A Grave Discovery

Hey, all, I meant to write sooner about my upcoming published story, but have had limited access to the internet the last couple weeks. So, here are a few more details.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the story is called “A Grave Discovery,” and it will be available to read on New Zenith Magazine. New Zenith will release print editions of their magazine four times a year. I will let you know when it is live. 

“A Grave Discovery” is a small murder mystery based in 19^th century England. And um, well, it’s inspired by an incident that occurred a few years ago.

I was up in northern Indiana, visiting my cousins for a few days. Since I had missed the funeral of their parents, one of my cousins took me to the graveyard where her parents were buried that way I could pay my respects. When we arrived, the graveyard’s gates were up, blocking all of the entrances. Police swarmed the area; German Shepherds were sniffing the ground. My cousin got out of the car to ask what was going on, only to learn that a woman had been murdered and dumped in the graveyard. We got out of there fast.

While the incident inspired the story, “A Grave Discovery” is 98% fictional. Hopefully it will be entertaining and enjoyable, and will be perhaps the first of many published fictional stories to come.

More later!

Never Give Up

I have sold my first fictional story! I’ve been published before, but those were autobiographical pieces. I generally write longer fictional pieces (novellas and novels) but have recently tried my hand at writing short fiction and this time I lucked out. New Zenith has bought my mini-murder mystery entitled, “A Grave Discovery.” It will debut in an upcoming issue of this new magazine!

It was inspired by an incident in my own life, which I will talk more about in the coming months. Don’t want to give too much away. I was trying something new and wrote it in a few settings. I ended up sending it to several different magazines and anthology publishers and had received a number of rejections. I figured it would be yet another story thrown on top of that stack of failed pieces. Then the editor of New Zenith contacted me, showing interest in it.

My point of this post – other than to begin promotion for “A Grave Discovery” and the magazine – is to say: never give up. Just when I had started to have my doubts on this story and my ambitions, it was picked up. You never know what is around the corner. 

So, please, check out New Zenith magazine.