“A Helping Hand” Accepted for Publication in Brief Encounters

On Halloween, I received what might be the best treat any author could ask for: a short story acceptance! My superhero suspense tale “A Helping Hand” is set to be published in an upcoming volume of the Brief Encounters anthology series from Adekon Publishing. No release date yet, so keep an eye out for more announcements in the coming months.

“A Helping Hand” is by far the earliest of my stories starring Whippoorwill. Only about four years into her vigilante career, and she’s just starting to operate around Oklahoma City. This piece also serves as a bit of an origin story for her adopted daughter Rosa Coronil, who appears later on as her sidekick and independent superhero Kingfisher.

I wrote this story back in 2020 as part of the Writers of the Future Online Workshop, but it spent most of the past two years trunked simply because there are barely any markets interested in superhero short fiction. Words cannot express how happy it makes me for “A Helping Hand” to finally find a home, especially at a market paying per word.

If you enjoyed “Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill” or “An Oath to the Sun”, you should definitely check out this anthology when release day rolls around.

Here’s wishing ya’ll a belated Happy Halloween!

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