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Good morning everyone. I know I’ve been irregular in posting content over the last handful of years. Today’s post is twofold. One, it’s to say, “Hey, I’m still here.�� And, Two, to ask for your help. No. No. No. There is no money involved. Read on.

I’m not a fan of Amazon. It has been a necessary evil, but still an evil. The issue has become that I make nothing with my books on Amazon. Literally. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. I have made a total of less than $3.00 on digital books sales in the last three years. I see the downloads and I don’t get it.

I have contemplated pulling my books from Amazon for a while now. I don’t like how they profit far more than the actual writer does and treats them like they are the contents of used disposable diapers. I’ve also had so many reviews removed from Amazon for some BS reason or other. Their pages read algorithm screws writers like myself (and so many others) who do not have a large following.

Now there is the whole AI thing, and yes, I consider AI a form of stealing. I have also discovered some of my books were used in the whole Meta AI training BS.

All of this has had a massive impact on my desire to release books and do events. I have, at least, nine books I have not released to the world simply because I don’t want Amazon and scalpers alike to profit off of them. I know this sounds petty or even butt hurt and it might just be both of those. It is what it is, whatever IT is.��

So, here is what I’m asking from anyone who reads this: Since you’re already here on Type AJ Negative, I want you to click this . It will take you to the page for A Stitch of Madness. If you haven’t read this book, read the description, see if it’s something you might like. At the end of the description is a clickable link that reads: A Stitch of Madness Website PDF. Click on that. This should open a PDF of the collection.��

What I need to know is does the PDF open for you? If it does, great. That’s what I want.��

Just so you know, it is not a downloadable PDF. Clicking the link will only open the book in your browser.��

Do y’all mind doing that for me? I would greatly appreciate it.��

Two more things: One, if you try this, will you leave a comment below, letting me know if it worked or didn’t work? And, two, feel free to read the three stories in the book. It’s free.

That’s it. That’s all I am asking. I want to make sure this works before changing all of the book pages on the site, then uploading new books no one has read yet.

Thank you, and until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Hey. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are.

This is my first post for 2025. It’s a bit late, but I’ve been fairly inconsistent with these over the last couple years. Or, maybe I’m consistently inconsistent.��

I want to talk about a project I was a part of at the tail end of 2024. It’s called Sleeve of Hearts, a poetry anthology.��

“Poetry?�� you asks?��

Yeah, poetry. I know, I know. I don’t write poetry. Well �� that’s not necessarily true. You see ��

Wait. Wait. Concentrate. Too many voices in my head.��

I’m not here to discuss me writing poetry. I’m here to tell you about Sleeve of Hearts, a poetry anthology put out by Lindsey Goddard and Weird Wide Web. What started out as a contest over at the Weird Wide Web website with a possible ten winners, quickly morphed into something much larger. Instead of limiting the contest to those ten winners, Goddard decided to turn it into an anthology.��

You see, Goddard asked the authors considering submission to bare their souls, to essentially put their hearts on their sleeves. When I write poetry, it’s always a baring of my soul. There’s such raw emotion in every poem. Almost every poet I know is exactly the same. Poetry can be whimsical and fun, but more often, it’s a way to deal with deep, deep scars, traumas, hurts, disappointments, depression, anxiety, and anger.

I paid attention to Goddard during this, read her posts about it. The excitement she exuded about curating this book made me consider submitting. I knew the poem I wanted to submit, but I was hesitant. You see, my poem, is about suicide. It’s such a taboo subject and I don’t understand why. It’s an important topic we should talk more about.��

When I finally decided to send my piece in, I was, honestly, nervous. With the piece being so personal, I wasn’t sure how I felt about others reading it. Not that I didn’t think it was good. I fully believed it was, but I’m not a poet and I was asking my piece to be stacked against some amazing poets. And poetry, being personal, means there is a story behind it. It’s a story I’ve talked about a few times and it’s also why so many of my short stories over the last few years deal with the subject of suicide. I’ll discuss that at a later date.

For now, let me go back to December, to Goddard’s excitement, her exuberance, her determination that Sleeve of Hearts was going to be amazing. Having worked with her in the past, I really felt this could be something special, simply because she was baring her own soul right along with her authors.��

My poem was accepted the same day I sent it in. I was in. I was in.

