"A Darke Phantastique" is in Print! (And Along with It, My Short Story, "In the Wardrobe.")

I am delighted! My short story, "In the Wardrobe," is part of this Cycatrix Press anthology, "A Darke Phantastique: Encounters With the Uncanny and Other Magical Things" (forever to be known here just by the first three words).

This is one of the best-looking books I've ever seen, with gilt page edges, tremendous interior artwork, and amazing design. I'm actually a little gobsmacked to be in this massive tome.

The collection of authors is pretty amazing, too.

Featuring a foreword by Ray Bradbury, it is separated into five sections, each of them the size of a lesser collection.

Though it is taking up some space to do so, I really feel a need to share this phenomenal Table of Contents...

"The Beginnings of Imagination" (foreword) / Ray Bradbury
"An Abiding Darkness, A Phantastique Light" (introduction) / Jason V Brock

Section One -- Magical Realities

"Michael the Monster" / Paul Kane
"A Darke Phantastique" / Jason V Brock
"Charles Out of La-La Land" / Bruce Taylor
"The Wisest Stone and the Zoo" / Nathaniel Lee
"Out of the Blue, and Into the Black" / Sunni K Brock
"Lizard Man Dispatches" / Ray Garton
"Real Live Lobsters" / D. T. Kastn
"Bittersweet Bedlam" / Samuel Marzioli
"The Last Witch" / William F. Nolan




Section Two -- Lost Innocence

"The Claim" / Erinn L. Kemper
"Lovecraft's Pillow" / Don Webb
"Forgetting" / Misty Dahl
"Birth of an Apocalypse" / Lawrence Van Hoof
"Descartar" / S. J. Chambers
"Apples and Peaches" / Gio Clairval
"La Joie de Vivre, or Picasso and the Satyr" / Ralph Sevush
"Immigrant" / Andrew S. Fuller
"Timbrel and Pipe" / Melanie Tem

Section Three -- Forbidden Knowledge

"Old Enough to Drink" / Lois H. Gresh
"Homo Suicidus" / JG Faherty
""In Your Dark": Different Strategies in Subhuman Integration Through "Monster Academies" [S. Armand & J. Miller, Unpublished Manuscript]" / Jason Maurer
"Transformations at the Inn of the Golden Pheasant" / Gene O'Neill
"Lords of Chaos" (poem) / Wade German
"The Squatters" / Nicole Cushing
"Tardigrade" / Mike Allen
"The Bat" / Jan Vander Laenen
"Dust Made of Words" / Cody Goodfellow
"Genius" (screenplay) / Greg Bear

Section Four -- Hidden Truths

"Breakfast in Tasmania" / Dennis Etchison
"Darkness" / Nancy Kilpatrick
"Water over Stone" (sonnet) / W. H. Pugmire
"Redaction" / Gary A. Braunbeck
"Paper and Pencil, Skin and Ink" / Chris Marrs
"Buddha Circus" / Derek Kunsken
"The Weight Lost" / Steve Rasnic Tem
"The Case of the Four-Acre Haunt" / Joe R. Lansdale
"Creaking Earth" / Richard Gavin
"You'll Reach There in Time" / S. T. Joshi

Section Five -- Uncanny Encounters

"Three Fables: 1) In the Hood, 2) Krustallos, 3) The Fiction Lover" / E. E. King
"Down the Hatch" / Jonathan Thomas
"Selected Poems" (poems) / Marge Simon
"Outsiders" / J. C. Koch
"Promise to Nessie" / Jerry Airth
"Him" (poem) / Ian Futter
"Kudzu" / Lucy A. Snyder
"I Keep the Dark That is Your Pain" / Wendy Rathbone
"In the Wardrobe" / Nickolas Furr
"The Fine Art of Courage" / Weston Ochse
"Phoenix on the Orange River" / Tom Conoboy

If you're interested in 700+ pages and nearly 50 writers, visit the Cycatrix Press store...