Witches & Witchcraft for Halloween!

My contributor copy of the new anthology, Witches and Witchcraft: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Essays, from Hippocampus Press, is in the house! Edited by Katherine Kerestman and S.T. Joshi, this lovely volume features my story "Foragers," a frightful tale of the American Revolutionary War, and the horrors that a company of General Cornwallis's men encounter while marching toward the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Witches and Witchcraft also features contemporary works by Ramsey Campbell, Debra K. Every, Wade German, Simon MacCulloch, Darrell Schweitzer, John Shirley, and others, plus classic stories and essays by L. Frank Baum, Frank Belknap, Long, Cotton Mather, William Shakespeare, Clark Ashton Smith, and many more.

 

The genesis of "Foragers" comes from a local legend, which I used as the backstory for a few of my geocaches in Greensboro, NC...except that it's not really a legend. It was a quick bit of fiction about a witch named Lillian Gadwick that I came up with to hopefully enrich the experience of hunting geocaches in the woods at night. This faux legend was apparently convincing enough to lead some geocachers to believe it was actually based on local folklore, so when I was invited to contribute a story to Witches and Witchcraft, I decided to re-imagine and embellish the tale.

 

I think it worked.

You can check out the original story of Lillian Gadwick in the cache description at Geocaching.com here.

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Witches and Witchcraft at Hippocampus Press

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New Short Story Complete: "The Foragers"

New story completed, submitted, and...accepted! The story, "The Foragers," will be appearing in an upcoming anthology — details will follow when the all-clear sounds — most likely early in 2025. It's set in the Revolutionary War, just before the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, which occurred on March 15, 1781, more or less in our backyard when we lived in Greensboro. Here's a wee excerpt.

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The fast-flowing stream was called Alamance Creek, and now that darkness had fallen, it was easier to hear than to see. After so many hours, Lieutenant William Voss found it impossible to believe that he and Sergeant Thomas Landrake had yet to emerge from these deep woods. And that, somehow, they now found themselves alone.

Since breaking camp in Hillsborough—God knew how many days ago—General Cornwallis had pushed his army at a hard march, with no provisions other than what each man could carry, so hunger and thirst had begun to take a deadly toll. This morning, Voss and Landrake, along with eight hand-picked men of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, had departed their new encampment along the southern banks of Alamance Creek and followed the stream through the woods, expecting to come upon farms or villages where they might plunder food, water, tobacco, and whiskey. To their dismay and disbelief, the damned woods appeared to go on forever.
 

And then…

“Where in bloody hell did we get separated?” A burly, powerful man from Glastonbury, Landrake’s voice sounded like a bear’s growl. “And how? We were all together, and then we weren’t.”

With great effort, Voss kept his voice measured. “I wish I knew. But they can’t be far away.”

“Winters! Carlisle! Pryce! Where the hell are you?”

The stream’s gurgling voice could hardly have overpowered Landrake’s. But the otherwise silent darkness offered up no reply.

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Hope that piques your interest. Stay tuned for more details and news about the book's release!