S. Scott Whitaker's Blog, page 5

#MadMax w/boats #Marshpunk serial How the Dun-in Man...pt.2 available now. #dystopia #nothing'sfreeinwaterworld

Part two of my serial, "How the Dun-in Man Got His Name" is available in Helios Quarterly.

The Dun-in Man is a mute outlay scout in a future where global warming has flooded the East Coast. The country has reorganized to the middle, leaving the coasts, and flooded cities to pirates, marshpunks, and outlaws. Several Dun-in Man stories have been published, telling stories from different stages of his life.

#Streamworld serial 2. Marley & Kit take on Trashman #Cyberpunk #Deprivatization #Wiredlife #Megalopolis #Lowl1f3

The third of the stream world stories hit interweb stores this week.

Marley, the young forensic doctor, from "Marley and the Dead" sends her staff to research Trashman's tech in "Kit in the City. Marley and the Bosses." Yeah, I know. A dull title to say the least. I feel like I can divide my work in half--by great titles and functional titles.

Digressing...

Stream world takes place in megacities of the future. There is no privacy per se. One's cyber life is an open book if you choose to look. There is a low grade kind of telepathy among the educated, because your vitals are broadcast, as well as your email, and your social contacts, and your viewing habits. Citizens with medical backgrounds can read more than just your kinky browsing history.

The first of the stream stories to be published was: "The Play is the Thing"  A love story, and an homage to Shakespeare.
Followed by "Marley & the Dead"  A moody character driven piece that describes the Trashman's brutal MO.
Followed by "Kit in the City. Marley and the Bosses" A continuation of the Trashman story.

The fourth of the stream world stories will go live on Weasel Press in Feb 2017.  "In Some Northern Town," flash fiction, recounts an older woman's public breakdown when she kidnaps her grandchild to baptize the baby...against her daughter's wishes.

#Marshpunk #pulp #fiction-part 1 of 2 in @heliosquarterly #Eco #disaster #action #fiction. Plus, #sharkattacks #TheDun-InMan

Helios Quarterly is serializing my marshpunk action-Mad-Max-with-boats-eco-disaster-dystopian fiction "How the Dun-in Man Got His Name," I've written about this character before in Don't Open Till Doomsday.  And in Toxic Tourism, my self published ebook from Amazon.

This tale is straight-up pulp. All action and world building! For fans of westerns, gun-slinging, chase stories, and shark attacks.

New syllabic semi #experimental #poem up @GoodMenProject "The Summer the Black Forest Burned" #iamwriting #puseystrong

This poem is special for a number of reasons. I wrote it in response to a colleague's death, and though  it is about her, it is also about her sons, and the nervous anxious state of the small rural town the summer she passed. Last summer the tension was high, partly due to her death's impact on the community, as well as several other high profile scandals which threatened to tear the town apart.  In many ways, the  forest did feel like it burned down.

I drew upon on some syllabic magic from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as shortened linguistic syllabic expletives (for lack of a better word) to create a prayer-like elegiac tone.
You can read it here.

My new #SciFi #shortstory closes out #Don'tOpenTillDoomsday #anthology from @PunksWritePoems Press #iamwriting

The Dun-in man is a mute tracker with an unsavory post apocalyptic education. He's a character in the late, late history of the #marshpunk universe that "begins" with Mulch, a magical realism novel set in present day, to the Stream world, which you can get a taste of in "The Play's the Thing". He's the main character in several stories, and the "Han Solo" role in a sci-fi book I am currently on break from working on (working on a realistic/supernatural novel, also set in the same universe, during the near future). 
This story finds the mute tracker after a runaway from the colony. This story is a "chase and fight story," fully aware of the B-movie attention to pacing and action.  Chronologists place this towards the end of the world's timeline. "I, Tiresias," a currently unpublished, but submitted story, is the following chapter, though some months later. 

Ho, Hey! All My Rowdy Friends named to Grace Cavalieri's July #Poetry #Exemplars! #iamwriting

I am so grateful for the review of All My Rowdy Friends , from the talented Grace Cavalieri, up at the Washington Independent Review of Books.

She leads off with Rita Dove, a favorite poet of mine since high school, I kinda feel like a kid brushing up against legends. I also like Adrienne Rich and Diane Lockward, so I'm still giddy typing this out...

First #story of my #dystopian #cyberpunk #serial available in #LOWL1F3..."Marley & the Dead"

"Marley & the Dead" is the first of a serial story set in my dystopian world of the Stream. What is the Stream? Well it's the internet of the future. There is no privacy. People can access your social media, your biometric data, your history, your search history, everything. Cities are overpopulated, there are levels and floating, hovering apartment complexes, etc.

A serial killer known as the Trashman is on the loose. The young forensic doctor Marley introduces the reader to the killer who hides his DNA in the DNA of thousands, by covering his victims in garbage and waste from different locations around the city.

Primarily a character driven story, "Marley & The Dead" explore social issues of our possible future.
You can get it here.

WM Rivera's book of #poems, #CafeSelect, is out! Featuriing Miguel Conde's art. Guess who wrote the introduction? Moi..#iamwriting #smallspress

WM Rivera's new collection of poetry, paired along side Miguel Conde's paintings is out! I was asked to write the introduction, which was a thrill! A first for me! You can read the press release here.

You can read about Miguel Conde here.

"#Ghost Exit of a #Carpenter" featured in "Les Rêves des Notre Ours : Ghosts" #smallpress #speculative #poetry #iamwriting

International poet and publisher Aaron Kent collected "Ghost Exit of a Carpenter" for the second issue of Les Rêves des Notre Ours. The issue is ghost themed. "Ghost Exit of a Carpenter" was written during the quotidian project 2011-2012. Loosely based on an actual experience where I came home for a half second saw an older man walking between my out buildings (sheds) behind my house. My house was built by a carpenter in 1893 by John Cropper, who built several homes on my street. Some of the context of the poem is borrowed from years of research into the Cape Charles Ghost Tours which my wife and I conducted from 2003-2005.

Two #poems anthologized in #Secrets & #Dreams from Kind of a Hurricane Press #iamwriting #smallpress #dreamspies

Writer, poet, and publisher AJ Huffman curated two of my poems for her Secrets and Dreams Anthology.  "Dreamtravel: A dialogue between two Dreamspies" and "Adam Glass Will Be Okay" are among other works included in the anthology. You can order a paper copy here or download the e-book.  "Dreamtravel" is a speculative poem, where "Adam Glass" is a narrative character study from the largely unpublished Fear of Glass manuscript and notebooks.