscape of Afghanistan?

Download it now by clicking on the link above. I hope you like it.