An Exactly 500 Word Flash Piece called "Five" in the Ghosts Issue of Weird Fiction Quarterly

That's right! The new issue of Weird Fiction Quarterly, featuring over 50 stories dealing with Ghosts, is out now. And, if you noticed as you glance below at the TOC, there's a tale called "Five" by yours truly that will leave you a twitchy mess. 

I'm not kidding! 

A little history: I wrote a previous incarnation of this story idea perhaps 25 years ago, give or take a few. I remember saying to my girlfriend at the time, "Hey, I want to read this one out loud to you," because I thought it would be...fun. But the story has an OCD element that, while reading it to her, took over my body (and the previous version was five hundred words longer, completely different foundation except for that element which multiplied the twitchiness), and led me to becoming a twitching mess on par with any dancing insect you could imagine...and set her on edge as well. When I was done, I was exhausted! And she thought I was crazy, I'm sure. 

Here's the TOC: 

1. The Haunting of Weird Fiction Quarterly (Shayne K. Keen)
2. The Ghost Summer (Sonya Taaffe)
3. The Backing Track (Garrett Cook)
4. The Companion Volume (Geoffrey Reiter)
5. Down at the Globe (Jill Hand)
6. Defending Brother Tom (J. Edward Zuleger)
7. The Baptistry (Andrew Moore)
8. Pray Harder (Natasha Liora)
9. Hollow (Glynn Owen Barrass)
10. The Haunted Jazz Mag (Andy Joynes)
11. The Price of Vinyls (Mala Jay Suess)
12. Jikoshi (An Accidental Death) (Brandon Barrows)
13. Visitation (Denise Dumars)
14. Graveyard Walk (Frank Coffman)
15. A Polish Ghost (Frank Floyd)
16. The Limen (Chelsea Arrington)
17. Spook Light (John H. Howard)
18. Swipe Rite (Sal Ciano)
19. His Arm, My Ring (Pixie Bruner)
20. The Transient (Manuel Arenas)
21. Bunicuţă is a Ghost (Robert J. Sodaro)
22. That Lonesome Cry (David Barker)
23. Live...Mostly (John M. F. Colton)
24. Hollow Children (Rebecca Buchanan)
25. When Ghosts Haunted Oblivion (Maxwell I. Gold)
26. Diagnosis: Haunted Personality Disorder (Christopher Ropes)
27. Five (John Claude Smith)
28. Subject 42 (Lisa Morton)
29. Root to Rope (Jayaprakash Satyamurthy)
30. The Unfinished Letter (Hayley Arrington)
31. "Do Not Whistle and It Will Not Come to You, oh Lad" (Daniel Braum)
32. The Book of Ghovat (Can Wiggins)
33. The Last Ghost Story (Mark McLaughlin)
34. The Fields of Asphodel (Ashley Dioses)
35. The Deadly Ace (J.C. Maçek III)
36. Skeleton Fingers (Lamont A. Turner)
37. A Gale of a Time (Kasey Hill)
38. Mean Ghouls (Duane Pesice)
39. The Smudged Man (John Paul Fitch)
40. Whited Sepulchres (Joanna Roye)
41. Hengist’s Toll (Erin Banks)
42. End the Beguine (Richard Leis)
43. A Darkening of Shadows (Simon Bleaken)
44. Above, and Beyond (Erica Ruppert)
45. ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (Elisa M. Gray)
46. Picture Perfect (Ngo Binh Anh Khoa)
47. Death, My Belov‘ed (K. A. Opperman)
48. Ghost Stories (Peter Rawlik)
49. Thirteen Counts (Scott J. Couturier)
50. Wasted on the Living (M Ennenbach)
51. Make It Go Away (Robert Jeschonek)
52. Shell Shocked (Roger Keel)
53. What the Computer Booted (Don Webb)
54. Twins (Sarah Walker)
55. Field Trip (Michael Thomas Ford)
56. The Piper Calls at 820 Livermere Lane: The Sin-Eater’s Lament (Melanie Crew)
57. Grim King of Ghosts (Adam Bolivar)
58. Mater Nostra (Russ Parkhurst)
59. About the Authors

Yes, what an amazing list of writers. 

Are you ready for this?

Here's the link --> GHOSTS <--

Check it out! 

