BAQWA Presents: Horror Show 2021: BAQWA Charity Anthology, #1

By Wayne Goodman, Richard May, M.D. Neu and 2 more

Curl up with your favorite warm beverage this fall and leave a light on. It's time for Horror Show 2021.

 

The Bay Area Queer Writers Association is proud to present this inaugural collection of spooky tales featuring authors Wayne Goodman, M.D. Neu, Richard May, Liz Faraim, and R.L. Merrill. Sometimes writing about the things that frighten us helps us cope with real-life terror, and these stories are all a product of a scary time.

 

**All proceeds from this limited-time anthology will be donated to the Billy DeFrank Center in San Jose, California.

 

The Bay Area Queer Writers Association is a group of local writers who support and encourage each other.
 
The goal of the group is to create a strong visible writing community here in the Bay Area. They are based in Silicon Valley, but they have members from all over the Bay Area.
 
This group is open to anyone who loves to read and wants to help support area authors. You don't have to live in the Bay Area to be a member, you just have to love Queer books and enjoy reading.



• Language: English
• Publisher: BAQWA
• Release date: Oct 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201426354

Book preview

BAQWA Presents: Horror Show 2021

BAQWA Presents: Horror Show 2021

Bay Area Queer Writers Association Anthology Volume 1

Wayne Goodman M.D. Neu Richard May Liz Faraim R.L. Merrill

Contents

BAQWA PRESENTS: Horror Show 2021

About BAQWA

About The Authors

The Turn of the James by Wayne Goodman

The Turn of the James

LandsEnd by M.D. Neu

LandsEnd

Resurrection by Richard May

Resurrection

Bad Man by Liz Faraim

Bad Man

A Kept Woman by R.L. Merrill

A Kept Woman

Entwined by Liz Faraim

Entwined

The Old Road by M.D. Neu

The Old Road

Guerilla Gardening During the Great Pause by R.L. Merrill

Guerrilla Gardening During the Great Pause

Inheritance by Richard May

Inheritance

About Midnight by Wayne Goodman

About Midnight

Acknowledgments

BAQWA PRESENTS: Horror Show 2021

Copyright © 2021 by

Wayne Goodman, M.D. Neu, Richard May, Liz Faraim,

and Celie Bay Publications LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of Wayne Goodman, M.D. Neu, Richard May, Liz Faraim and Celie Bay Publications LLC . To request permission and all other inquiries, contact M.D. Neu at the web addresses above or at [e-mail]

Authors: Wayne Goodman, MD Neu, Richard May, Liz Faraim, R.L. Merrill

Cover: Sleepy Fox Studios

Formatting: R.L. Merrill by Vellum

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

About BAQWA

The Bay Area Queer Writers Association is a group of local writers who support and encourage each other.

The goal of the group is to create a strong visible writing community here in the Bay Area. They are based in Silicon Valley, but they have members from all over the Bay Area.

This group is open to anyone who loves to read and wants to help support area authors. You don’t have to live in the Bay Area to be a member, you just have to love Queer books and enjoy reading.

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Please visit https://baqwawriters.wixsite.com/books for more information.

About The Authors

Wayne Goodman

Wayne Goodman has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area most of his life (with too many cats). Goodman hosts Queer Words Podcast, conversations with queer-identified authors about their works and lives. When not writing or recording, he enjoys playing Gilded Age parlor music on the piano, with an emphasis on women, gay, and Black composers.

https://waynegoodmanbooks.wordpress.com/

M.D. Neu

M.D. Neu is an international award-winning inclusive queer Fiction Writer with a love for writing and travel. Living in the heart of Silicon Valley (San Jose, California) and growing up around technology, he’s always been fascinated with what could be. Specifically drawn to Science Fiction and Paranormal television and novels, M.D. Neu was inspired by the great Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Stephen King, Alice Walker, Alfred Hitchcock, Harvey Fierstein, Anne Rice, and Kim Stanley Robinson. An odd combination, but one that has influenced his writing. Growing up in an accepting family as a gay man he always wondered why there were never stories reflecting who he was. Constantly surrounded by characters that only reflected heterosexual society, M.D. Neu decided he wanted to change that. So, he took to writing, wanting to tell good stories that reflected our diverse world. When M.D. Neu isn’t writing, he works for a non-profit and travels with his biggest supporter and his harshest critic, Eric his husband of twenty plus years.

