Introduction To Callan’s Purgatory Sex Twins

This is an introduction of sorts.

It’s actually an affirmation of what I think about the audience that comes to this site and the writers that write for it. I believe that this audience is adult enough to read the following story and not go apeshit over it and want for it to be removed or for the author to be told that they are engaging in a fantasy.

The following story is, in my opinion, both gruesome and beautiful and is ultimately a brilliant piece of writing.

It’s gruesome because of the subject matter, the incest and all the gory details. But this happens in our world and it should not be flinched away from simply because it puts our nerves on edge or makes us want to turn away and sweep it under the carpet.

That is, in my opinion, the biggest no-no in writing. You write about things that hurt, that make people want to turn away. You expose the light to these dark things. You don’t write about the simple stuff, or at least not all of the time.

A little while ago, Graham Smith had a story published at Thrillers, Killers ’N Chillers and, the exact same day, he had it removed because the editors were under pressure by a small, miniscule, really, number of people that didn’t like the story because of the subject matter.

I offered Graham to have his story published at A Twist Of Noir and he declined.

The biggest injustice in writing is to silence something.

So Purgatory Sex Twins is difficult to read and its subject matter is gruesome.

So what?

It is also beautiful. The beautiful part is the start of the story and what ultimately turns out to also be the ending of the story.

There is something that moves the reader in that ending.

And, because of that ending, the entire piece, I believe, becomes a brilliant piece of writing. It moves you from “What is this?” at the beginning to revulsion at the actions of not only the narrator but also the revulsion of the situation that both he and his sister find themselves in (and not just the incest but also the feelings that they share) and, by the end of the story, we now understand why it is that he cannot ascend the staircase with his sister, that being a metaphor for heaven.

Brilliant and I’m proud to have this story at A Twist Of Noir.

Introduction To Night Call by Dot King

A while back, I created a character that was a deaf hitman. Not to toot my own horn too much, but there was pretty good response to it, so much, in fact, that Jimmy Callaway took it upon himself to write a story about my deaf hitman character. Joyce Juzwik and Chad Eagleton followed suit and all three writers, in their own way, brought something new out of the character, something that I’m not sure that I would have thought of on my own. Each story was brilliant.

Flash forward to last week and Dot King decided to contact Graham Smith and ask him if she could continue where he left off with LONELY NIGHTS.

Graham gave Dot his blessing and it was off to the races for Dot. She ran the copy past Graham before sending it on to me and the rest, as they say, is history.

I think you will agree that Dot’s story, while answering some questions left unanswered in LONELY NIGHTS, raises new questions and stands as a nice addition to Graham’s tale.

Without further ado,  Dot King’s NIGHT CALL.

Introduction To Lonely Night by Graham Smith

Graham Smith made waves in the crime/noir fiction community last month when he wrote ANNIE’S STORY for Thrillers, Killers N Chillers. The story was published and then taken down, due to its content and some outrage at said content. Some outrage may be an overstatement. There were, as far as I know, only two, maybe three people that objected to the story.

As soon as I found out the particulars to the situation, I extended an invitation to Graham to publish his story at ATON.

There are two rules here at ATON that I live by when I publish stories:

The writer is god.

And

The editor is god.

When these two rules rub each other the wrong way, then there is trouble. Being a writer myself, and I think the numerous writers that I have published here can attest, there is rarely trouble.

Content has only been a problem once in all of the stories that I have published and only then because a writer had written a character that ingested cyanide and somehow lived, going into a semi-comatose state so that she could be snuck into another country, and is revived by the end of the story. Needless to say, this is not what happens when one ingests cyanide and I felt it was only asking for trouble if I published the story. I clearly explained to the writer that this was the reason why I was not publishing it. The writer didn't take it too well but I stand by my decision.

As far as I was concerned, Graham’s story was not the easiest thing to read and it made one’s skin crawl (and not least for the surface content but the subtext, as well). But isn’t that why we read fiction, to be amazed, to be touched, to be moved in one direction or another, to be outraged, to be angered and, yes, to be horrified?

In the end, Graham decided that he did not want to have ANNIE’S STORY republished at ATON, preferring to leave the entire situation and move on.

While it’s not the decision that I would have made, I respect his decision. It’s his story and he has the final say.

The following story, LONELY NIGHTS, I think you will agree, is top-notch and showcases Graham’s talent for keeping you on the edge of your seat. And damn does Graham know how to end a story.

Without further ado...

Second Day Of The 600 To 700 Challenge

What can you expect tomorrow?

How about...

