One of my favourite stories ever (that I’ve written, anyway) was published this weekend in the latest issue of Shroud magazine. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am that Coming Storm has not only found a great home (just look at that cover!) but is now available for me to share with the world. When I showed this story to my favourite critic (my husband) he said, “Rhonda, this might be the best story you’ve ever written.” and since he doesn’t give unwarranted praise, that made my heart soar.
“Rhonda Parrish’s story “Coming Storm” is a particularly powerful piece of writing in Shroud 16. It addresses a number of important issues under a thin but riveting veneer of dark fantasy.”
*squee*
One more cool thing? If you check out this issue’s Amazon listing and use the ‘Look Inside’ feature you can read the first couple pages of it for free. Because #winning.
I received my contributor’s copy of Abominations last week and it made me -so- happy, you can’t imagine. Allow me to tell you some of the reasons I, quite literally, went ‘squee!’ when I got it. In no particular order:
The cover is amazing. Amazing. Bart Willard is one talented artist.
The front cover has a quote from Nate Kenyon saying, “…a knockout collection from some very talented writers.” I’m one of those writers. Wheee!
My story, Spoiled Picnic, is one of the stories blurbed on the back cover.
Spoiled Picnic is the very first story in the anthology. The first one. That, hopefully, means that everyone who buys the book will read my story first. How cool is that?
So yes, I was blown away by Abominations before I even started reading, but now that I’ve devoured it, from cover to cover, I love it even more. Every author’s take on the idea of Abominations was unique and interesting. I think my two favorite stories were ‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY CHARLES?’ by John Teehan and ‘STARVELITO’ by Lon Prater. Both of them are absolutely brilliant.
If you haven’t done it already and you like horror stories, you really ought to pick up a copy of Abominations, and trust me when I say I’d tell you that even if my own story wasn’t in it. Really. It’s a killer book 🙂