The editing and formatting phases came and I received a copy to look over. I was to make sure my poem was formatted right, on the right page, my name was right and to go through it to make sure nothing more needed done to the poem. What I did was read the book, from beginning to end over a couple hours one morning. When I was finished, I thought, Holy cow, that was amazing. There are so many great pieces in this book. I was floored that I was alongside such amazing artists.

Sleeve of Hearts was released on December 29th and in less than a week had made it to number one in the Poetry Anthologies category on Amazon. It was cool seeing that ranking for a few days.

Now that all the release buzz has died, I’ve taken another look at the anthology. It’s better than I thought. There’s so much heart, so much pain, so much realness in this collection of poems. It’s insane. I firmly believe this book will win some awards. Listen, y’all know me. I’m not about hyperbole. I don’t even sing such high praises for my own books. This is something special.��

So, now that you’ve read this far, this is where I ask you to get a copy of Sleeve of Hearts. This is where I say drop a handful of bills to read some amazing poetry. It doesn’t matter if you don’t read poetry—I don’t either, for the most part. It doesn’t matter if you find poetry bland—these pieces are far from bland. Many of these authors you’ve probably never heard of. Sleeve of Hearts is a piece of their voices, a piece you get to experience.��

Pick up a copy . You will enjoy this book. Also, after you read it, you might search for some of the authors in here. You won’t regret that either.��

Thank you for swinging by on this cold day. Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

I’m trying to start a new series here on Type AJ Negative based on the Ask Me Anything premise. You ask a question and I answer it, either honestly or sarcastically or both. I will shoot for honesty every time, but sarcastic questions deserve sarcastic replies. To do that, I need questions from you, the readers of Type AJ Negative. If you have a question, feel free to drop it in the comments below.

For the first Ask Me Anything (AMA going forward), I received a great question from Darque Pixie Designs over on Facebook. The question is:

Do you find your inspiration more at certain times of the year?

I love that question. It takes a question writers hear often and becomes specific.

To answer honestly, yes, I do. Let me explain.

I write throughout the year on whatever pops in my head at the time. But every year since 2001, usually starting around July, I start researching the events of 9/11. I write a story every year around the anniversary of the events of that day. It’s somewhat of an obsession. I start planning the story out in July, sometimes earlier.

As of the writing of this post, it’s been 23 years since the attacks on America killed nearly three thousand people—and many more have died since from sicknesses developed from being at ground zero. In those 23 years, I have written 24 stories, one on the night of the events of that day. The other 23 have been written throughout the years, each one titled the number of the anniversary.

These are some of the hardest stories I have ever written. Almost all of them have moments of heart wrenching sadness and to put my mind in the place to be able to write them is exhausting. The longest of these stories is 22 at just over fourteen thousand words. It’s the only piece I’ve written that takes place in one of the towers. The shortest of these is 23, at not even six hundred words. Probably the most emotional is 19, because of the subject matter of that particular story—a message left on an answering machine by someone write before she died that day.

Usually, when I finish one of these stories, I don’t write anything else for over a week, sometimes two or three. It’s almost like a mourning phase for me, and it takes a little time to move along from the emotions of the research and the writing.

Darque Pixie Designs, I hope that answers your question and thank you for sending it my way.

To everyone else, please give this post a like and follow if you don’t already. Also, if you have a question you would like to ask, drop it in the comments below.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

10/22/2024

Back in April of this year, I submitted my first piece in a long while. It was a nonfiction piece that was sent to Memento Mori Ink. In complete transparency it was a requested piece, so submitting it might be a stretch, though it could have still been rejected. I also sent a story to a contest around the same time. The story didn’t win, but it was nice to send a story out with hopes it would get published.��

In May, I sent two pieces to Lisa Vasquez for Napalm Psalms. I knew only one would get picked but I wanted her to have a choice. She chose the better of the two and one of my favorite psychological pieces titled, Duality. I sent one story out in June that was ultimately rejected.

Sending out those five pieces created an itch I haven’t had in a long, long time. So, in July I set out to submit thirty-one stories, one for each day of the month. It was a lot of work, but I managed to meet my goal. That put me at a total of thirty-six stories submitted on the year. Umm �� I haven’t submitted thirty-one total stories combined since 2011.��

Let me tell you, the rejections rolled in. I mean, seriously. I received thirteen rejections in the span of two weeks, almost one a day. It was disheartening, but I knew this would happen, Then I received an acceptance for the Weird Wide Web’s podcast for my story, She’s A Vampire, I’m A Hobo. When I heard the story (done by Lindsey Goddard) I got really excited.��

Since then, I have really dug my heels in, trying to find places for my work. There is one very big problem, though: I’m not really a horror writer anymore. Sure, I write some darker words on dark, real life subjects, but I don’t write what I feel is stereotypical horror anymore. I’ve experimented with different styles and genres (like mystery, romance and literary, as well as poetry).