Phil Beloin Jr.’s SIX-OH-FIVE A DAY, A Nameless Psycopath Mystery, Part 2

Phil Beloin Jr.’s ELEVEN PERCENT

Robert Crisman’s A DREAM LAY IN WAIT

Col Bury’s LUCKY SHIT

and

Robert Crisman’s PROTECTION RACKET

Welcome to the 600 To 700 Challenge

Today’s stories include:

SIX HUNDRED by Jimmy Callaway

THE TWIST by Richard Godwin

602 by Keith Rawson

THE DAY WE ATE MUSHROOMS AND THOUGHT WE COULD FLY by Matthew McBride

and...

Part one of a Nameless Psychopath Mystery, THE MOTEL ON THE 604 by Phil Beloin Jr.

Introduction To The Gary Lovisi Two-Fer

A couple of weeks back, Gary Lovisi approached me and asked me if I would be interested in reprinting a couple of his stories.

I have to be completely honest here and say that I very nearly passed out.

I mean, this is Gary Lovisi we’re talking about.

There are some names that you just read and you revere.

It doesn’t matter that they’re writers just like you are. It doesn’t matter that they’re editors just like you are.

There are people that you admire. There are people that you just fucking dig.

I both admire and dig Gary Lovisi and his work and I’m extremely honored to present two of his stories, both collected in his latest book ULTRA-BOILED, from Ramble House.

If you like these stories, slap down some cash for the book and enjoy the dark.

Introduction to Cindy Rosmus's Original ALL GONE

Over the weekend, you’ve been able to have a look at Cindy Rosmus's ALL GONE.

At least the version that appeared in Out Of The Gutter.

After I posted the story, I sent Cindy the usual note that I send all writers when one of their stories appears at A Twist Of Noir and I said that I thought that the girl at the end was the assassin until I was proven otherwise and the husband popped up.

Cindy responded and let me in on a little secret, that there was another version to ALL GONE.

It seems that the original version, the one that follows this introduction, was mulled over by an editor at Out Of The Gutter and this editor told Cindy that it would be published if there was a revised ending (the one that you read over the weekend). Cindy told me that she worked on it with this editor, that she believes that she did more than one rewrite and still it was not good enough for him. She said that he changed so much of the story that it stopped feeling like it was her story.

I want to make it clear that Cindy never named names, doesn’t even remember who the editor was. I also want to make it clear that this kind of thing has been mentioned to me more than once, and not necessarily with Out Of The Gutter. I, myself, have experienced just such an incident, in which my story was only accepted after I changed a bit of it around and, even then, there were whole sentences and a paragraph or two removed.

This is something that absolutely drives me up the fucking wall where it concerns some editors.

A writer sits down, thinks up a story, transcribes it, hopefully looks it over and makes sure that everything is where it’s supposed to be and everything has been said that they wanted to say. And then they send it off to a publication of some sort, whether online or print, and they wait and they hope and they cross their fingers and they wait some more and sometimes they're kept waiting for a long, long time.

Eventually, an editor or a publisher or both will have something to say about this story that the writer waited and hoped over.

And this is where an editor can either help or hobble a story.

As an editor and a publisher, I am being asked to consider the story, read it, go over it with a fine-toothed comb and make sure everything is okay, everything makes sense and that the story will entertain if it does see print.

But there is a line. And it should be a stark line.

Just because I am in possession of a story does not make it my story. Even when I decide that, yes, it will be going up at A Twist Of Noir, it is still not my story.

I hope that I provide a safety net for writers, as well as a place for publication. If a story falls short of the mark, I hope that I acquit myself well in explaining why I think this is the case and what I think might help make it a story that I can publish.

What I do not do is tamper with someone’s story to the point where they feel that it isn’t theirs any longer.

That’s not an editor; that’s, at best, a collaborator and, at worst, a thief.

The following is Cindy Rosmus’s original vision of ALL GONE, which starts out and runs to the middle of the story pretty much how you’ve read. But the ending, it don’t end the same. Not by a longshot.

I’m of the opinion that it ends much better than the other ending.

You be the judge.

Feel free to make comments here and at the story itself and let us know which ending you prefer.

Introduction To WINE WITHOUT MUSIC

A couple of weeks back, I received what I consider to be noir gold.

Laurie Powers, granddaughter of Paul S. Powers and daughter of John H. Powers, sent along a story called Wine Without Music, a nearly 7,000 word story that simply plays like a great movie in your head.

She worried that something of this length would not be eligible for publication at A Twist Of Noir, due to its length.

As with all writers or contributors to ATON, I assured her that it’s not the length of the story but the content.

The content, let me say again, is noir gold.

I’ve said enough, allow me to turn the stage over to Laurie.

