Here’s a short post about the stories I wrote that were published in anthologies and magazines. I usually like to write crime fiction and horror, but I have also been published as a science fiction writer, and although my time as a sci-fi writer was brief, it was enormously satisfying.

Let’s go through each story. I’ll share my experience and process, and my ideas and writing steps from drafting to publication.

The Trembling

An engineer finds himself in an alien world looking for his estranged wife as he fights the strange phenomena that decimated the local planetary population and turned the world into a ghost planet.

The Trembling was my first published short story in an international medium. The basic premise for this story came to me while I was writing. I can remember it like it was yersterday because most of my writing follows the same process. I sit down to write and come up with a first line, then I add a few more sentences to provide a situation and complete the first two paragraphs. From then on, I usually have a complete situation and setting and a subtle idea about where the story is going. So, I kept writing and finding out as the story took form before my eyes. I guess I’m a pantser.

You can find this book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/678889

War-torn Love

My horror story War-torne Love can be found on the prestigious magazine The Horror Zine which features writers such as Ramsey Campbell and Richard Chizmar and Joe Lansdale among new talents. Here’s the beautiful Medusa cover.

https://thehorrorzine.com

Warn-torn love is a story about a couple that fight and split during their honeymoon. One of the spouses then disappears and it comes down to the other to find him and save him from a modern evil.

I remember I came up with the first line for this story after seeing some pictures of Ireland’s sea side cliffs. Right away I moved the action to southern Argentina where I could find similar geography and lots of open fields and cliffs. From that setting I just had to think about an enemy, someone they were familiar with that could hurt the couple.

It didn’t get accepted as I had planned. The editor asked me to cut back the backstory and write a new ending. I ended up writing three different endings before the editor approved the final one.

Burnt Tree Hill

Okay. So far, so good. Let’s now talk about Burnt Tree Hill, a noirish detective story set in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’ll let you in on a little secret. The first and original setting for this story was Chicago, but the publisher asked to two things. First, change the name of the protagonist. Second, change the location to Buenos Aires.

“Boomshakalaking is a variant of the expression Boomshakalaka and is currently recognized as a boastful, teasingly hostile exclamation that follows a noteworthy achievement or pulling off an impressive stunt. Basically its meaning is similar to in your face!”
“Which is why this anthology is subtitled Modern Crimes for Modern Times, because most, if not all, are not your regular crime fiction pieces — in fact some quite happily dance along the edges of multiple genres and styles, while others skew it like it is.”

The story is about a missing twenty-one year old woman and the choices she made that separated her from her parents. Then there’s a dectective who is in charge of solving the case while crime, truth and superstition mix.

If you are interested in crime, noir and modern suspense, grab your copy from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Crimecuopia…/dp/1909498483

Magnusson’s Descent

My latest literary exploit is out: a short tale called Magnuson’s Descent. My very own take on a Sherlock Holmes’ story has been published in the 2024 Steel True, Blade Straight Annual. It’s the Belanger Books of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle inspired stories, essays and poems.

Here’s the link. Check it out! Share it with friends.

The Unusual Four

This was a story that I finished quickly when I was putting together my first short stories crime book. It’s still unpublished as a book, but several of the stories in it have been published on anthologies.

The story is about an Argentinian detectives couple investigating a murder in La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires city while the worst storm of the century is hitting the city the hardest.

It was a straight-through mystery story with police procedural elements. It was a lot of fun to write and it was published by the Spanish magazine Caliber 38.

You can find this story for free here:

Soon, I’ll be posting this story in english on the blog or as a newsletter signup prize.

Best of luck.