Submissions Closed: Pulp Ink 2

Pulp Ink 2 submissions are closed. If you sent us something and haven't heard from us yet, you will soon.

Big thanks to everyone who submitted.

Be on the lookout for a lineup and cover in the near future.

Interview at BR Stateham's

I venture Into the Dark Mind of BR Stateham to talk about ADR, Pulp Ink, writing, noir, and other stuff. Pop on over and check it out here.

HELL ON CHURCH STREET by Jake Hinkson

Every once in a while you read a novel and are say, "What the fuck was that shit?"

I had this experience reading Jake Hinkson's Hell on Church Street.

It starts off innocently enough with a run-of-the-mill mugging in a Texas town. But nothing after that is what you'd expect.

The story ends up being about the victim of the robbery, Geoffrey Webb, a youth minister at a Baptist Church. Webb is keeping his head down doing a job he doesn't believe in when he suddenly and inexplicably falls in love with the pastor's fat, teenaged daughter. Webb finally has something he wants, and he goes after it (her) in a quietly manipulative fashion. Slowly, Webb and the daughter start seeing each other, until a corrupt sheriff sniffs out their relationship and puts the screws to Webb.

Let's just say things get fucked up from there.

I would put Geoffrey Webb up there with Jim Thompson's Lou Ford--this is a killer who you will not soon forget. He changes from a weak-willed blob of a human being to a vicious psycho so gradually that it's almost like he's sneaking up on you.

And at the end I wondered, was Geoffrey Webb actually a calloused murderer the whole time? Did he not change at all?

Jake Hinkson first came to my attention with the masterful "Maker's and Coke" from Beat to a Pulp: Round One. I knew at that point he'd be a writer I heard more from, but really nothing could prepare me for this disturbing, haunting, masterful book. 

HILL COUNTRY by R Thomas Brown

Gabe Hill comes home one night to find a pedophile dead and mutilated on his doorstep. This happens to be precisely the same pedophile Hill just got into a fight with only hours before--although he has no idea how he ended up dead... and on his doorstep.

Things quickly become stranger and more complicated for Gabe Hill. He discovers that a number of nefarious people connected to his long-lost, drug addict brother are after him, all of whom believe that Gabe is the key to getting their greedy paws on a bunch of money. It's not clear who--if anyone--Gabe should trust.

R Thomas Brown is an expert at crafting these lean, gritty tales that drift between crime and horror, and Hill Country (Snubnose Press) picks up right where his first book, Merciless Pact, left off. Brown's a sharp, no-nonsense kind of writer with a gift for creating smooth plots and interesting characters. I particularly enjoyed Tyler, a sociopath of the highest order, and the protagonist is a  likeable guy despite all the dumb choices he makes.

Fast-paced, surprisingly funny, and thoroughly human, Hill Country proves to be a Texas noir classic. (And don't you just love that cover from Eric Beetner?)

Stuff you should read...

So I know, dear readers, that I have not been keeping up with the original purpose of this blog recently--namely to recommend books and stories that I think you would enjoy. But I have still been reading and here's some stuff you should check out.

"Eyes Open" by Patti Abbott at Beat to a Pulp. This is a truly terrifying story. A father witnesses, from a distance, his son and one of his son's friends bullying a child with an intellectual disability. The father fails to deal with this issue at all--his resignation is tragically believable. I think I found this story particularly compelling because I'm in student teaching right now at a middle school--I have quickly discovered that teaching involves making about 10,000 decisions every day. You will make wrong decisions. Though I hope I have more backbone than the guy in this story.

Stick a Needle in My Eye by Julia Madeleine. This is a wicked collection of shorts from a writer who consistently impresses me with her attention to detail and her gift for creating suspense. From a clown who gets bullied and can't take it anymore, to a creepy guy stalking a stripper, Madeleine takes us on a tour of the strange and downtrodden. She has a penchant for crafting characters with mental illnesses--getting trapped in their heads is uncomfortable and oddly satisfying. 

Squid Kills by Jordan Krall. I bought this book completely on impulse--David James Keaton posted something about it on Facebook, and I saw it was bizarro crime (a genre that I love), and so I picked it up. Turns out that was an excellent decision because this book lives up to its promise. Krall starts things off with a surreal hitman story in "Assassination's Secret Domain" in which people use the derogatory term "squid fuckers." Descriptions really don't do this book justice--it's just a twitchy, fever-dream of weird tales and poems that you need to pick up. 

At All Due Respect

Over at All Due Respect, R Thomas Brown has a fantastic story in "Running Hard." Over the last year or so, Brown has established himself is a premier writer of crime short stories, and I'm proud to publish this piece. If you like it, you should check out some of his longer work, Merciless Pact and Hill Country.

