David B. Silva

I don’t think there’s any question that digital publishing is going to continue to flourish. The success of the Kindle (3.3 million sold already) and The Nook by Barnes & Noble (no sales figures, but in April of this year, The Nook reportedly sold more units than the Kindle) are undeniable. I have no idea which format is going to out last the others (there’s the iPad, as well), but eventually it would be nice to be able to find any book you wanted and download it to whatever device you preferred without any cross platform problems.

Anyway, I’ve started to test the waters a little this week. I began uploading some short stories to The Kindle. I believe six are live now, and three more should be live in the next day or so. Eventually, if it appears to be successful, I’ll go through the same process with The Nook and also begin to upload some novels.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a Kindle and you’re interested, here are the current short stories I’ve uploaded, along with links to each page. They’re priced at .99 cents, so it’s hard to go wrong.

The Calling - The story of an adult son caring for his mother, dying from cancer. The last few days of the struggle, and the inevitable horror at the end. Won a Stoker Award in 1990.

Brothers - A thunderstorm is coming, and it’s going to change Trey’s life. Dane and Trey are twelve-year-old twin brothers. Dane has always been the leader, the stronger of the two, the bravest. Trey has always been the follower, learning what he can from his brother, and doing his best to survive in the world. But things are about to change. And Trey’s entire world will turn upside down.

Dry Whiskey - A son tries to reconnect with his father who gives up drinking after a mysterious accident. Made into a short film by Writer/Director Robert Budreau and Lumanity Productions.

Dwindling - There are mysterious changes going on around twelve-year-old Derrick. First, his sister, Sarah, goes missing. Then other members of his family, one by one. And all the while, a deep and profound sadness has settled over his mother as she wishes she could go back in time and start raising a family all over again.

Ice Sculptures - What begins as a winter retreat to explore various artistic mediums in the high natural environment of Eagle Peak, ends tragically as environmental forces come together in a “revolution of nature.”

A Time To Every Purpose - When Jeremy Taft schedules a meeting with an old childhood acquaintance, it seems he wishes to unburden himself of the guilt from a past tragic event that caused the death of a young schoolmate. But instead, all the unanswered questions from that incident are brought to the surface, and the two men suddenly find themselves as allies, desperately trying to save a girl from the past from a long-ago wrong.

Cemetery Dance has announced that the Bentley Little interview will appear in Cemetery Dance #64, which is deep in production. Bentley will have two original short stories in the issue, plus the interview I did with him. Cemetery Dance recently called the interview, “… one of the best interviews you’ll have read in a long time.” So, I pleased that folks there are pleased with the interview and I’m looking forward to the reaction of the readers.

I’ve received word from Dark Regions that The Shadows of Kingston Mills is now available. The book was originally supposed to be released months ago, but apparently there were a mess of problems with the printing of the jacket. The problems have now been resolved and the books are in stock.

You can read a review of the book here: Shadows Review

And you can order the book here: The Shadows of Kingston Mills

And finally, if you have any questions about the book, about writing, about anything writing related, or even if you just have a comment to make, please don’t hesitate to drop me a note. All you have to do is fill in the contact form on the Contact Me tab under Pages at the top of the page. I’d love to hear from you.

The Shadows of Kingston Mills, my new short story collection, will be out from Dark Regions shortly. The collection includes 11 new short stories and one reprint, all based on the small Northern California town of Kingston Mills. I thought you might enjoy getting a peek at the cover art. It was done by M. Wayne Miller, who really captures the opening story of the collection, “It’s All Happening On Fillmore Street.”

If you’re interested, you can pre-order the book directly from Dark Regions: The Shadows of Kingston Mills

Cemetery Dance will be publishing an upcoming special Bentley Little issue, along the lines as they’ve recently done with Peter Straub. The issue will carry a couple of Bentley’s short stories, written specially for the issue, and an interview.

