R. Michael Burns

Once upon a time, it was tradition to tell ghost stories around Christmas. This is the origin of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and the reason for the line “There’ll be scary ghost stories” in the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”

What follows is my first effort at telling a Christmas ghost story of my own. It’s a side story to my unpublished novel Laughing Teddy (a book about a haunted toy store moving into a small Colorado mountain town), but I believe it stands well on its own.

It was originally published in the e-zine New Myths. It’s one I’m quite fond of, both eerie and sad…

So put on some classic Christmas songs (my top choice would be the Judy Garland version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”) and enjoy…

As well as my new supernatural crime novel MR MENACE, I have some short stories coming out (or already out) this year:

“At the Cat Parade” in Books of Horror Community Anthology #2 — Two young American tourists find themselves caught up in an ancient and terrifying festival in an out-of-the-way English town.

“Cravings” in Consumed: Tales Inspired by the Wendigo, from the Denver Horror Collective — A pregnant woman, trapped in her car after driving off the road in a raging blizzard, is overwhelmed by the urgent need to eat anything she can get her hands on…

“Snow Angels” in Santa Claus is Coming to Deathlehem — A lonely widower is haunted by dark spirits from his home’s forgotten past.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly’s latest Best of anthology (volume 3) is now available!  Included is my short story “Shadows and Foxfire”, the fourth of the tales of the samurai Hokage.  I won’t lie — it’s my favorite of those stories.

HFQ’s other anthologies have been excellent, and I expect this one will be as well.  I am especially fond of the artwork that accompanies my story.  The artist really nailed it.

Also available is the mini-anthology Off the Beaten Path (also volume 3 in its series).  This one features my short story “Going Nowhere”, which appears here for the first time.

Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly volume 3

Off the Beaten Path volume 3

Of all the anthologies in which my work has appeared, this one is truly among the best.  Not a single weak entry among them — not even my own.

My contribution is the first tale of samurai Hokage, “Shadows from Firelight.”  I am very pleased that the editors of HFQ selected my tale of medieval Japan to join the excellent stories gathered here, and even more so that the sequel, “Demon-Fang” will appear in the forthcoming Best Of Volume II.

A fantastic collection of fantasy tales by a group of truly fine writers — and me!

You can buy it on Amazon from here:  Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume I on Amazon

And remember — Volume II (fully illustrated!) is on its way…

Very pleased to say that my first-ever paid publication, a short story entitled “The Eyes of a Stranger” will be appearing in Ariel Jade’s forthcoming anthology Ravenous.

It is, as you might guess, an anthology of darkly romantic vampire tales.

It is also available for pre-order on Amazon.com!

A new anthology of dark romance

Ravenous on Amazon

I, for one, can’t wait to sink my preternaturally long and eerily sharp canines into these tales…

The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (Volume 1) is now available on Amazon.com!

The anthology features the very first of the Hokage stories, “Shadows from Firelight”, along with fiction by Richard Marsden, James Lecky, William Gerke, Christopher Wood, Robert Rhodes, Dariel R. A. Quiogue, Jesse Bangs, P. Djeli Clark, and David Pilling, and poetry by Danny Adams, Joshua Hampton, W.E. Couvillier, John Keller, Megan Arkenberg, and Daniel Sklar, along with an introduction by Black Gate Magazine‘s John O’Neill.

Check it out right here!  http://www.amazon.com/Best-Heroic-Fantasy-Quarterly-2009-2011-ebook/dp/B017OLT0UI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448239216&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Best+of+Heroic+Fantasy+Quarterly

or here: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Heroic-Fantasy-Quarterly-2009-2011/dp/1519150377/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1448239216&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Best+of+Heroic+Fantasy+Quarterly

The fine folks at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly have just released this truly excellent cover art by Justin Sweet for their first “Best Of” volume, which features my first tale of Hokage the samurai, “Shadows from Firelight”.

The anthology will soon be available in both e-book and paperback form!

Stay tuned here for more exciting information to come soon…

Now Available:  From the newly-launched Strigidae Publishing, One, an anthology of tales from the members of the Fiction Foundry, featuring my until-now out-of-print story “The Gallery” — a morbid tale of love, loss, and art — and dressed up in this awesome cover created by publisher Henry Snider:

You can purchase your copy of One right here: http://www.amazon.com/Fiction-Foundry-Presents-Amity-Green/dp/0692413790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427569237&sr=8-1&keywords=Fiction+Foundry+Presents%3A+ONE

It’s now available!  The Horror Society’s new anthology, Forgotten Places, featuring my story “The Treehouse”!

This is probably the most personal short story I’ve ever written, and one that means a great deal to me, fictional though it is.  The anthology also contains tales by a number of other talented writers, including the great William F. Nolan.

You can link to the anthology right here:  http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Society-Presents-Forgotten-Places/dp/1505602564/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1427340570&sr=8-3&keywords=forgotten+places+anthology

Also, in case you missed it, “Shadows and Foxfire”, the latest tale of the samurai Hokage is now available — for free — at HeroicFantasy.com.  Or just follow this link:  http://www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com/?p=1708

First, I’m very happy to announce that Carnival of the Damned is now available from Evil Jester Press (in both paperback and e-book format) via Amazon.com — http://www.amazon.com/Carnival-Damned-Gregory-L-Norris/dp/0692247815/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1413134554&sr=8-10&keywords=R.+Michael+Burns

Second, I’m ALSO happy to announce that my ever-so-slightly-in-the-most-highly-fictionalized-sense autobiographical short story “The Treehouse” has been selected to appear in the The Horror Society (http://www.the-horror-society.com )’s forthcoming anthology, Forgotten Places.

Third, I’m triply happy to be able to tell you that my newest Hokage short story “Shadows and Foxfire” will be in the November issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (http://www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com/).  For those new to the Hokage tales, this one offers a fun early adventure for the stoic samurai.  For those who have read the others (check out the page on this site dedicated to Hokage) this one offers an answer to a long-standing question about Hokage’s past!