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Original image by Rodnae Productions

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted," Nietzsche (and then, more importantly, Meat Loaf) said, so at the risk of destroying all credibility right out of the gate, or even worse, running the risk of stating the obvious, the best advice for writers is still ignoring most writing advice. Boy, that was fast! Thanks for stopping by [credits roll].

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Today we’re going to be dissecting one of my short stories, “In His House,” which was published in The Nightside Codex (Silent Motorist Media) in 2020. It was edited by Justin Burnett, and was my first time alongside Brian Evenson! It also included work by Stephen Graham Jones, Philip Fracassi, and Nadia Bulkin.

So, the first thing you need to do is read the story, which is about 2,000 words. I hope you enjoy it!

IN HIS HOUSE

Hello my friend,

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I didn’t wait to watch Shadow and Bone, the epic Netflix adaptation of an epic YA world created by Leigh Bardugo, because I wasn’t interested. In fact, I’ve been a huge fan of Leigh’s worlds since I stumbled across Six of Crows back in 2016 and utterly devoured that duology in a few breathless days, consuming the books in my room, in my living room, on the train to work, thinking about them constantly.

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The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel is one of those books that, over the course of the past decade or so, has drifted across my horizon from time to time, usually because someone has brought it up with great emotion or nostalgia. The first time I heard of the Earth’s Children series, which The Clan of the Cave Bear belongs to, I was working in a bookstore in 2011.

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Images via Thibault Trillet & Anna Shvets

We all experienced the same pandemic in 2020 and 2021, but none of us experienced it exactly the same way.