Latest Story and Its Connection to My Dad

Remember that story called "Blood and Badges" I told you got accepted for publication a few months back?

It's finally available for purchase!

The anthology is called Requiem: Tales of the Undead. And man, am I excited to be featured alongside some amazing authors. People like Jonathan Maberry, Elizabeth Lowham, Jason Kristopher, and Lou J Berger. And those are only a few of the awesome stories you'll get to read. Stories about zombies, vampires, ghouls, and every other undead creature you can imagine--and a whole bunch you probably never knew existed.

(Side note: I just learned the difference between an anthology and a collection. An anthology is a bunch of stories by different authors; a collection is a bunch of stories by the same author.)

I'm especially excited for and appreciative of this story and anthology because it fits beautifully in with my personal history. You see, anyone who truly knows me knows I have a little bit of a gothic streak in me. And it was only a couple of years ago when I realized my father was the one who instilled that in me.

This is the same man who collected every single book ever published that featured vampires in any form or fashion up through the early 2000s. (After that, it just became too overwhelming a task.) The same man who traveled all over the world for his work, and carried in his briefcase a printed packet of aforementioned titles. The same man who spent his free time scouring every bookstore--new or used--in whatever city he happened to be visiting for any of the titles he still needed to complete his collection. The same man who took over my older brother's bedroom when he moved out to fill it with bookshelves to house his collection.

The same man who passed away almost a decade ago.

And I have the only vampire story in Requiem: Tales of the Undead.

I am a woman of faith who believes in an afterlife. And I believe my father has read my story in his own way.

I just wish I could have seen his face when he did.

But since that's not available to me, help me with the next best thing: read your own copy of Requiem: Tales of the Undead and tell me what you think of "Blood and Badges."