Spinetingler Awards

Very honored to see that Pulp Ink has been nominated for a Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology. Nigel Bird, Steve Weddle, and all the writers put a lot of work into making this collection happen and it's nice to see it get the recognition it deserves.

So, vote for Pulp Ink.

Or vote for Luca Veste's charity anthology Off the Record, or David Cranmer and Scott Parker's Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled.

Some tough choices to make in every category.

I was also thrilled to see Nigel Bird's "Hoodwinked" at All Due Respect earned a nomination for Best Short Story of the Year. Nigel's one of my favorite people and this is one kickass story.

What I'm working on

So I'm writing this here novella. Ordering the letters, words, sentences and paragraphs to go in a certain order--you know, that nonsense writers do.

Anyway, here's the first chapter. It's turning out to be a tale of nihilistic noir. Any thoughts are appreciated.....by me.

BOWLING NIGHT CONFESSIONAL

By Chris Rhatigan

1.

I bowled with Mackey and Slade Wednesday nights. It started because we had all worked at the Pump ’N Munch together. Now I was the only who worked there.

Slade was the best bowler. Usually rolled 200-plus. Could put spin on the ball, make it curlicue. I don’t know why he bowled with us instead of in a league. Mackey and I rarely broke 150.

After we’d bowl, we’d go to the bowling alley’s bar and drink a few pitchers of beer. That’s what we were doing this particular night.

The bar was empty, and the bartender clearly wanted to go home. His elbows were on the bar, hand propping up his head, which looked like it could fall off at any moment, start rolling around on the brown tile floor. His droopy eyes were affixed to a touch-screen game of Keno.

I talked work, Slade talked women, Mackey talked the price of cigarettes, we all talked nostalgia.

We cycled through those topics quickly. Each one felt staler than the previous. We were not drunk enough.

Mackey polished off his glass of beer and poured a refill. He wiped a bit of foam off his mustache. “I break into houses,” he said. “Used to be once in a while, but now it’s a habit. Do it at least once a week.”

Slade said, “So what do you take? Jewelry, electronics, that kind of stuff?”

“No, I don’t take anything. I watch people sleep.”

“So, what, like attractive women?”

“Anyone, really. I like to see the rhythm of their breath. The way couples fight for the covers. How they get up in the middle of the night to take a leak and walk right past me.”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Break into houses.”

Mackey cracked his knuckles one by one. “I’ve gotten good at picking deadbolts. But usually I don’t even bother—people leave side doors and windows open.”

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” played over the speakers. Fucking terrible song. Must have been the fourth time it played that night. I don’t know why places do that. There must be a million songs they could play, but goddamned “Born to Run” is somehow deemed better than all of them on four separate occasions.

A muscular guy with a mullet on lane 24 rolled a strike. His skanky girlfriend in a garbage bag mini-skirt pranced over and embraced him. Good for them.

“I murdered a stranger,” I said. “About five years ago.”

 Mackey said, “How’d you do it?”

“Waited behind a dumpster in that alleyway between First and Jefferson. Some tall guy in a brown suede jacket and jeans passed by. I snuck up behind him. Beat him with a tire iron. Found out later that his name was Rudolph Penscott.”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“I agree.”

Slade ordered another pitcher. The bartender grunted. Managed to tear himself away from his game. I thought another pitcher was pointless—none of us were going to get drunk.  

Slade popped peanuts out of their shells and into his mouth. “I was driving home one time. I was pretty lit. A kid was crossing the street, a boy, no idea why he was out that late or what the fuck he was doing. I mean, where are the parents these days?” He stacked the shells in an obscene little pile. “Anyway, I hit him. He smacked the windshield hard, rolled off. I kept going. Then I put it in reverse and backed up over his body. I thought it would make a crunching sound, but it didn’t.”

Springsteen mercifully stopped singing. Only sound was the low whine of the ceiling fan. The couple on lane 24 had left. I wondered if they were banging in the parking lot. I hoped so. I wanted a look. The bartender had returned to his game.

The three of us stared at the patterns on the casino green rug, poster of some Nascar guy we could have cared less about, the flashing lights on the pinball machine.

We had a smoke outside on the sidewalk. Quiet night. Hot and muggy. Air hung around like it was waiting for a bus.

We went our separate ways.

Pulp Ink 2 update

Thrilled to share that Pulp Ink 2 will be published by Snubnose Press. Every Snubnose title I've read so far has been impressive, and I think the collection will fit in nicely with their other selections.

By the by, we've received a whole bunch of submissions so far. If you want in, now's the time to get going, as we won't be open for much longer. Check out the guidelines here. Also, we could use more on the horror side of things. 

MR GLAMOUR by Richard Godwin

Friend of the blog and fantastic writer Richard Godwin is here today to tell us about his second novel, which is fresh off the press from Black Jackal Books...

Designer goods, beautiful women, wealthy men, a lifestyle preyed on by a serial killer.

