First Floor Walk Up Reading at One and One LES - Monday Jan 12th

I’m reading this Monday, January 12th at 7pm at the First Floor Walk Up event.

I hope to read a scary story or two (as if we don’t have enough of those these days). One of the pieces More that I hope to read was submitted to the first NYC Midnight Scary Story Contest and I made it past the first round. I’ve submitted to these contests before but never made it past the first round. They supply great feedback and inspiration so it’s worth checking out. Wish me luck for the next rounds.

Details below:

First Floor Walk Up Presents Bi-Weekly Readings of

Poetry and Prose at

One and One

76 E. 1st St. @ 1st Ave

F Train to 2nd Ave Station

FREE

Monday, January 12th, 7 PM

DIDI CHAMPAGNE

Didi Champagne has performed on NYC stages for close to 40 years, playing with her band at CBGB’s, The Bitter End and many more downtown legendary clubs. She also has a few albums of original music. She has read poetry with JD Rage at ABC No Rio, Cornelia Street Café, Gargoyle Mechanique and countless other venues  She has found inspiration from attending art exhibitions and is planning a show of her artwork soon. Her new book of poetry and art, Life of a Kalamata, is available upon request. Her work is a reflection of her past, present and future. It is fresh and modern and hopes to inspire those around her. Peace, love and music.

RON KOLM

Ron Kolm is a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin. His books include A Change in the Weather, Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush, Swimming in the Shallow End, Welcome to the Barbecue, The Bookstore Book: A Memoir and The Verities of Love. He's had work in Maintenant, The Silver-Tongued Devil anthology, Public Illumination Magazine and The Café Review. Ron’s papers are archived in the NYU Library.

JONATHAN BERGER

Wayne Kral has been doing readings in the East Village for hundreds of years. Jonathan Berger has not been reciting as long as all that, but still, this is not his first rodeo. Watch Jonathan Berger bust the metaphorical bronco with literal words! jonberger.com

ANDREA DEANGELIS

Andrea DeAngelis is at times a poet, writer, shutterbug and musician living in New York City. Her writing has recently appeared in Rawhead Journal, Molotov Cocktail and Carmina Magazine. Andrea also sings and plays guitar in the indie rock band MAKAR (www.makarmusic.com)  who are currently recording their fourth album, Exit Earth. She tries not to disturb her neighbors by putting her guitar amp in the closet.

JENNIFER BLOWDRYER

Jennifer Megan Baring-Gould Waters became Jennifer Blowdryer after her first punk band, the Blowdryers (1978, SF) was a good handle to use for her first book Modern English: A Photo-Illustrated Trendy Slang Dictionary, and later for readers of her New York Press column (1988 – 2010). She’s authored books including a novel called The Laziest Secretary in the World White Trash Debutante, and has been too widely anthologyized to mention. Her most recent book is True Blue: Essays on NYC and her last album is She’s Got The Weirdness (2021).  Her EP Sometimes I Travel Just to Get Away is on I Tunes, and her new book is Music A - Z

 

Hope to see you there! Will record and get it up on the site eventually if you can’t make it.

My story Eye Maggot made it into Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Monster 2025 Contest Top 10!

On Halloween I found out that my story Eye Maggot made it into Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Monster 2025 Contest Top 10! At No. 8.

The submission trenches are a strange and unpredictable place. I just wrote this story and was dragging heels on getting it done in time. When I pressed submit during their slacker special, I honestly had no confidence it would even make the short list never mind getting accepted. This just goes to show you that you never know. All I know is that I didn’t want to miss this contest deadline, that feeling of losing an opportunity usually eggs me on. Regardless of the outcome, I’m happy to have written a new story. So don’t let inspiration pass you by.

In conclusion, you can have a piece (like my ghost story Desmond) you’ve submitted and revised over and over again and it only gets accepted after 16 times and you can have a piece that is accepted on the first go.

Please read the entire issue. I love it you should too.

PS: It’s funny I often write about body horror but I can’t really watch it. I also can’t watch pretty mundane things like the spitting in the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s video or the gross eating in INXS’ The One Thing and especially can’t watch people gross eating in The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 but I write about those things. Weird?

My flash ghost story Desmond was published in Rawhead’s Bloody Bones Special Issue #1

My flash ghost story Desmond was published last week in Rawhead’s Bloody Bones Special Issue #1.

I will be reading a portion of this tale on zoom (Sunday, November 2nd from 12 – 2 PM ET) during the The Launch Party for Rawhead’s Fall 2025 releases, Issue One and Special Issue One: Bloody Bones

It will take place via Zoom on Sunday, November 2nd from 12 – 2 PM ET. You can register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/UUxsrgltTmCKMrSu_7w8tA.

“alien? where did you come from?”, by gryffyn m, Unsplash, 2020

This story started out as a poem called French House Shadows about a haunting at Oberlin back in the nineties. Or was it mass psychosis? Who knows?

