“They Said The Desert” is now up at Beneath Ceaseless Skies for your reading (and listening) pleasure! Still can’t express how excited I am that this story’s found a home in one of my favorite magazines.

And let me tell you, this story was an exercise in tenacity. I wrote the first draft back in early 2014 as part of a contest on Codex. It was 750 words and completely terrible. Over the next year and half, I drafted and redrafted this story at least a dozen times. But I always felt like I was a half step behind where the story wanted to go.

But I caught up. I found it. (It’s now about 5k words.)

I think I went through a half dozen songs too as I was writing this. Took me a while to find the right one, to find the “sound” of the story. Finally discovered “Laredo” by Kenneth Pattengale and after that, everything started falling into place.

Anyway, enough rambling. Hope you enjoy the story!