They’ve asked me to do the interview with Bentley, which I’m thrilled to do. Bentley is a writer, a true writer. All he wants to do is write horror. He doesn’t care about promoting his work, about hobnobbing with other writers, about joining organizations or attending conventions. He just wants to write.

And he loves the genre!

A release date hasn’t been announced yet for the Bentley Little issue, and I believe there’s another issue due out first. Once I know more I’ll pass it along.

Well, here’s how weird things get sometimes …

I had a tooth that needed big time attention. It was infected and causing a great deal of pain. So I found a dentist that was open on a Sunday (ever notice how all pain-related events tend to occur late Saturday night or on Sunday when everything’s closed?) and agreed to pull the tooth at an affordable price. But first, he wanted to take my blood pressure.

I won’t tell you what the numbers were, but they were high enough that he refused to pull the tooth. Instead, he sent me directly to the emergency room at the local hospital with motivating words, “You could die any second. Walking out to your car. You could die.”

Well, I thought I be in and out in a day at the most. Give me something for the blood pressure and send me home, and once it’s in the right range I’ll go get the tooth pulled.

I’m so naive when it comes to hospitals. It took them four or five hours to get it down, but of course, they had another concern and wanted to keep me overnight for observation. Okay, one night. That didn’t sound too unreasonable for a hospital stay.

They continued to give me meds for the high blood pressure, took X-rays, hooked me up to a heart monitor, etc.

The next morning, the doctor comes in and she says their initial concerns were unwarranted. I was fine in that area of my heath. But they really wanted to get the blood pressure under control and they wanted to do it in a safe and timely manner.

By then, my life belonged to the hospital. Every few hours, they took blood, checked my blood pressure, gave me a pill for my tooth pain, gave me a pill for the infection, analyzed whether or not the meds were working, on and on. And six days later, still unable to control my blood pressure, they finally conceded that I might be in there for a month and still not have my blood pressure under control. So, they let me out so I could continue monitoring at home.

Couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I’m back home at last, and grateful to be home. Lost six days of work, went stir crazy, and came out incredibly weak, but I’m home. While I hated every moment of the experience, I do have say that everyone, from the doctor to the nurses to the food service (I lost 11 pounds!) to the house keeping, were all wonderful people. Friendly. Helpful. Concerned. And that truly made an intolerable situation tolerable.

So, now I have a few days of catching up to do and then it’s back to work.

And sometime in the next week or so, when my blood pressure is looking a little rosier, I’ll get that nagging tooth pulled!

Note: Just wanted to finish this off on a positive note. I’ve got a new short story collection coming out from Dark Regions in next month or so. It’s called The Shadows of Kingston Mills, and eleven of the twelve stories are brand new. I’ll share more as I get stronger and the publication date gets closer.

I’m just learning about Hint Fiction. It’s a term coined by Robert Swartwood, who defines it as: very, very, very, short tales where the reader is given just a hint of the story. Not a scene, or a setting, or even a character sketch. They are given a hint, nothing more, and are asked — nay, forced — to fill in the blanks.

We’re talking about twenty-five words max here.

Swartwood adds, “One of the biggest hints in Hint Fiction is the title. It’s like the setup to a joke, and the story is the punch line. Without the one, the other won’t work.”

So I’ve been toying around with a few, just for fun, filling in a free moment here and there. Here are some examples of what I came up with:

A Woman Scorned
After seven years of marriage it had become a love-hate relationship. And when he cheated on her, she found the hate impossible to control.

The Visitors
Light poured through the bedroom window, waking her. Not a flashlight. Not a passing headlight. A light that flooded the room. They were back.

Fright Night
Norris was exhausted when he fell asleep. When he woke, his hair was milky white, his eyes wide, his mouth frozen in a scream.

These are fun to do, though I don’t intend to waste too much time with them. I do think they provide an interesting way of generating story ideas. It’s a bit like doodling … every once in awhile you turn up a real gem.