Even though trying to find paying markets is a little frustrating, I find I’m enjoying sending stories out. I’ve also been keeping track of all of the submissions in a spreadsheet. So, here are the latest statistics on the year:

Submissions: 64

Responses: 45

Rejections: 32 (bummer)

Acceptances: 13 (Awesome sauce)

Acceptance Rate: 28.9%

The acceptance rate is really good. I was hoping for something between 20%-25%, so I’m happy with that number. Thirteen acceptances is more than I have had in any year since 2010, when thirty-three stories were accepted.��

Of those thirteen acceptances, seven have already been published. Below are links to those seven stories. Please take a few minutes to check them out. Some of them are free to read, others are parts of books or magazines, so, yeah, there’s a purchase price.

at The Weird Wide Web Podcast.��

at Memento Mori Ink Magazine (Nonfiction)

at Exquisite Death

at Dark Descent, Whispers From Beyond Volume III

at Wilhelm Presents Frightening Tales

at Micromance (yes, this is a love story)

at Napalm Psalms��

Thank you for stopping by. Also, thank you for taking the time to look over some of those stories. I’m excited to be putting out work again.

If you have a few extra seconds, please take the time to like the post, leave a comment and share it with your friends. I greatly appreciate it.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

I leave notes at the end of all my books (except for , because the notes are at the end of each story). They are generalized notes about each story, just a little something for you, the readers, giving you some insights on them. I’ve been wanting to go more in depth on some of those stories for several years. This is the first of those deep dives, and it’s about a story that was written in one sitting and has recently been republished at the website Exquisite Death.

This deep dive is for the story, The Scarring. It first appeared in my collection, , released by Stitched Smile Publications in 2018. It’s one of the darker pieces, and maybe one of the more violent pieces I have written. It’s also one of the more misunderstood pieces and that is probably my fault. I’ll explain, but you’re going to have to stick with me for a few minutes.��

This is the note for The Scarring I left at the end of Voices:

You met the main character of this story as Nothing, the guy with all the scars and pent up hate and anger. I knew him by a different name when I started writing this piece. But a funny thing happened as I wrote this story: the main character didn’t want to use the name I had given him. He kept whispering to me, ‘My name is Nothing.�� Of course, I didn’t listen to him. Then he decided to stop the car and tell me to get out, just get out if I’m not going to listen to him. ��

I was stubborn, as I’m apt to be. Just ask my wife, or really anyone who knows me. I was determined to use the name I had given him. He was determined to not cooperate until I called him Nothing. In the end, I lost the battle of wills. Here’s the funny thing: for the life of me, I can’t remember the name I had originally picked out for him. The use of his name wasn’t meant to be–he was meant to be Nothing. And so, he is.

This is a decidedly different story, one that is more telling than anything else. At least until the end. It also came about because of a scar on the palm of my left hand, put there by a nail over twenty years ago. Nothing like a hammer, a nail, and a rotten piece of wood. ��

Before you go any further, if you have not already done so, let me encourage you to read the story at the Exquisite Death website . Don’t, worry, you can click on the link and it will open the page in another window. Also, The Scarring is short, so it won’t take that long to read.��

Okay, did you read it? I hope so. That will make the rest of this make sense.

Seeing how I only really mentioned the name of he main character in my notes, it’s easy to see how some would think this story is solely about revenge. However, it isn’t. This story is really more symbolism than revenge. It’s about how we let the traumas of our past dictate our lives. Those traumas are like scars left behind either physically, mentally, or emotionally. Or all three. We can do one of two things with these events, learn from them or dwell on them. If we learn from them, we can move beyond them. If we dwell on them, as Nothing does in the story, then there is no moving on, we can’t be better, so to speak.��

To further illustrate my point:

I’ve been cheated on twice, both before I got married. The first time, I actually caught my girlfriend in the act. I didn’t explode or get mad like I thought I might if that ever happened. I just said, “Oh, hey, wait. Don’t stop. Y’all keep doing what you’re doing. I know my way out.�� Literally, that’s what I said. I got over it pretty quickly. I mean, if she didn’t want me, then I didn’t want her. This was a case of not letting the trauma control me or dictate my actions.

