Please Welcome Mark Allan Gunnells to Cutis Anserina
I have a passion for
short fiction. Since I was young and
checked out a copy of King’s Night Shift
from the library, I’ve been hooked on short stories. Single author collections, anthologies,
magazines...I just devour them. Not that
I don’t appreciate and thoroughly enjoy novels and novellas, but I have a deep
and special love for shorts.
As a writer, I feel a
strong leaning toward them as well. I
write novels and novellas, and I take pleasure in satisfaction in those
forms…but short stories are my true love.
I get a thrill each time a new book of mine is released, but the
collections give me an extra special thrill.
GHOSTS IN THE ATTIC
being a prime example.
This was my second
short story collection, after TALES FROM THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT. TALES is now out of print, though a paperback
and digital edition are in the works. I
was proud of that one, but hoped it wouldn’t be my only collection while at the
same time fearing it would be. I knew
collections were a hard sell, both to the public and publishers.
So I decided I couldn’t
just sit around and wait for the opportunity to do another collection to fall
in my lap. I had to make it happen.
I looked around at the
small press publishers I admired, and determined which ones were putting out
single-author collections. Bad Moon
Books was at the top of my list. I took
a chance and emailed Roy Robbins, expressing my passion for the short form and
inquiring if he might be willing to consider a collection by me.
To my delight, he told
me to put together a manuscript and send it his way. No guarantees, of course, but it was
definitely encouraging. I worked hard at
selecting stories I thought would represent a strong but varied offering of my
work, and I sent it in.
The response I got from
Roy was better than I was expecting. The
only problem was his schedule was so full he didn’t know when he might be able
to fit the collection in. Which is why I
suggested he make it a digital collection.
And that was how GHOSTS
IN THE ATTIC was born. The stories contained
in the collection are all special to me for one reason or another, and I worked
very hard at making the pieces satisfying and complete.
Not to say that my
novels and novellas aren’t special to me, but I have a passion for short
stories.
Mark Allan Gunnells has
been writing since he was 10 years old. His first book, A LAYMON KIND OF NIGHT,
was published by Sideshow Press in 2009. Since then he has put out three more
books with Sideshow: the two-novella WHISONANT/CREATURES OF THE LIGHT combo, a
short story collection entitled TALES FROM THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT VOL. I, and the
Halloween themed DARK TREATS. He also has put out the novella ASYLUM with The
Zombie Feed, and Bad Moon Books released a digital collection entitled GHOSTS
IN THE ATTIC and the novella OCTOBER ROSES. He released his first published
novel, THE QUARRY, with Evil Jester Press, and followed that up with SEQUEL
from Gallow's Press and THE SUMMER OF WINTERS also from EVIL JESTER. His most
recent book is the novel THE EXCHANGE STUDENT from Etopia Press. He lives in
Greer, SC, with his partner Craig A. Metcalf.
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