A killer who is watching everyone, including the police.

Latest headlines?

No, an outline of my second novel, Mr. Glamour.

My debut novel Apostle Rising was published in paperback by Black Jackal Books last year. It was about a serial killer crucifying politicians, and sold extremely well, received excellent reviews, and sold foreign rights to the largest publisher in Hungary.

Now Black Jackal Books have published Mr. Glamour, and I’d like to tell you a bit about it. The settings are exotic, and the pages drip with wealth. The story’s told in my usual style, and my readers will know what that means. I have been told I write with a blend of lyricism and graphic description. I like to explore what motivates people and I certainly do so with the leading characters in Mr. Glamour.

The two central cops, DCI Jackson Flare and Inspector Steele, are unusual and strong in their own ways, as reviewers are already picking up. At the beginning of the novel Steele hates working with Flare for personal reasons. She doesn’t by the end, and the investigation takes them both on a journey which changes them and their opinions of one another.

Let me give you the setting if you are tempted to read Mr. Glamour.

 

Something dark is preying on the glitz of the glamour set. There is a lot about designer goods and lifestyles in Mr. Glamour. The killer knows all about design, he knows what brands mean to his victims. He is branding their skins. And he has the police stumped.

As Flare and Steele investigate the killings they enter an exclusive world with its own rules and quickly realise the man they are looking for is playing a game with them, a game they cannot interpret. The killer is targeting an exclusive group of people he seems to know a lot about.

The police investigation isn’t helped by the fact that Flare and Steele have troubled lives. Harlan White, a pimp who got on the wrong side of Flare, is planning to have him killed. And Steele has secrets. She leads a double life. She is an interesting woman who pushes her sexual boundaries in private. She travels a journey into her own past and rescues herself. And in a strange way she is helped by the killer she is looking for. And Flare has some revelations in store.

As they try to catch a predator who has climbed inside their heads, they find themselves up

against a wall of secrecy. The investigation drives Flare and Steele to acts of darkness. And the killer is watching everyone.

Then there is the sub plot.

Contrasting this lifestyle is the suburban existence of Gertrude Miller, who acts out strange rituals, trapped in a sterile marriage to husband Ben. She cleans compulsively and seems to be hiding something from him, obsessed that she is being followed. As she slips into a psychosis, characters from the glamorous set stray into Gertrude’s world, so the two plots dovetail neatly with one another.

And when Flare and Steele make an arrest they discover there is far more to this glamorous world than they realised. There is a series of shocks at the end of the novel as a set of fireworks go off. Watch out for the highly dramatic ending.

It is already picking up some great reviews.

Advance praise for Mr. Glamour:

“Richard Godwin knows how his characters dress, what they drink and what they drive. He knows how they live--- and how they die. Here's hoping no one recognized themselves in Godwin's cold canvas. Combines the fun of a good story with the joy of witty, vivid writing.”
Heywood Gould, author of The Serial Killer's Daughter.

“Smart, scary, suspenseful enough for me to keep the light on until 3AM on a Sunday night, Richard Godwin once more proves to fans of crime fiction the world over with Mr. Glamour, that he is not only one of the best contemporary writers of the procedural cop thriller around today, he is a master storyteller.”  

Vincent Zandri, author of Scream Catcher.

“Richard Godwin’s top-of-the-line psychological police procedural driven by its heady pace, steely dialogue, and unsparing vision transfixes the reader from page one.” 

Ed Lynskey, author of Skin In The Game.

 “Mr. Glamour is a striking effort from one of the most daring crime writers in the business. It is the noirest of noir...and hellishly addictive.”

Mike Stafford, BookGeeks Magazine.

“This first rate detective thriller will have you gripped from the start. Richard Godwin is an author not to be missed.”

Sheila Quigley Author of Thorn In My Side.

“Mr Glamour is, in every sense of the word, the real McCoy: genuine hard boiled detective fiction.  Lean, gritty, and tough, it’s a journey into the heart of darkness ... you won’t soon forget. Connoisseurs of Nouveau Noir will have to add Richard Godwin to the list of writers to watch!”

C E Lawrence, author of Silent Kills.

“Involving and compellingly sinister, Richard Godwin’s Mr. Glamour portrays cops and criminals, the mad and the driven in a novel of psychological noir. Read it while snuggling with your stuffed teddy bear for comfort.”

Gary Phillips, author of Treacherous: Grifters, Ruffians and Killers

“This is one outstanding novel written by one amazing author.”

Fran Lewis Review.

I think Mr. Glamour will appeal to mystery and crime aficionados, to readers interested in psychological profiling and designer lifestyles, to thriller and noir fans, and to anyone who enjoys a fast paced narrative with strong characters.

Mr. Glamour can be bought now at Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

at all good retailers online and in stores in April. If you Google it you should see a range of options come up.