The second time was a little more difficult. My then girlfriend broke up with me in April of that year. She never told me why, just “It’s over.�� I had the hardest time dealing with that. Give me something. Did I do something wrong? I wracked my brain for months trying to figure it out.��

Turns out, I was wrong. I did nothing wrong. I found out in July that she had been having an affair and had �� wait for it �� gotten pregnant. That one �� that one made me angry. You see, not only was she cheating, her roommate knew about it and covered for her. At that point, I was like, “F—k it. I can’t trust women.�� For about three years after that, I wouldn’t give women the time of day. For those three years, I let the two women who cheated on me and the one who hid the truth from me, dictate my actions. I dwelled on it. I let the scars left behind by those women determine what I did when it came to other women. That was the wrong way to handle it. I bottled it up, didn’t talk about it, and it absolutely ate me up. That is, until my wife became the stars in my eyes, mind, and heart.��

Let’s look at The Scarring, now, and yes there are spoilers here, so it’s your last chance to scroll up, hit that link and read the story before continuing on.��

Nothing is asked if he loves. No. He hates. He does so because of how he was raised, how he was hurt, how he was scarred. The circumstances of his childhood were horrific, and that’s putting it lightly. So, Nothing hates until Lena becomes the stars of his eyes, mind, and eventually, heart. Unfortunately, for Nothing to get beyond hate, he had to address the root of that hate, and that was his father. He does so violently and with Lena’s somewhat unwilling involvement. At the end he asked do you love one final time. He says Yes. Everything that had ever hurt him was no longer a part of his life and he no longer hid his scars.��

Before anyone yells at me saying I’m encouraging violence to solve problems. No. No, I’m not. Again, the story is very much symbolic of moving forward after trauma or letting trauma dictate what you do with your life. In Nothing’s case, the root of his trauma and his hate was his father and his scars—mental, physical, and emotional—had never been dealt with, which is why he was the way he was. It was never about revenge. It was always about letting go. The first instance of letting go is letting Lena see the scars. That was the beginning of dealing with it. Unfortunately, once he began Nothing could only let go in one way, a violent rage. The reason it ended the way it ended was Nothing suppressed every pain he ever had until he had to address it. By then, he saw only one way to do that. In reality, that was the wrong way.��

The moral of the story is simple: don’t let trauma in your life get to the point of where the only thing you can do about it is do something drastic, either to yourself or someone else. Address trauma head on. Seek help. See a therapist. But don’t suppress it to the point of boiling over and exploding. That never ends well.

Thank you for coming along for this deep dive. I hope you enjoyed it. If you don’t mind, please drop a like and leave a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

In the many years I have been in this business, I have met a lot of writers. Many of them have passed out of my life through time. It’s the nature of things. Some of them have become like family. Again, the nature of things. Some of them have left horrible impressions and I have helped them exit my life. Yes, it’s them, not me. Then there’s people like Lindsey Goddard. Lindsey and I go way back to the early days of me seeking publication. We connected through social media, became Internet friends. We’ve both worked with publishers and have had our hands in quite a number of projects.

Lindsey has published a few of my stories in various places, like in the anthology, Quixotic: Not Every Day Love Stories. The story was Sunday, a non-traditional vampire love story. Then there was the piece, Release, a story no one would touch because of subject matter. She took it for the publication The Monsters Next Door, which is an appropriate title, given the subject matter of the story. Here, recently, she took my short story, I’m a Hobo, She’s A Vampire for her podcast on The Weird Wide Web.��

With all that said, let’s have a sit down with Lindsey Goddard.

Who: Lindsey Goddard

What: Writing, The Weird Wide Web, Podcast, Life

Why: I want to. Why else?

A.J.: Good morning, Lindsey. I hope you are doing well.

LG: Good morning, A.J. I am! I have fresh coffee.

A.J.: Let’s jump right in here. Will you tell the world who Lindsey Goddard is?

LG: An author with roots in horror fiction who likes to sneak into other genres and darken them up as well! Haha. I make gothic arts and crafts, and the home décor in my house reflects as much. I enjoy blogging and connecting with other creatives. I’m currently working on my first True Crime book about murder in my home state of Missouri.

