Running Wild Press Short Story Anthology, Volume 8

This anthology brings together twenty-six stories from authors, Nathaniel Farcas, Lauren Lang, Caroline Shannon Davenport, Jon Fain, Elizabeth S. Devecchi, Eric D. Lehman, Brittany Bell, Ken Goldman, Vincent Czyz, Dalton Mire, Gary Zenker, Mykyta Ryzhykh, Kim Ransley, Mark Williams, Beck Erixson, Ibtisam Shahbaz, Jennifer Cinguina, Joseph A. Schiller, John Tavares, Jerry Purdon, and Justin Lowe. These curated stories center around the human experience, fact or fiction they delve into the experience of being human; cruel twists of fate, secrets held, the measure of risks taken, the assessment of faith, confronting one's demons, and the impact of relationships in various forms.

The Storyby Nathaniel Farcas

A young man comes home, but home is not what he thought it was . . . and I guess it is a supernatural tale.

A Royal Pain in the Ear by Lauren Lang

Royal earaches are no laughing matter for a court jester.

Uprooted by Jon Fain

A Hollywood location manager goes to a place he thought he'd never see again--his hometown--to deal with unpleasant memories and the complex needs of his estranged family.

Open House by Elizabeth S. Devecchi

A young realtor is assigned her first open house, a step toward independence and escape from an abusive husband. The mysterious inhabitants of the little fixer-upper have different plans for her.

The Kipling Lampby Eric D. Lehman

A young man buys a magical lamp that belonged to Rudyard Kipling in order to become a famous writer, but it does not go as smoothly as he hopes.

Copper by Brittany Bell

A lonely girl befriends her elderly neighbor one summer after her parents cut ties with her best friends family for undisclosed reasons.

All For You, Sara Sueby Ken Goldman

Meet Darcy and Elliot, a childless couple who desperately want a baby of their own but find they are unable to conceive. Together they discover a most unusual way to make that birth happen--and Sara Sue is born! But at what cost..?

Basement Bobby Brittany Bell

An eleven-year-old girl undergoes a formative experience while trying to impress an older boy by spying on the town's enigmatic recluse, akin to Boo Radley.

The Weeping Scimitar by Vincent Czyz

"The Weeping Scimitar," set in the hinterlands of an unnamed Eastern European country in the 19th century, is the tale of a judgment, a blood debt, and a small band of brigands bent on escaping a gulag.

The Geisha in the Attic by Dalton Mire

A "Southern Belle" is exiled by missionaries to a House of Geisha in 1860s Japan, and her letters inspire a woman in the 21st Century.

Statute of Limitations by Gary Zenker

The long arm of the law has an even longer reach than one might guess.

People on the Roads and in the Gardens by Mykyta Ryzhykh

A story about war, people, roads, cities.

The Fisherman by Kim Ransley

What if the sea is your only friend?

Ricochet by Mark Williams

Teenage banjo prodigy, Harlan Dillbeck, goes to Bardstown, Kentucky, where, after giving up his dreams of banjo stardom, he becomes a master bourbon taster. Years later, with help from his former banjo-playing nemesis, Sam Boone, Harlan hopes to rescue his son from a nine-fingered hitman, Duke Earl.

The Memory Bench by Beck Erixson

Craving a memory's soul makes hot chocolate bittersweet.

Begin Again by Ibtisam Shahbaz

This story captures the tale of two lovers as melodies echoing in different corners of the world, whose soundwaves have collided at last.

Respite by Jennifer Cinguina

The Audition by Brittany Bell

A talented musician confronts guilt over his younger sister's death while auditioning for Julliard.

Never Enough by Caroline Shannon Davenport

Abundant Accumulations and Acquirements. A game? A need?

Schmeared Reputation by Gary Zenker

Life dishes out a serving of the darker side of people, with a side of irony.

The Results by Joseph A. Schiller

Our future no longer holds any secrets from us. We may wish it did.

As My Father Was Dying by Caroline Shannon Davenport

Being pulled away but painfully, slowly, slowly, being pulled toward...

Last Kiss by Gary Zenker

If you know the secret being hidden, is it still a secret?

Art Project by John Tavares

Monster by Jerry Purdon

A man is disappointed in his quest to assert his authority and make others disappointed. As his plans unravel, with his main target's death, he sets his sights on someone else to torment.

Portobello by Justin Lowe

Back in 1989 Sydney, Michael's journalist fiancee arrived home to announce she was being transferred to their London desk, effective immediately. Michael wasn't even consulted but promised to join her as soon as he could. Three days before he was due to fly out, his fiancee rang to announce she was married. This is a tale, not so much of one woman's perfidy, as of the kindness of strangers in a cold forbidding city as Europeans changes all around them.

Nathaniel Farcas was a 19-year-old award-winning short story author and had been writing poetry since the age of six. His poetry has been seen in the Southern Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo) as well as featured in New Words {press}. He was so very proud to be featured in the Running Wild & RIZE Annual Short Story Anthology. He left an enormous amount of stories, poems and two novels which are slowly being curated by his mother for continuing publication.

