• “The Infrastructure of the Gods: 11 Signposts for Going all the Way” by Brian Hodge
• “The Writer’s Purgatory: Between Finishing the First Draft and Submitting the Manuscript” by Monique Snyman
• “Why Rejection is Still Important” by Kevin Lucia
• “Real Writers Steal Time” by Mercedes M. Yardley
• “What Right Do I Have to Write” by Jasper Bark
• “Go Pace Yourself” by Jack Ketchum
• “A Little Infusion of Magic” by Dave-Brendon de Burgh
• “Never Look Away: Confronting Your Fears in Fiction” by Todd Keisling
• “Once More With Feeling” by Tim Waggoner

Writers On Writing give young authors the guidance they need, but has advice for all authors, from the interested newbie to the seasoned veteran (sounds delicious, right?).

Are you ready to be an author?

Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing - Tales from The Darkest Depths

Interview with the Authors:

So what makes Writers on Writing so special?
Todd Keisling: Writers On Writing is unique in that it provides a collection of essays from both newcomers and established professionals, providing a wide range of perspectives on the art and craft of writing.

Tell us more about you essay in Writers on Writing.
Todd Keisling: My essay “Never Look Away: Confront Your Fears in Fiction” is an anecdotal look at an important lesson I learned early on in my writing career: That you shouldn’t look away from your subject matter, no matter how disturbing it is to you. Looking away does a disservice to your story, and by proxy, your reader.

Why should authors read Writers on Writing?
Jack Ketchum: It's rich in the variety of subjects discussed, written by people who know whereof they speak.

Todd Keisling: There are decades of experience contained within the book’s pages, covering multiple genres. I can’t think of a more diverse collection for the established—or aspiring—writing professional.

Do you have other non-fiction books authors should try out?
Jack Ketchum: Stephen King's ON WRITING and DANSE MACABRE. William Goldman's ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE. Syd Field's SCREENPLAY.

Todd Keisling: A few come to mind: Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and Ariel Gore’s How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead.

Shallow Waters—where nothing stays buried.

With twenty-one dark tales diving beneath the surface of life, death, and the pain between them.

Shallow Waters is the official monthly flash fiction challenge hosted by the award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing. Every month a new challenge is posted online, with authors submitting via email. The best submissions are then posted on Crystal Lake’s Patreon page, where patrons read daily entries and vote for the winner. What you’ll find in these Shallow Waters anthologies include the most popular of our finalists.

Stay tuned for more volumes in this series, or find Crystal Lake Publishing on Patreon to enter or vote on future challenges.

Volume three includes horror, thrillers, suspense, and stories of hauntings, monsters, clowns, twisted love, and the beauty beneath it all.

Introduction by Joe Mynhardt
“Piece Meal” by Madeline Mora-Summonte
“The Anonymous Dark” by Jonathan Winn
“Number Seventeen” by Monique Snyman
“For Her” by Jo-Anne Russell
“Second Chances” by Rob Smales
“Maker of Flight” by Richard Thomas
“Inertia” by Joshua Hair
“Malignant Roots” by Red Lagoe
“Two to a Desk” by Dani Brown
“The Comb” by Theresa Derwin
“Echoes” by Megan Hart
“Haunted Places” by Mark Allan Gunnells
“Hallways, Long and Dark” by Dale Elster
“The Chance of a Lifetime” by Pete Mesling
“GOGGINS” by Stephen Crowley
“Caoine” by Jennifer Loring
“Hacked” By Mark Cassell & Patrick R. McDonough
“Ghosts of the Wood” by Tim Meyer
“Paid in Full” by Roberta Codemo
“This Other Door” by Dan Rabarts & Lee Murray
“Always and Forever” by Jay Faulkner

In this volume…

• This Halloween, the girl might just get more than she bargained for.
• A gumball machine dispenses something far more sinister—and sweeter—than candy.
• Lessons don’t always have to be taught in school.
• You never know what you’ll find at the end of a dark hallway…
• A serial killer reminisces over his last victim.
• An Irish-American man come to terms with the legacy he leaves, thanks to the ancestral apparition that has haunted his family for centuries.
• Some relationships leave scars that linger even beyond death.
• When a Victorian actor’s career comes to a sudden end due to a flare-up of gout during an opening-night performance at the Delphi Theatre, he is left with only one chance to exact revenge on the inflexible house manager.
• Stalked by shadows, a woman prowls the darkened halls of her longtime home.
• Her body found mutilated down the tin mines and pursued by her step sister, she scratches her hooks against the wall as her classmates disappear.
• Some curses are eternal and unbreakable.
• Inertia—a property of matter in which something moves at a set speed and direction until made to change by another force.
• After his dark soul took to the soil, evil plagued the roots of the family tree.
• Houses aren’t the only places that can be haunted...

SHADOW GROVE IS A PERFECTLY PLEASANT TOWN ...

Shadow Grove isn't a typical town. Bad things happen here. Children disappear, one after the other, and nobody is doing anything about it. Parents don't grieve, missing posters don't line the streets, and the sheriff seems unconcerned.

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Cleary lives on the outskirts of Shadow Grove, next to the creepy forest everyone pretends doesn't exist. Usually the forest is filled with an eerie calm, an unmistakable graveyard solemnity. But the trees have started whispering, forgotten creatures are stirring, and the nights feel darker than ever.

Something is stalking the residents of Shadow Grove, changing them into brain-dead caricatures of themselves. It's up to Rachel to stop the devouring of her hometown before all is destroyed and everyone she loves is forever lost.