short stories | CW Hawes

Beyond the Sea — Part 3

Last week, I took a look at 4 stories in Beyond the Sea: Stories from the Underground. Today, I’m taking a look at the final 4 tales that make up this marvelous collection of short fiction. So let’s begin!

The Perfect Future — Cindy Davis

Every story has a back story. Every person has a back story. Cindy Davis tells us of an episode in the lives of two brothers. The episode is an important contribution to her Zipacna series, a metaphysical journey of adventure and discovery.

“The Perfect Future” reminds me of the saying by the Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: Life is what you make it.

Moonlight Swim — Kelly Marshall

Have you ever felt insulted to the point where you wished someone dead? I suppose we’ve all been there at some point in our lives.

But what if you could get your wish? Would you actually make it? Do some people deserve to die?

An interesting question that. And Ms. Marshall provides us with an equally interesting answer.

The Girl in the Turquoise Bikini — Linda Pirtle

Writer’s block. One thing all writers fear. For most of us it’s temporary, if it shows up at all. For a few of us it’s permanent.

Each writer has his or her own way of dealing with writer’s block. I write through it. Usually by working on a different story than the one on which I’m blocked.

For Jeb McGrierson, it took a girl showing up on his private beach wearing a turquoise bikini, along with a missing boat.

The lengths some writers will go to to start writing again!

Making Waves — CJ Peterson

Sometimes a family has something of value, usually more sentimental than monetary, that gets passed down through the generations.

Darren and his dad build a boat. Little did either one realize the role that boat would play in their family’s subsequent history. In fact, if it weren’t for the boat perhaps there wouldn’t have been a family history at all.

A touching saga of love, facilitated by a boat.

I’m proud to be a part of the Underground Authors. We value high quality fiction. Because we like reading. It is the best form of entertainment.

Pick up a copy of Beyond the Sea today and give yourself the gift of superb entertainment, and help Team Rubicon help others when disaster hits.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

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Beyond the Sea

This past Friday was the official launch of Beyond the Sea: Stories from the Underground.

The concept was simple: a picture of a boat beached on a spit of sand jutting out into a lake, or a bay, or maybe the sea. Then add the imaginations of a dozen authors. And what do you get? A superbly satisfying collection of short stories.

I’m proud to be one of the 12 Underground Authors contributing to this incredible collection of tales. My story “The Boat”, is my first return trip to the post-apocalyptic world of The Rocheport Saga in 4 years. I took the opportunity to coax out of Bill Arthur a story that took place before The Morning Star, which is Book 1 of the series.

Amazon reviewer J.S. wrote of “The Boat”:

C.W. Hawes wrote a compelling short story that I didn’t want to come to an end. His words came alive and I joined in with the characters in a hair-raising survival journey in a post-apocalyptic world. Great world-building and great writing!

I’m pleased and humbled by that comment. And very glad I wasn’t a drag on the group effort! 🙂

As a reader, I was impressed with the overall quality of the stories. As can’t be helped, some were more appealing to me than others. That’s just how it is in an anthology. Not everything will please everybody. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

Nevertheless, the overall quality is high, and that should please any reader. I’m confident everyone will find a story they’ll fall in love with.

My personal favorites, the ones that especially caught my eye, were “Hemingway’s Boat” by Caleb Pirtle III, “The Encounter” by Ronald E Yates, and “Roses for Grant” by Richard Schwindt.

Pirtle’s story is a superb example of his ability to capture a time and place, people it with true to life characters, throw in a bit of mystery and romance, and come up with a story that grabs you and doesn’t let go. In the short time that I’ve known him, he’s become one of my favorite authors.

I enjoy a good science fiction yarn, and Ron Yates has uncorked a real goodie in “The Encounter”. And when it’s coupled with a touch of slowburn terror, it’s a keeper. His knowledge of Southeast Asia and history adds a strong sense of place and color to the tale.

Richard Schwindt, as readers of this blog know, is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I think I’d buy his grocery lists. His story, “Roses for Grant”, is a beautiful slice-of-life tale about an older middle-aged couple. Their memories and the mission they are on. In some ways, it reminded me of Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” in that the dialogue essentially carries the story. No narrator gets in the way of the couple on whom we are listening in.

Having written the above, I want to emphasize that there is something for everyone in Beyond the Sea — and what are my favorites may not be yours. Pick up a copy and see for yourself.

We the authors are donating the proceeds to Team Rubicon. A worthy organization. Check them out on their website.

You can pick up a copy of Beyond the Sea at Amazon. And when you do, you benefit yourself and the disaster relief efforts of Team Rubicon.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

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Anthologies

Short story anthologies are a great way for an indie author to get additional titles on his or her author page with a minimum of effort.

I’ve participated in three anthologies, with a fourth in the works, which gives me three additional titles to promote and gives readers more books to check out when they visit my author page.

Anthologies are also a great way for readers to sample your work. And if they like what they read in the anthology, they may very well move on to read the rest of your oeuvre.

I have two short stories and an article published in three outstanding anthologies.

