"I surrender my eyesight to the darkness and the engulfing low end rush. As my focus fades my gaze is locked deep within one of the dark obsidian walls. All definition of the world around me dissipates and the ethereal beings beyond the dark glass gain detail and distinction. Eventually I can make out each digit on each hand and the subtlest nuance of each facial expression. A nervous energy runs through the crowd as the music reaches a physical and emotional peak and one by one the ethereal spirits glide across the dark glass plane and into the three dimensional world of flesh and stone."Rotten Leaves, a new literary outlet for the darker side of fiction and poetry, launched over the weekend. Co-founder Christopher Dwyer refers to RL as "A place where the cold meets the dark meets the fantastic." and their first issue delivers. The quality and variety of work is impressive. I like that they are using "dark" as a rather fluid editorial yardstick allowing them to play fast and loose with genre definitions.
My story,
Proud Music After The Storm, is part of the inaugural issue. It's a taught little piece of atmospheric occult-noir set in a haunted Brooklyn after a series of hurricanes. It began as a test drive for some of the stranger ideas I'm working with in the current novel in progress, but quickly developed it's own frostbitten late night reality.
I would love some feedback, so if you have any questions, insights or gut reactions please drop them in the comments over at Rotten Leaves or right here. And check out the rest of the issue. It is chock full of night black wonders.
