Showing results by narrator "Collin Heller" in All Categories

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

Shannon is a wild child who lives life by the seat of her pants. In her mid-thirties, she is living it up and is not near the point of settling down. Cody is a professional who puts his career and financial stability before anything else. He has given up on relationships at this point in life. They are two emotionally unavailable strangers who live nearby and seem to have little in common other than loneliness. They both start having vivid, realistic dreams of an attractive person. These attractive people turn out to be more than either can handle.

Beneath the glitter of Mardi Gras lies the sleaze of Bourbon Street; under the celestial sounds of JazzFest, the nightmare screams of a city once at war within its neighborhoods, but after Hurricane Katrina, seemingly at war with nature and the rest of the country as well. New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation.

When we last left Mikah, he was tied up in an abandoned house in the desert, helpless at the cruel hands of Bryce. The same guy who was supposed to mend Mikah’s broken heart turned out to be an unrelentingly evil tool of a mysterious shadow organization. But Bryce and Mikah have something in common—they both want Thomas. Bryce wants Thomas dead. Mikah just wants whatever Thomas is willing to give… that is, if they both can stay alive.

Jacob Whitlock is a young drifter who carries his troubling childhood with him everywhere he goes. Having run away from home before he turned 18, he was a young man who was trying to find his place in life with no guidance or support along the way. Jacob soon came to find out that there is a hotel in the desert town of Tonopah, Nevada that is offering people a free room, meals, and pay to anyone who would come to work for them. The young drifter then embarks on a journey to be one of the first to make it to the hotel to get a job.