SHORT STORIES ABOUND

 2011 was a fruitful year for CWG member Walt Staples. Five of his short stories  were published at various fiction sites and “his stuff,” as Staples calls his writing, appeared in Splashdown Books’ anthology Aquasynthesis (2011). You can also find Staples and his most recent works at his blog, Variable Credence.

As the narrator between the speculative short stories in Aquasynthesis, Staples weaves the various tales together through Gizille and her mysterious teacher Tok as they look into the ice of an ocean pool, contemplating a series of strange and mystical visions. These visions are “astonishing tales of technology and transcendence, aliens and elves, space and time, dragons and demons, prophecies and scriptures, humor and horror, the gifted and the enslaved, virtual and supernatural reality, insanity and inspiration.” Aquasynthesis is available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback form, Barnes and Noble in paperback and Nook, Smashwords, and through the Book Depository.

You can find more information on Staples and his work with Aquasynthesis at Esther Wysong’s The Barn Door Book Loft blog, H.A. Titus’ Magical Ink, and at Ralene Burke’s blog, Ralene Burke, Author.

Among Staples’ short stories are “Insidious Good,” a flash fantasy work, which can be read at Digital Dragon Magazine. “Friday Night,” a flash fiction work, can be found at Catholic Flash Fiction.  “Stony’s World: Apocalypse Preempted,” was published at Avenir Eclectia as part of a multi-author microfiction project.  Another of Staples’ works, “Rockstars: All that Glitters,” was also published at Avenir Eclectia. The short fantasy story “Lord of the Dance” appears in A Flame in the Dark, under the name G.K. Fields.

Coming in January, Whortleberry Press will publish Staples’ short story “Old Married Couple” in their anthology, Strange Valentines.

Staples will also be featured in Shannon Taylor Vannatter’s The Inkslinger romance blog as a three-part post. Look for the story of Staples and his wife, Jan: their meeting, courtship, and wedding. Or as Staples reports, “how she [Jan] neglected to immediately take to her heels, how I embarrassed the spirit of Jimmy Stewart with my proposal, and our fear-inducing (at least on my part) wedding day.”

A book trailer of Strange Valentines can be found at the Whortleberry Press site. The anthology Strange Valentines can be purchased through Lulu in paperback.

Staples is also currently posting “Watching the Space Race” each Saturday for CWG member Karina Fabian’s blog, Rocket Science for the Rest of Us. The first of the “Watching the Space Race” series, “A Light in the October Sky,”can be read at this link.

Staples also hopes to see an anthology of his Avenir Eclectia stories in the spring from Splashdown books.

Walt Staples spent far too many years thinking the unthinkable for a living. He maintains this has had no effect on him though he admits to a predilection for collecting odd people and an inordinate thirst for Dr Pepper. While his physical position is generally indeterminable, his heart is firmly located at 38.9N, 78.2W. His work has appeared in Digital Dragon Magazine, Avenir Eclectia, Wherever It Pleases, Catholic Flash Fiction, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Whortleberry Press’ Christmas: Peace on All the Worlds and Strange Valentines, and Residential Aliens Magazine.  He is a member of a number of organizations which shall remain nameless with the exception of the Catholic Writers’ Guild and the Lost Genre Guild–both of whose blackmail payments are in arrears. In lieu of the normal payments, he was elected president of the CWG (a move that proved far more costly to that organization than the previous arrangement). He agreed to move on after everything of value was piled outside the gates. Walt is also rumored to be a member of the Marine Corps Association.

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