A.J.: You’ve been writing a long time, probably longer than I have. What got you started in writing?

LG: I won a Mother’s Day poetry contest in first grade. They framed my poem and gave me a dozen roses for my mom. It was the proudest moment of my young life. The next time I felt that rush was when I sold a short story to an indie ‘zine at the age of fifteen. It’s a feeling of gratification unlike any other. I’ve put writing aside many times in my life as my circumstances change �� But I always find my way back.

A.J.: I think, as writers, and really any artists, we leave, but we’re always drawn back. The obsession is real. You like the darker things in literature. What is it about horror that appeals to you?

LG: Horror is real. It’s all around us, threatening to affect our comfortable daily lives. Watching the news has always given me a helpless, sinking feeling. But when I write horror, I take back my control. I can decide the outcome. Much safer to be the author than the character, I think.

A.J.: I agree with you there. I don’t want to be the victim of someone else’s horror story. Let’s change gears and talk about The Weird Wide Web. What led to you creating this?

LG: I purchased the domain at in early 2020, but it took a while for the project to find its true purpose. Seems like everything stopped in 2020, doesn’t it? And the world is just now waking up again.��

The pot of Crazy Stew that is Weird Wide Web simmered on the back burner for a WHILE, and it got better in the process. My original plan was to blog and podcast, but now there are writing contests and much more fun to come.

A.J.: You do interviews and narrate stories on the podcast. First, how do you go about choosing the people you want to interview? Second, you do all the narration on the stories, including sound effects. How much goes into putting together the stories before they air?

LG: Although authors and artists are portrayed as impatient madmen in cinema, the truth is, they have an endearing resilience—this compulsion to connect with other people and get their work into the world. So, I never have to seek out my interviewees. They always find me!

I am discovering as the podcast grows that it’s pretty darn labor intensive, but with only two episodes a month, I’ll survive! I think!

A.J.: Do you have as much fun with the podcast as it sounds like you do?

I’m having so much fun, I’m going to change my middle name to Fun. Lindsey Fun Goddard. That’s me. That’s how freaking fun this podcast is! Find out more at:

A.J.: For The Weird Wide Web, what types of stories do you look for both for your contests and for the podcast?

LG: It’s funny because, to read the four winning contest entries we ended up with last contest, a person might assume I was looking for horror. I wasn’t. Neither was Mitzy Carter, my fellow submissions reader. We ended up with a Top 15 stories toward the end of judging the 157 entries. A couple were sci-fi, a few were dark fantasy, some satire, or speculative fiction that cannot be boxed into a genre. But in the end, we chose the stories that packed the most punch. Stories that were not only well-written, but made us go, “Wow, that was clever.��

And �� As far as the podcast, I tell you �� it just fell into harmony with the universe. The right stories have landed in my lap at the right times.�� *hippie voice* The podcast is meant to be, man.

A.J.: Being longtime Internet Friends, I’ve watched you chase publishing as much as I have, taper off, then chase it again. Recently, I’ve noticed you enjoy submitting stories to various podcast. Why is this?

LG: Wow. What a great question, because I’ve never thought about the true reason for this until now: Podcasts and audiobooks saved my life. There was a point in my life where I was under so much STRESS that I couldn’t focus on books. I would read the same sentence TEN TIMES before absorbing it. My brain just wasn’t having it. But I did not want to live without fiction. In fact, I cannot live without fiction. So, I turned to podcasts and audiobooks. During this time, I began to really LOVE podcasts! Some made me feel like I was tuning in to an old dramatic radio broadcast in the 1940s and just getting lost in the story.

A.J.: Has this become somewhat of an addiction?��

LG: You tell me! I had a story on Creepy Podcast recently, and in the coming months I’ll have stories on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, Nocturnal Transmissions, The Morbid Forest, and Wilhelm’s Frightening Tales, with submissions pending at even more podcasts! Haha.

A.J.: Oh, wow. That’s a lot of places. Congratulations on those. Now, the next question is always one of those tougher questions to answer, but if you could give yourself any advice (and it doesn’t matter what it is about it), what would that be?

LG: I would tell my younger self that I was worth more than the buzz inside the bottle when the world broke me, and I turned to alcohol. It only made it harder to piece myself back together.

