All About "The Fishes"

Why yes, I do write prose! And not just here, on this blog. Most people know me as a zoo keeper, or as a comic book writer. And I am those things. Well, I'm not currently a zoo keeper, except at heart. I quit my job working at a small private zoo back in May to concentrate on my writing career. It was a big leap, and a rather scary one, but so far it's going well. I'm working on a Planet of the Apes miniseries for BOOM! Comics right now, called Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes. But back in May, before I had a firm writing job lined up, I wrote several short stories that are now seeing the light of day.

One of them, called THE FISHES, was published last week in the Absent Willow Review. It's a science fiction story involving a girl living in a remote farming community on a planet where the dividing line between night and day is perpetual. It's about curiosity and above all the need to connect with other living things.  Oh, and there's a bit of scary sailing of alien seas involved too.

It's tough work, flipping back and forth between comic book scripting and prose writing, but it's rather freeing too. So much of what goes into a comic book relies on the artist to tell the story. The storytelling really works or fails depending on the skills of the artist in most cases. But when you're writing prose there's no one to hide behind. No one is going to elevate your work past what it is. And there is no one to blame for your boneheaded ideas.

That said, I hope you like The Fishes if you decide to give it a read. You can see more of my work by clicking on the sidebar to the right too, if you're so inclined. And keep your eye out for two more stories appearing next month, a horror short called "Sky Full of Fire" and another science fiction story called "Oceans of Darkness". Happy reading!