It finally happened. I'm published! My story "Howl" which started here in the forum contest has been published by Blue Stone Publishing in their anthology "First Light".
Congrats Terry, I got honorable mention too for my story "Reunited."
I also have just finished the revisions/edits for my Crystal Lake Publishing collection FLOWERS IN A DUMPSTER. And I'm currently working on edits for my Sinister Grin novella FORT.
I've been lucky enough to publish with Cemetery Dance a few times now, in Shivers VI and Cemetery Dance #72, with more good news coming soon. In the mean time, there's this:
I can't even believe Disintegrationis finally here, six years in the making. I started this in my MFA program back in 2009, writing the first half with my professor Lynn Pruett, who knew nothing about neo-noir. After I gave her copies of work by Will Christopher Baer and Craig Clevenger, she got what I was going for, and was extremely supportive. When I got to Dale Ray Phillips, who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he said it might not be thesis material, which means—not good enough. I put it aside to work on literary short stories with him, and it was worth the wait. A year and a half later, I had a week between gigs and wrote the second half, 40,000-words in five days, my fingers bruised, my arms aching, practically in tears when I stopped, feeling like I might throw up. That began the year search for a small press, where it was rejected 20, 30, 40 times. Running out of options, I decided to try and get an agent, and over 100 rejections later, Paula Munier at Talctott Notch called me, only 100 pages in, to say she loved it and wanted to sign me. I said finish the book, it's kind of dark. She did, and she signed me, and we went after the big six and their imprints. So many close calls, coming down to board votes in some cases, and then we got the offer from Random House Alibi. I knew we were taking a chance on this eBook only imprint, but it has been a fantastic experience, my editor there, Dana Isaacson, so supportive, helping to make this book so much better. A team of three copy editors, and four marketing/PR associates, gave me more support than I've ever gotten. Now, the day is here. I hope you enjoy the book, this neo-noir, transgressive thriller that is the first book in the Windy City Dark Mystery Series. It's kind of Dexter meets Falling Down. The second book, The Breaker, is also set in Chicago, with a different protagonist (out in late 2015, or early 2016). It's more like what Stephen King did with small town Maine novels than the F. Paul Wilson series, and his Repairman Jack.
“A dark existential thriller of unexpected twists, featuring a drowning man determined to pull the rest of the world under with him. A stunning and vital piece of work.” —Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting and Filth
“Sweet hot hell, Richard Thomas writes like a man possessed, a man on fire, a guy with a gun to his head. And you’ll read Disintegration like there’s a gun to yours, too. A twisted masterpiece.” —Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds and Double Dead
“This novel is so hard-hitting it should come with its own ice-pack. Richard Thomas is the wild child of Raymond Chandler and Chuck Palahniuk, a neo-noirist who brings to life a gritty, shadow-soaked, bullet-pocked Chicago as the stage for this compulsively readable crime drama.” —Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding
“Thomas builds his universe and its population with terse prose and dynamic, often horrifyingly visceral imagery that unspools with grand weirdness and intensity. Then he rips that universe apart, brick by bloody brick. Disintegration is provocative. It’s also damned fine noir.” —Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and The Croning
“A sodden, stumbling anti-hero in a noir so dark it makes much of the rest of the genre seem like Disney movies by comparison. Gritty, obsessive, and compulsively readable.” —Brian Evenson, author of Immobility and Windeye
“Disintegration is gritty neo-noir; a psycho-sexual descent into an unhinged psyche and an underworld Chicago that could very well stand in for one of the rings of Dante's Hell. Richard Thomas' depraved-doomed-philosopher hitman is your guide. I suggest you do as he says and follow him, if you know what's good for you.” —Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Little Sleep
“In sharp, icy prose that cuts like a glacial wind, Richard Thomas’ dark Chicago tale keeps us absolutely riveted to the very end.” —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff
Through Wednesday, the digital edition of my two novella collection WHISONANT/CREATURES OF THE LIGHT (originally published through Sideshow Press) is free for Kindle.
Through Wednesday, the digital edition of my two novella collection WHISONANT/CREATURES OF THE LIGHT (originally published through Sideshow Press) is free for Kindle.
Through Wednesday, the digital edition of my two novella collection WHISONANT/CREATURES OF THE LIGHT (originally published through Sideshow Press) is free for Kindle.
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