That’s right! Yesterday your boy married his longtime girlfriend/best friend/soulmate in a small ceremony, capping off a relationship that began 31 years ago!
Let’s rewind…
Back in the distant mists of time, 1991 to be exact, I met a sweet young lady in college. I was 21, she was 19. We hit it off right away, but after about a month we parted ways. Flash forward 18 years later and she contacts me via Facebook (Thanks, Zuck) and we picked up from where we left off. Older and wiser, our relationship blossomed and she moved in. We spent the last 11 years together and she’s my constant companion and confidante.
When we first started dating, we’d take romantic strolls along the boardwalk. During one walk I knelt down to tie my shoe and she stood over me and proclaimed, “Kneel before Zod!” At that moment I knew she was the one for me. Our love endured losses from Hurricane Sandy, the death of our cat, and employment loss during a pandemic. She makes the universe better simply by existing, like Sir Elton sings, “How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.” Marrying her is my happily ever after.
Writing our own wedding vows challenged us to summarize our relationship in less than one page. Fortunately, my 300-word declaration of love and pledge to my beloved impressed the mayor who officiated our ceremony. He said my vows were the best he ever heard in the in the four years he’s conducted weddings. Maybe I’ll share my carefully-crafted wordsmithery in a future blog post on how to write wedding vows.
Three Time Travelers Cover Reveal
Three Time Travelers Walk Into…, an anthology coming out soon from Fantastic Books, has a cover designed by Lynne Hansen!
Editor Michael A. Ventrella announced the table of contents for these time-traveling tales, where three time travelers from different eras unite and have adventures together:
* “At the Chocolate Bar” by Jody Lynn Nye (George Washington Carver, Julia Child, Im-Hotep)
* “The Jurors” by Lawrence Watt-Evans (F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Tecumseh Sherman, Mary Wollstonecraft)
* “Star Rat’s Tale” by Allen Steele (Marlon Brando, Jesus Christ, Cesar Romero)
* “A Vampire, an Astrophysicist, and a Mother Superior Walk Into a Basilica” by Henry Herz (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Vlad Tepes, Mother Teresa)
* “The Greatest Trick” by Louise Piper (Charles Baudelaire, Cassie Chadwick, Martin Luther King Jr.)
* “The Mystic Lamb” by Gail Z. Martin (Edgar Cayce, Maggie Fox, Harry Houdini, Nicola Tesla)
* “Episode in Liminal State Technical Support, or, Mr. Grant in the Bardo” by Gregory Frost (Ambrose Bierce, Cary Grant, Amelia Earhart)
* “The Eternal Library” by L. Penelope (Zora Neale Hurston, the Queen of Sheba, Tituba)
* “Time Out” by David Gerrold (Harlan Ellison, Dorothy C. Fontana, David Gerrold)
* “Punching Muses” by S.W. Sondheimer (Frida Kahlo, Kusama Yayoi, Sappho, Oscar Wilde)
* “Wednesday Night at the End Times Tavern” by James A. Moore (Cotton Mather, Robert E. Howard, Prince Radu of Wallachia)
* “A Christmas Prelude” by Peter David (Ali Baba, Don Quixote, Mephistopheles)
* “Cornwallis’ Gift” by Heather McKinney (Elizabeth Bathory, Michael Jackson, George Washington)
* “What You Can Become Tomorrow” by Keith R.A. DeCandido (Josh Gibson, Florence Johnson, Mary Shelley)
* “Nostradamus’ Angels” by Hildy Silverman (Mary Antoinette, Marie Curie, Mary Todd Lincoln)
* “The Last Act at the Time Cabaret” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lansford Hastings, Joseph Pujol, Billie Ritchie)
* “Never Meet Your Heroes” by Eric Avedissian (Blackbeard, John Dillinger, Jesse James)
* “The Adventure of the Confounded Writer” by Jonathan Maberry (Arthur Conan Doyle, Ed McBain, H.G. Wells)
“Make Lovecraft, Not War” Finds Publisher
My short story, MAKE LOVECRAFT, NOT WAR, will be published in the upcoming Great Wars anthology by Lost Boys Press! I can’t reveal any particulars yet, but here’s a teaser:
France, 1917. Twenty-seven-year old Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a former blue blood and obscure New England scribe, willingly enlists for what he thinks will be a patriotic crusade. As the Great War intensifies, Lovecraft witnesses atrocities beyond his imaging. Eldritch horrors stalk the trenches and desolate battlefields, changing the war forever and pushing Lovecraft’s sanity to the breaking point. Will he survive war’s horrors, or will No Man’s Land claim another sacrifice?
I’m really excited about this story, which mixes cosmic horror with real-world combat. More details as I get them, so hang tight.
“Panned Peter” in Edits
My story (practically a novella), PANNED PETER, is undergoing edits. I don’t want to reveal too much about this one, but it’s a scuzzy tale set in a Neverland corrupted by the real world. PANNED PETER is one story in the upcoming anthology, Panthology from Shadow Spark Publishing. The beta readers provided unforgettable feedback and weren’t too grossed out by a middle-aged Peter Pan and his misadventures on the brink of irrelevance. Look for this one in June.
That’s all the news for this month! See you in May for more mirthful wordage and blandishment.
Eric Avedissian 