The Reissue of My Bram Stoker Award Finalist Debut Novel, Riding the Centipede, is Out Now!

 What more do I need to say? 

Macabre Ink/Crossroad Press has put together this stellar reissue of my Bram Stoker Award finalist debut novel, Riding the Centipede, that includes fabulous new cover art--I love the original, I love this one as well; I've been lucky with covers, I tell ya--as well as an afterward that features the origins of the story, including the actual page or two seed idea snippet that mutated into the novel. 

Here's what others said about the novel upon release: 

"A master storyteller who infuses his work with a poet's vision and a madman's eerie gaze at horrible things."—Joe Pulver, Shirley Jackson award winning editor and author of A House of Hollow Wounds & Blood Will Have Its Season

 

 

"Even if you set aside the rich beauty of John Claude Smith's descriptions and the dense atmosphere he builds into this tale of horror both cosmic and man made, it's a joy to observe how he brings all of his marvelous and monstrous creatures together. A poetic sensibility and the cynicism of a classic California private eye meld with the spirit of William Burroughs informing/infecting countless details. And over all, Smith extends the deep shadow of something incomprehensible threatening to overtake the boundaries of detective fiction and its implied logic. Beautiful, crazy, poetic, and strange..." --S.P. Miskowski, author of The Worst is Yet to Come & The Skillute Cycle

 

 

“The breadth of his references— from Frida Kahlo to Celtic Frost (Are You Morbid?), Johnny Cash to Lena Olin, from “The Wounded Table” to Marilyn Monroe—sloshes together to concoct a hallucinogenic broth that’s equal parts surreal, horrific, and compelling. This isn’t a brew to be sipped by the easily offended—the folks within Smith’s debut novel are hardscrabble, amoral, desperate druggies (Burroughs’ preferred term over “junkies”) willing to drag themselves through Hubert Selby-esque levels of depravity to attain their mind altering sustenance. The novel immerses the reader in a world where a P.I. hunts down an elusive target, we experience tragic Hollywood scandals, wallow in deep dark secrets, and witness a villain whose reign of chilling brutality brings to mind a mutant cousin of Anton Chigurh. Smith’s prose is gruff noir, never tumbling over into camp, shot through with veins of luminous poetry.”    

Christopher Slatsky, Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales & The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature

 

 

“Riding the Centipede by John Claude Smith is an impressive, hallucinatory and dynamically written novel that entertains, and provokes depth of thought with visceral prose and poetic hum. More than an ode to the Beat generation, this mythical, psychedelic drug trip mirrors the complexity of unorthodox language, uncommon perspective and nonconforming communicative style made famous by Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, and Charles Bukowski, yet stands on its own with the very heavyweights it pays homage to. Smith masterfully anchors his story in lush description, cleverly crafted analogy and metaphor, and a twisted and darkly imaginative narrative. Highly recommended.” --Taylor Grant, Bram Stoker Award (R) Nominated Author, The Dark at the End of the Tunnel


"Fans of Burroughs and PK Dick will find a lot to like in John Claude Smith. _Riding the Centipede_ is an intense trip into Bizarro Land." --Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase, The Croning & Not A Speck of Light: Stories

 

 

“RIDING THE CENTIPEDE effects the reader in an almost synesthesia-like fashion. You feel the madness of Marlon Teargarden as you delve into the pages, deeper into the dark frontier. Smith writes in a style that makes the vile seem beautiful. It’s that illusion of beauty, of intimacy, that allows the horrors to flow so easily. And make no mistake, this IS a horror novel – the sights shown within are not for a weak stomach or delicate sensibilities. Burroughs and the beat writers are not the only influences at play here, along with a healthy dose of H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker. RIDING THE CENTIPEDE is something unique, insane, and terrifying… something worth seeking out.” --Brian Fatah Steele, author of Hungry Rain & Bleed Away the Sky

 

“RIDING THE CENTIPEDE is an intense, crazy, brilliant and inspired work of imagination. Totally-gonzo-Beat-horror-experimental-noir-bizarro insanity. I give extra credit to artists who capable of doing something nobody else could do, and this is definitely that.” --Michael Griffin, author of The Lure of Devouring Light & The Human Alchemy

Pick up your copy --> HERE <-- today! It's a ride you won't forget!