In 1999, my aunt and I were going through my grandfather’s personal papers that had been stored away in an attic for almost 30 years. My grandfather, Paul S. Powers, had been a prolific pulp fiction writer during the 1920s through the 1940s. Most of his work was published in Wild West Weekly, a Street & Smith pulp fiction magazine, but he also wrote for Weird Tales in the 1920s. Later, after Wild West Weekly shut down in 1943, he wrote for several other Western fiction magazines. In the box was an unpublished memoir about my grandfather’s life as a pulp fiction writer. There were also 180 letters from the editors of Wild West Weekly during its production years, letters from relatives, several unfinished stories, and this story: Wine Without Music.

This story was a surprise. For one thing, it wasn’t a western, nor was it a horror story in the Weird Tales tradition. For another, it shows my father, John Powers, as a co-writer, which was a surprise because my father wasn’t a writer – he was a doctor. If the address shown on the manuscript is any indication, this story was written in the early 1950s, when John was in medical school.

Both my grandfather and my father, who were very close, battled alcoholism their entire adult lives, and their personal experiences lend some authenticity to “Wine Without Music.” My father eventually died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1964, and my grandfather died seven years later – not from drinking, but I suspect a broken heart had something to do with it. There were over a dozen letters from John in his papers, most of which were written in the last years of his life as he drifted in and out of society.

The memoir found in 1999, Pulp Writer: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street, was published in 2007. I recently discovered over two dozen unpublished short stories written by my grandfather in the years between 1940 and 1952, and I am now compiling the best of these for publication. One of these stories, “The Killing on Sutter Street,” can be found at Beat to a Pulp here.

If you want to learn more about Paul Powers, go to Paul S. Powers - Pulp Writer, or to my blog: Laurie’s Wild West.

Introduction To Chad Eagleton’s THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

Chad Eagleton has taken the entire foundation that I laid down in REVERBERATIONS and built more than just a story on it: he’s moved the entire house.

And that’s no disrespect to Joyce and Jimmy, who both wrote outstanding stories before Chad got his hooks into my Deaf Guy.

Be careful of depth here; you just might drown. And would that be such a bad thing?

Chad, my hat is off to you and your amazing story, which incorporates elements of all three existing Deaf Guy tales.

Without further ado...THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED.

Introduction To J.F. Juzwik’s BLIND DATE

I created The Deaf Guy (who still hasn't told me his name) for Dan O’Shea’s Church Challenge and thought that he would do what he does best: go unnoticed, slip in, slip out and fade into the night.

I figured that I would revisit him from time to time and there’d be some interest in him.

I had no clue.

First, Eric Beetner said to get on this character pronto because it would be hot, hot, hot.

Then Jimmy Callaway said the same thing and wrote a beautiful love letter to me, via The Deaf Guy.

It was after that that I told everyone that read the comments that I was thinking about opening up this character to be borrowed by whomever wished to do so, as long as they didn’t prostitute the character.

And Joyce took me up on the offer.

The story she has written is nothing short of breathtaking. It has so much action, while The Deaf Guy doesn’t move much more than a couple muscles, to reach down and raise the coffee mug to his lips.

It’s a sort of surreal experience watching a character that you created come to life under someone else’s “pen”. Surreal and exceedingly fun.

Joyce builds on the blocks that I built and Jimmy built upon and she does it so well.

Without further ado...BLIND DATE.

Introduction To Jimmy Callaway’s Closed Captioned

I’m just doing a lot of new things today, ain’t I?

This is, as the title says, an introduction to Jimmy Callaway’s love letter to yours truly.

We have no plans to get married just yet.

Both Eric Beetner and Jimmy have been urging me to do something more than just the one-off with whatever that Deaf Guy’s name is and I can assure you that something will be happening. What it is ain’t exactly clear. (Buffalo Springfield, eat your heart out!)

In the meantime, Jimmy has taken it upon himself to do exactly what he threatened and has written a story starring the Deaf Guy (still haven’t quite caught his name).

The cool thing about Jimmy’s story (and all of Jimmy’s stories are cool) is that he took just one of the remaining senses that our hero has, that of sight, and has run with it.

As I told Jimmy (after his story came in), the key to this character is that you incorporate as many of his remaining senses as possible. I sort of, unconsciously, did this in my story REVERBERATIONS, with only the sense of touch or feel put in intentionally.

Jimmy, however, proved me wrong with CLOSED CAPTIONED, focusing purely, as I said, on the sense of sight.

And, as serious as he was in REVERBERATIONS, our hero (goddamn, he’s going to tell me his name or so help me...) shows a lighter side in CC, even while doing what he does best.

I bow to the genius that is Mr. Callaway.