A.J.: That’s some seriously good advice there. So many people could use that these days. One last thing, Lindsey. Where can the weird wide world find you?

LG: Well, if you’re into visiting websites that never get updated, I have great news! Here’s mine!

Also, I just released an expanded version of my 2016 novella, Ashes of Another Life, with never-before-published content, such as bonus material in the middle, an epilogue, and a prologue. The old version had 18 ratings on Amazon, and sadly, the new book hasn’t received any so far. If anyone would be so kind as to hop over there, read, and review, it would mean the world to me. Here’s the link:

A.J.:Thank you for your time, Lindsey. I wish you well with The Weird Wide Web and your publishing endeavors. Have a great day and chase those dreams.��

LG: Thank you, A.J. I feel lucky to have stayed acquainted with you this long. You have remained on my social media despite me losing my mind a few times. Haha. Much appreciated! I look forward to our NEXT project together!

A.J.: Before I go, I want to say thank you for stopping by. Hit that like button at the end here and leave a comment if you don’t mind. Also, check out Lindsey through social media and her website and give the Weird Wide Web a look. Every set of eyes on a writer’s pages, every like, every comment, are motivators for artists of any type.��

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

10/06/2024

A couple years ago, I hit a wall. Not literally, but definitely figuratively. The wall was tall and thick and made of all sorts of things, the biggest of those being heavy bricks called DOUBT. The mortar between those bricks was called DISCOURAGEMENT. I tried climbing the wall, but fell several times. Man, bruised ego, bruised confidence and just bruises happen when you fall from a wall you thought you could climb. Me and Humpty Dumpty were scrambled at the same time.��

For a while, I quit climbing the wall. It wasn’t worth it. Then one day I found myself standing at the wall again. I looked at it. Man, it was so high up. I couldn’t see the top. Looking at it was even more discouraging. I thought about climbing it again, but the effort really wasn’t there. I ended up slinking away, leaving all my climbing gear at the base of that wall.

At the beginning of the year, I stood back at the wall. I looked at it hard. Again, it looked so tall and so daunting and I thought ‘this just isn’t going to work.�� I walked away from it again. But this time I found myself not getting far enough from the wall so I couldn’t see it. Every day, I saw that wall of DOUBT and DISCOURAGEMENT.��

Instead of shutting my window and pulling the curtains, I did something I hadn’t done in years. I submitted a story somewhere. Granted, it was a submission that was by invitation, but it was still a submission. It got accepted. Hmm �� Then I sent something to a contest and it didn’t get accepted. Still, the rejection letter was nice enough. Then I signed on with Memento Mori Ink to write a piece for them.��

The wall suddenly had a few cracks in it. I picked up my climbing gear from the base of he wall.��

In July, I decided to send out 31 stories in 31 days. I’ll talk about those stats in another post, but a few acceptance letters (along with quite a few rejections) made me think I could climb the wall and maybe tear it down one day.

With that said, part of climbing the wall is understanding some things about me, my writing and my desires. Do I really want to climb that wall? Yes, I do. Part of that is getting back to regular posts with Type AJ Negative. I used to posts pieces every Tuesday, then that got sporadic, at best, when I fell off the wall. Bruises will do that to you.��

This post is not to tell you what’s coming, about publications or any of those things. It’s just to tell you that Tuesday post on Type AJ Negative is a thing again. Some of those posts are going to be interviews with folks. Others will be about progress in climbing the wall. Others will be my stats for a given month (and overall). Other posts will be about the journey, some of those things I posted on my now shut down Patreon (damn, that wall).

If you’ve stuck with me all these years since I opened Type AJ Negative (twelve as of July), thank you. Come see me on Tuesdays. If you’re new, I hope it’s worth your time to be here.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.��

Good afternoon, y’all. I’m stoked to announce my story, I‘m A Hobo, She’s A Vampire is up at he Weird Wide Web Podcast. Lindsey Goddard is the host of this podcast and it is clear she had fun with this. My story is the first one on the podcast. Please, listen through to the end if you have time. It’s good and Lindsey did a great job with all of the stories. You can click the link below to listen.

I’d like to thank Lindsey Goddard and The Weird Wide Web for the opportunity to appear in this podcast.

Also, if you have a few extra seconds, will you please share the podcast on your pages? Just recently I started submitting stories again and this is the first of those stories to go somewhere besides my computer. I appreciate it.