And you can find out more about me at my website

and my stories here

I'll watch you drown for free

A collection of 14 of my noir stories is now free on Smashwords.

It's a grand tour of loserdom, but in a fun way.

I'm pretty bad at this self-promotion thing, so, um, go get it! Go go go go!

Man Standing Behind by Pablo D'Stair

After reading D'Stair's series about small-time con man Trevor English, I knew I needed to read more of him. Also, because he's apeshit bonkers, his books are free. (Go look him up on Smashwords.)

The latest one I read is Man Standing Behind, and damn if it isn't one tight piece of writing. The premise is genius and simple: Roger is waiting in line at an ATM when a dude with a gun comes up behind him. But it turns out this guy doesn't want money. He wants Roger to accompany him on a journey. The journey has many stops in which the man catches up with old friends and acquaintances... and proceeds to shoot each one of them, seemingly for the joy of it.

D'Stair is a remarkably disciplined writer. The real payoff of this book is everything you never learn about--Why Roger? Why is this guy killing everyone he knows? Why doesn't Roger do anything about it? Who is Roger, besides a guy who is being forced to go places? D'Stair keeps his focus narrow to the point of absurdity.

At the end, I was unsure if this was a work of suspense or a work of anti-suspense. In fact, I was uncertain of literally everything. And it's D'Stairs ability to generate this unnerving experience that makes him brilliant.

Christopher Grant at All Due Respect

When Christopher Grant pops up, you know he means business. He has a series of flash pieces about the exploits of futuristic assassin Deviation Jones that you don't want to miss.

For all the non-stop action, check out All Due Respect.

Submissions Open: PULP INK 2

Pulp Ink is back--and like an HGH-injecting professional athlete, it's only getting stronger. We just hit 500 sales and are still in the top 100 mystery anthologies on Amazon.

That's why co-editor Nigel Bird and I are getting the band back together...

It's time for Pulp Ink 2. 

This collection will be a bit different than volume 1. This time we're looking crime AND horror stories. (Mash-ups of the two are also encouraged.) It's going to be a bit leaner than the original--fifteen stories.

But we still want that Pulp Ink attitude--fun, dark, action-packed fiction with characters who like to swear. (For more information, go buy the book.)

You want in?

Here's what we're looking for:
-- Crime, horror, and crime/horror
-- No traditional mysteries, police/PI procedurals, slasher/serial killer stuff, or people-talking-at-a-table stories
-- 1000-5000 words
-- MS Word documents only
-- One submission per author
-- Include a bio at the end of the story
-- No reprints
-- Unlike the first volume, this will not be tied to any particular theme

Got it? Good. Send it over to chris.rhatigan@gmail.com.

Top Five for 2011: Erin Cole

Erin Cole is one of the top writers of short horror. Her work made several top five lists at this very blog. If you're not hip to her, you should become so. She also blogs at http://erincolewrites.com/. Here are some stories from last year that she dug.

Consciousness, by Lily Childs - Lily Childs Feardom

http://lilychildsfeardom.blogspot.com/2011/06/mythos-minos-and-pinch-of-prose.html
 

There is a bit of magic in Lily's writing, and her piece, “Consciousness,” which won the UK's Writing Magazine/Writers News online forum's monthly One Word Challenge (stream), is one write that really stuck with me this year.  The rhythm of prose and creative imagery is brilliant and deeply inspiring.

Small Green Things, by Chris Allinotte - Thrillers, Killers, 'n' Chillers

http://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.com/2011/01/small-green-things-by-chris-allinotte.html

I always look forward to reading a story from Chris, because there’s no telling where you’re going to go, be it quirky, scary, thrilling, or just downright fun to read.  Most of the time, you get all of that in one story, like in “Small Green Things.”  And you can’t beat his endings.

The Exoneration, by Angel Zapata - Bolts of Silk

http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com/search/label/Angel%20Zapata

I had to include one of Angel’s poems, because I love them so.  There is a treasure of passion, darkness, and wisdom in his work, and I often find myself reading his pieces multiple times…they really are that good.

 

Spin Top – Swan on the Rocks, by Jodi MacArthur - Flashes in the Dark

http://flashesinthedark.com/2011/05/20/spin-top-swan-on-the-rocks-by-jodi-macarthur/

There is no shortage of originality in Jodi’s work, and “Spin Top – Swan on the Rocks,” is one of those writes that resonates with me.  Her perspective and prose is always an unexpected adventure into the darkness of mind and soul, and of course, I love that.

Down by the River, by Lydia S Gray - Brain Harvest

http://www.brainharvestmag.com/2011/09/down-by-the-river/

This is probably one of my most favorite reads this year.  Lydia isn’t afraid to cross certain boundaries, and she does so with confidence.  This story is absolute perfection in its details, execution, darkness, humor, and creativity. I would pay big money for her muse.