Category: fiction

My ‘new’ short story’s long road to publication

A story 45 years in the making has finally found a home.

Today, a short story I first drafted in the 1990s–and that began as a stubborn idea some 45 years ago–has broken free of its chrysalis and flung itself into the world.

“Shah Mat” makes its long-awaited (for me, anyway) debut in the latest issue of a new literary magazine, The Orange Rose.

“Shah Mat” is one of several writings I drafted in the mid-1990s, in a flurry of creative activity over several months, then set aside as I started to focus more on my career and other writing endeavors. Most of those drafts remain in that form and may never see publication, for good reason.

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Friday Five: a conversation with UK writer u.v. ray

‘I don’t write existential angst, I write existential rebellion.’

Just as the premature rumors of Samuel Clemens’/Mark Twain’s death were greatly exaggerated, so it is with UK writer u.v. ray. Never mind that his official author’s bio on Amazon claims he “went missing during a sail-boat trip in the Bermuda Triangle” last February, soon after he completed his chapbook Speed Trials ’94. He’s alive and well–or alive and writing at least–and is about to launch a new novel, Druggernaut, into the world. Currently Spinners editor Roual Galloway and u.v. are making final preparations for the book launch. It will be available very soon from 5767 Productions.

Writer u.v. ray with a proof copy of his new novel, Druggernaut

Born in Birmingham, England, u.v.’s raw, gritty fiction and poetry evokes comparisons to writers like Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs and others who captured the dark world of society’s underbelly. After dropping out of school at 15, he spent decades drifting through bars and nightclubs, experiences that fuel his works like We Are Glass (2012) and Drug Story (2019). His writing, published in numerous underground magazines, portrays a visceral exploration of alienation and fleeting redemption.

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