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Along the Splintered Path was released in 2012 by Dark Continents Publishing. It was my first experience, as a writer, having a publisher take a chance with my stories to the extent of releasing a short collection of them. For me, it was a massive learning experience. Sure, I had worked with editors and publishers before but on a single story basis, not a book focused solely on me. It was, to be honest, a little intimidating. I don’t know why—David Youngquist and his team were outstanding to work with. With Tracy McBride doing the editing, and being patient with me, especially given I had pneumonia during the editing phase.����

I will be completely honest here, the hardest part of the entire process was coming up with the title for the collection. I had no clue what to call it. Several weeks passed before my friend, Paula, came up with the title in a chat room.����

Why not call it Along the Splintered Path?��

It made complete sense to me. Each of the main characters had a prickly past of sorts. From Phillip, who lost his job, home and family and was living on the streets when his story started, to James, who was trying to save his marriage only to learn there was no saving it and ending up in a broken situation—in more ways than one—to Kyle and Kenneth, whose splintered childhoods were dominated by an angry father with a quick temper and a woodshed.��

Below is the synopsis for Along the Splintered Path:��

Life is a winding road. It turns and twists and forks and sometimes it comes to a dead end. It can narrow. It can widen. Sometimes, the road is short, while other times it goes on for miles. Sometimes the road is full of potholes. Other times it is smooth, and the ride is joyful. The road might be paved, or maybe it is a dirt road or a barely visible footpath.������

Each road—each path—we take leads us further on our journey. One road can lead to fortune and fame and another one can lead to ruins. Which road you take doesn’t guarantee you reach the destination the way you intended.����

What happens when you take a wrong turn? What happens when you follow the wrong path?����

Along the Splintered Path takes you on a journey of right and wrong, of paths chosen and lives altered. Come along as A.J. Brown tells us three stories of souls splintered by the events of life. How do they overcome those events, or do they overcome them at all? The answers could be the difference between sanity and madness.��

From Starburst Magazine:��

A.J. Brown’s debut novella presents three short stories of moralistic caution, human failings, and dark, unrelenting horror. He has a fresh, unique voice that brings the characters to life with a skill and experience that makes this a real page turner all the way to its deliciously macabre ending.��

So, this guy knows how to write.��

In��Phillip’s Story, a tramp discovers a bag of money that changes his life, but in a series of flashbacks we learn that the money has a violent history littered with carnage and death. But in a wonderful twist we see seeds of hope spring from its bloodied past. Phillip’s Story is worth the cover price alone, which by the way is a modest £1.98.��

Round these Bones��is a grim survival story of a man who after a bitter split with his partner takes a plunge off a cliff in his car. He lives, although injured, and realises that he won’t be able to make it back to the road without help. Which is a problem, because it’s the grip of winter and it’s cold –��oh, so cold. Then he notices the hut: his once slim chance to make it through the night. But the hut isn’t what it seems, and the horror is only just beginning…��

The Woodshed. There’s something to be said about saving the best for last. This is the craft at its absolute best. An evil has infested the heart of a family, and can Karl break the cycle of violence.��

There are more reviews, and you can read them at Amazon or just go to Type AJ Negative and read them. ��

To David Youngquist and his staff at Dark Continents Publishing, thank you for that opportunity. It gave me the belief in myself I needed to eventually put out books of my own.��

To you, the readers, if you have never read this collection (or any of my works outside of this site, hop over to and pick up a copy. If you have read it, and haven’t already done so, can you leave a review on Amazon or even here on the ?��

Thank you for popping by and reading my words. I hope they don’t bore you and are, at least, entertaining.��

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one anothere.��

A.J.��

Last week I posted about the magazine Memento Mori Ink coming in August. You can read about that here: . My article The Hook of Relatability will be in it.��

But that’s not all ��

My story, Duality, will appear in the collection, Napalm Psalms (by Lisa Vasquez). I am honored to be one of the guest writers for Lisa. This collection comes out sometime in the fall.��

Duality is based off the song Murder in This Town by my friend, Donald Merckle. He sent me a copy of the song last year while I was in the hospital with the belief I could probably write a story based off of it. After listening to it several times, I knew he was right. Duality is about a guy who deals with hallucinations �� and something far more sinister. It’s a killer story, pun intended.��

One other thing, I have started submitting stories again, something I stopped doing for a long while. We’ll see how that goes and I will update y’all with the progress.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.