https://www.mdneu.com/

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Richard May

Richard May’s short fiction has been published in his collections Gay All Year, Inhuman Beings, and Ginger Snaps: Photos & Stories (with photographer David Sweet) and in numerous anthologies and literary journals. He organizes two monthly reading series, Odd Mondays and Perfectly Queer. May earned his Bachelors from the University of the Pacific and Masters in English at the University of Southern California. He lives in San Francisco.

https://www.facebook.com/richard.may.52012

Liz Faraim

Liz has a full plate between balancing a day job, parenting, writing, and finding some semblance of a social life. In past lives she has been a soldier, a bartender, a shoe salesperson, an assistant museum curator, and even a driving instructor. She focuses her writing on strong, queer, female leads who don’t back down. Liz transplanted to California from New York over thirty years ago, and now lives in the East Bay Area. She enjoys exploring nature with her wife and son.

https://lizfaraim.com/

R.L. Merrill

R.L. Merrill brings you stories of Hope, Love, and Rock 'n' Roll featuring quirky and relatable characters. Whether she’s writing contemporary, paranormal, or supernatural, she loves to give readers a shiver with compelling stories that will stay with you long after. You can find her connecting with readers on social media, advocating for America’s youth, raising two brilliant teenagers, writing horror-infused music reviews for HorrorAddicts.net, trying desperately to get that back piece finished in the tattoo chair, or headbanging at a rock show near her home in the San Francisco Bay Area! Stay Tuned for more Rock 'n' Romance.

https://www.rlmerrillauthor.com

The Turn of the James by Wayne Goodman

The Turn of the James

Our English Literature teacher assigned The Turn of the Screw by Henry James in high school. It made little sense. Long, meandering sentences, with characters who appeared and disappeared precipitously. Thick, dense narration made it difficult for a pubescent boy to comprehend.

When my book club selected it to read, I groaned in my soul. At least I had kept that old copy, having deposited it somewhere among the other books on the shelf in my home office.

Before delving back into the world of yesteryear, I perused the Wikipedia page to prepare myself for what was to come. If I could immerse myself into James’s world, perhaps I could make more sense of the book this time.

Apparently, he had a penchant for tea.

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. The quote had survived the years.

I lit the fireplace, moved my overstuffed armchair so that I could read by firelight, and put a pot of water on the stove to boil. I prefer cool drinks. Hot tea is something I’m not partial to. I only keep a few bags for guests.

With a neglected, yellowed china cup, and the dusty, yellowed book, I positioned myself in the parlor chair. Too hot to drink, I placed the tea on the side table.

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

That was just the first sentence! Clauses within clauses within clauses. How could anybody make sense of this run-on drivel?

I reached for the tea. It had cooled a bit, and I slurped a small sample. Ew! So bitter.

Must be an acquired taste. Much like Henry James.

Another go at the story proved no better. Something about a child in an old house on Christmas Eve undergoing some inexplicable visit. Was the narrator sitting by a fire breathlessly telling long forgotten ghost stories?

The next gulp from the porcelain cup proved less acidic, and I took a bit more. I yawned with a moan. Between the warm tea, the soporific book, the roaring fire, and the comfy chair, my eyelids drooped a bit.

A cold, frosty sensation in my shoulder caused me to bolt upright, dropping the dilapidated novella to the peacock blue rug. I bent over to retrieve it. Seated again, I sensed an icy presence, and felt a tap on my arm. When I turned to look, swirling mists hovered about a vaguely human form. Something smelled fusty, like a derelict library, and I shielded my nose with the free hand.

"Oh, you’re reading that!" the specter chortled, pointing at the tattered paperback.

My eyes grew twice their size as I took in the image of an elderly, bald man dressed in the apparel of the early 20 th Century. I could see through his body, but yet I could make out his form.

"Who the hell are you?" I managed to spit out through trembling lips.

I, the hell, am Henry James, author of the book you were reading, my dear boy, the ghost responded. And I believe I reside in the other place, above. He pointed a stubby, wrinkled finger toward heaven.

How did you get in here?

More questions. Always questions. Why can’t people just accept the obvious? The unearthly shape pivoted and glided to the fireplace. Ahhh. That’s much better. I was feeling a bit frigid.

If you are who you say you are, how can you even be here? You’ve been dead over a hundred years.

Has it been that long? He retrieved a watch on a golden fob from his vest