Once Upon A WolfPack: A #WolfPackAuthors Anthology. A collection of 15 stories and 2 poems, all with a wolf somewhere in the tale. And the stories range from science fiction to fantasy to horror to mysteries to fairy tales. Literally something for everybody. And all proceeds go to a very good cause: Lockwood Animal Rescue Center.

If you want to find out about Minneapolis’s ace private detective, Justinia Wright, take a read of my story “Mrs Solberg’s Problem”.

Once Upon A WolfPack is only $2.99 at Amazon.

Overmorrow: Stories of Our Bright Future is a collection of a dozen optimistic science fiction stories. Stories exploring a fundamentally positive vision of the world and human achievement.

I’m honored to have my story, “The Sun is but a Morning Star”, lead off the collection. I don’t write much science fiction, and was pleased to have the editors, Jon Garett and Richard Walsh, accept my tale of an Earth colony planting mission finding a better world.

Overmorrow: Stories of Our Bright Future is available at Amazon.

The Phantom Games: Dimensions Unknown 2020, edited by John Paul Catton is a collection of 16 science fiction and fantasy stories and 17 accounts of life in a pandemic. I contributed an article, “Be Happy”, for this collection. My musings on COVID-19.

Originally intended to celebrate the Tokyo Olympics, life threw the editor a knuckle ball. But he adapted and made a super anthology even better.

Get The Phantom Games at Amazon.

I encourage you to take a look at these anthologies. You’ll find great stories to entertain you and give you food for thought.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Vampire House and Other Early Cases

Justinia Wright and her brother, Harry, are my favorite creations. They weren’t the first of my imaginings to spring to life on paper, but they are the ones who have been in my mind the longest.

Tina and Harry sprang to life shortly after I read Raleigh Bond’s short story “Meet Athalia Goode” in an issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine way back in 1982. However, it took seven more years before I chronicled their first adventure: Festival of Death.

What I realized in writing my first novel is that I wasn’t ready to write a novel. The manuscript went into a filing cabinet drawer and stayed there for 25 years. When I pulled it out in 2014, the book was hopelessly out of date. I kept the first chapter, with modifications, and rewrote the novel; sticking more or less to the original idea.

The result was a much better story. Sometimes, one simply isn’t ready. Sometimes, one needs to learn more. And sometimes, one must simply wait and experience life.

Vampire House and Other Early Cases of Justinia Wright, PI is now available for pre-pub purchase for a mere 99 cents. Do get a copy before the price goes up on Halloween.

This new addition to Tina and Harry’s oeuvre is a collection seven cases that chronologically pre-date Festival of Death and form a prequel of sorts. Hence my numbering of the volume as Book 0.

I enjoy short stories and short novels very much. Prefer them, in fact, to the massively thick tomes that seemed to be popular today.

The reasons I enjoy short works, I think, are two: I grew up with them and I often find I don’t have the time to do a larger work justice.

Think about it. Books for kids are short. In many cases they are actually short stories or novellas. One of my favorite books is Wingman, a YA “novel” by Daniel Pinkwater. It is a mere 73 pages of large print text and pictures. Yet, it is one of the most moving stories I’ve ever read. Good things do come in small packages. Which is why I’m baffled when I read or hear of folks who don’t like short stories because they don’t contain enough character development or the storyline is too skimpy. Some of the most powerful pieces of fiction I have ever read are short stories. Stories such as “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki, “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” by Conrad Aiken, and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway are merely three among many.

The other reason is time. A 500, 600, 700 page novel a major time investment. Especially if I want to keep all the characters and story lines clear in my mind. That takes a degree of concentration, which if I’m busy is sometimes difficult to muster. Reading a hefty novel is something that requires, for me anyway, more than one or two sittings and sometimes reading a book of substantial length may take me upwards of a month. I’m not the world’s speediest reader. A short book, on the other hand, I can knock off in an hour or a couple days at the most.

As the average age of the fiction buying public gets younger, I think the demand for shorter works will increase. The Millennials and Gen Z folks have never known a world without computers. Statistics reveal a different pattern of reading for these people. Information and entertainment is consumed via their smart phones. They are used to short presentations which are often video. Presentations and attention spans are shorter. Think YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook, and one minute vids on Snapchat or other social media. Short is in. And considering half of all books are read on a smart phone, there is a compelling case for short fiction. I think there is a real danger that fiction as we know it might just wander off into oblivion under the onslaught of other entertainment forms. That’s something to think about.

Short is in. In spite of what Amazon and the Big 5 want to believe. Amazon’s penalty in KDP select for short works by switching to payment by the page read. The Big 5’s insistence on mandatory long page lengths for novels, so they can justify printing. That kind of thinking reveals those folks to be dinosaurs catering to us Baby Boomers and older folks, who unfortunately are facing the end of our days. Short is in, whether we older folks like it or not.

Vampire House and Other Early Cases of Justinia Wright, PI is a collection of short stories and a short novel. They were fun to write and are hopefully fun to read. They’re packed with humor, sibling rivalry, dastardly villains, a touch of love, and puzzles to solve.

I love Tina and Harry and I hope you do too. Vampire House and Other Early Cases is only 99 cents until Halloween. Take the treat now! A mere buck for a rollicking good time.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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