I personally experienced some of the more innocuous bits of this haunting but it was the former RA of the dorm who relayed his tale to us impressionable sophomores that has remained with me after all these years.

One of the older students in the dorm was friends with him. She started to tell him about all the weird occurrences happening over winter term. He immediately demanded to speak to us all. He wanted to know who told us about the ghost and Desmond. But honestly no one did. (Or no one did to me). He had just returned to campus from taking off a year for his health. He rationalized that the dorm experienced mass psychosis and it wasn’t a haunting at all. He had also been very sick during the first haunting with pneumonia. But it wasn’t all explainable.

I first completed the fiction version of this story in June 2021 submitting it to The Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Vision Contest. Contests often inspire me to finish a story and even write a new one. If you’re ever uninspired, submit to a contest.

This story of madness and/or ghosts took submitting to 19 places and many revisions to get accepted. It was rejected 16 times (withdrawn twice).

It has been almost 2 years since I’ve gotten a piece accepted. To be fair, I wasn’t submitting enough but this year I set a goal of submitting to 100 places. I’ve made it to 59. In 2024, I only submitted to 22 places and 2023 (when I was last published) to 56.

My point is don’t give up, keep working, revising, reading and submitting. The very process of submitting makes one a better writer.

I wanted to post about this sooner but I’ve been recovering from surgery and contracted food poisoning. Desmond’s revenge, maybe?

HauntedMTL publishes The Bloom in their charity anthology Bodies

My short story The Bloom was published in HauntedMTL Charity Anthology BODIES on December 21, 2022.

A little bit about BODIES

What makes us ‘us’? Is it the body? Is it the mind? A space in-between? For over half the planet, that autonomy is taken for granted.

In this HauntedMTL Charity Anthology, we have a wide scope of horror from visual artists, poets, and writers of short prose. You’ll see some familiar faces and some first-time authors. Our tenth charity anthology has something for everyone. Yes, even you.

A percentage of every copy sold goes to:

The Emily Dickinson Museum
Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF)
The National Women’s Law Center, Girls Who Code, and NNAF Abortion Funds
buy a copy - give directly - engage - resist

‘A collection as creepy as Bodies belongs on every horror fan’s shelf...’
- Lamar Jenkins, author of The Whale Catcher’s Daughter

Never have I seen such a collection of stunning visuals mixed with prose and verse that cuts as deep as Bodies.’ - Jo Szewczyk, author of Surviving GenX

I’m busting at the seams excited to be part of this anthology. Please pick up a copy to help out these worthy causes. Thank you!

My flash fiction piece, The Eyes, was published in Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Legend Mega Issue

My flash fiction piece, The Eyes, was published in Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Legend Mega Issue.

The craziest thing about this is Mark’s (my husband) piece La Puerta placed in the top ten of their Flash Legend contest as well. The editors commented that --

“We also saw a Molotov first, with two people who apparently live at the same address each scoring a slot in the Top 10 (must be something in the water)."

Once we saw that scrolling down on the contest winners’ announcement page, we hoped they were talking about us.

And they were!

flashlegendcover3.jpg

My story
The Eyes – No. 4
https://themolotovcocktail.com/vol-10/flash-legend/the-eyes/

Archived Copy

Note about this story’s inspiration - I wrote it about The Deogen legend in the Sonian Forest .

evileyes.png

Mark’s story and first published piece below
La Puerta – No. 9 (a suitable musical placement)
https://themolotovcocktail.com/vol-10/flash-legend/la-puerta/

Archived Copy

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Also, super exciting, both of our stories will be included in Molotov Cocktail’s Fifth Annual Prize Winners Anthology (details on that in late summer).

We’re looking forward to reading the entire issue.

The Molotov Cocktail is a Portland-based electronic literary journal serving as a projectile for incendiary flash fiction of the dark and offbeat variety. We believe flash fiction should ignite on contact and engulf the page.

Check them out on Twitter too.

My short story, Nocnitsa, was published in The Molotov Cocktail today!

My short story Nocnitsa was published in The Molotov Cocktail in their Issue 10.1 today - April 9, 2019!

They called it a “vivid and compelling piece”!

Archived Copy

Inspiration - I don’t remember how I happened across this creature. It may have been while researching nightmares during a relentless insomnia bout. But I was struck by its physiology – an ethereal being composed of smoke and a screeching voice. It caused me to imagine a lower physical body of vapor and sounds, the opposite of a physical self. According to folklore, she could shape shift into a raven, but that sounded too generic to me. I had recently become fascinated with the Vampire Finch, a blood sucker, which seemed more fitting for the Nocnitsa. Then I began wondering what specific kind of rage would make one into such a creature. When your body and everyone else fails you. And out of all that came my story of Nocnitsa.

About
The Molotov Cocktail is an Portland-based electronic literary journal serving as a projectile for incendiary flash fiction of the dark and offbeat variety. We believe flash fiction should ignite on contact and engulf the page.

Check them out on Twitter too.