Lauren Lang is a former broadcast journalist and current freelance photographer and videographer living in Denver, CO. In her spare time, she writes fiction, cooks, bakes, crochets hats for stuffed animals, gardens with the intent of taking pictures of the flowers should they live and terrorizes residents by pretending to be a wildlife photographer and running through area parks with her camera screaming, "Birds!" Occasionally, she does take a picture of a bird. More information about Lauren and her work can be found by visiting: https: //www.facebook.com/AuthorLaurenLang/

Jon Fain has worked as a silk-screen printer, warehouse worker, resume writer, corporate documentation and training consultant, and freelance editor. He began publishing fiction in commercial and literary magazines in the 1980s, and later in some of the first online literary journals in the 2000s. He has close to 100 short fiction publications to date. His flash fiction chapbook, "Pass the Panpharmacon!" is available from Greying Ghost Press. He lives in Massachusetts.

Elizabeth Devecchi spent much of her youth in New England, setting out after high school to gather degrees and experiences, jumping from state to state, country to country. Author of the blog themoonthesunandlittleman.com, Elizabeth's short story, "The Hunt," appeared in Ariel Chart; and her essay, "A Moment in My Head," ran in Run Amok Book's The Growlery. Lately, she has delved into the world of horror, and her poem, "Oh, Brother" is included in the second installment of Black Spot Books' annual women in horror poetry showcase, UNDER HER EYE, released in November 2023. Her debut horror novel, A WHISPER IN THE DARK, is set for release by Wicked House Publishing in 2024 and her second novel, a thriller/horror, with a touch of the paranormal is being signed for release in early 2025. Elizabeth is an HWA and SCBWI member, and currently resides in Colorado with her family.

Eric D. Lehman is the author or editor of twenty-two books, including New England at 400, A History of Connecticut Food, Literary Connecticut, and Afoot in Connecticut: Journeys in Natural History, nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His biography of Charles Stratton, Becoming Tom Thumb, won the Henry Russell Hitchcock Award from the Victorian Society of America, and was chosen as one of the American Library Association's outstanding university press books of the year. His revolutionary history Homegrown Terror: Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London was a finalist in two categories of the Next Gen Indie Book Awards and was used in a question on Jeopardy. And his novella, Shadows of Paris, was the Novella of the Year from the Next Gen Indie Book Awards, a Silver Medal for Romance from the Foreword Review Indie Book Awards, and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. In addition to teaching creative writing and literature at the University of Bridgeport, he is a regular contributor to Estuary and has been consulted on diverse subjects and quoted by The Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the BBC, the History Channel, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, and The Wall Street Journal.

Ken Goldman, former Philadelphia teacher of English and Film Studies, is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association. He has homes on the Main Line in Pennsylvania and at the Jersey shore. His stories have appeared in over 970 independent press publications in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia with over twenty due for publication in 2023-24. Ken's tales have received seven honorable mentions in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. He has written six books: three anthologies of short stories, YOU HAD ME AT ARRGH!! (Sam's Dot Publishers), DONNY DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (A/A Productions) and STAR-CROSSED (Vampires 2); and a novella, DESIREE, (Damnation Books). His first novel OF A FEATHER (Horrific Tales Publishing) was released in January 2014. SINKHOLE, his second novel, was published by Bloodshot Books August 2017.

Vincent Czyz is the author of two collections of short fiction, the first of which won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for Best in Small Press, two novels, a novella, and an essay collection. He is the recipient of two fiction fellowships from the NJ Council on the Arts, the W. Faulkner-W. Wisdom Prize for Short Fiction, and the 2011 Capote Fellowship at Rutgers University. His stories have appeared in Shenandoah, AGNI, The Massachusetts Review, Tin House, Copper Nickel, and Southern Indiana Review, among other publications.

Dalton Mire is a New York state native who has crisscrossed the United States and Canada. He worked for the Department of Defense Schools as a teacher and administrator in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Germany, the United Kingdom, Panama, and Puerto Rico. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He has won prizes in the Flash Fiction and Short Story genres in the Florida Writers Association competition, where he has also been a judge. He has published a variety of short stories and two novels: Fracking Dinosaurs-The Cayuga Lake Disaster and Rafe-Lincoln's Samurai Agent. Dalton now lives in Florida and can be reached at daltonmire@yahoo.com.

By day, Gary Zenker is an award-winning marketer and copywriter, using his talents to help companies and nonprofits reach their audiences. By night, his particular madness is flash fiction, crossing genres to write stories revealing the highs and lows of the potential hidden inside people you might know.

He began his writing career in college, grammar-correcting bathroom stall graffiti (true story). He believes that prepared him for a long history of angry rejection and harsh critique of his writing. He is also the founder of two writers' groups (one of which he still runs after 15 years), is the primary instigator of Noir at a Bar which runs annual benefits for the Oxford PA public library and likes to write about himself in the third person, much to the annoyance of people around him. He has authored a handful of books and published two dozen more reprinting rock and roll artifacts. His flash fiction has appeared in a number of online publications and print anthologies including Chicken Soup For the Soul: Humor and two previous Running Wild Anthologies.

www.garyzenkerstoryteller.com.

Mykyta Ryzhykh: Nominated for Pushcart Prize. Published many times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, TheNewVerse News, Acorn haiku Journal, The Wise Owl, Verse-Virtual, Scud, Fevers of the Mind, LiteraryYard, PLUM TREE TAVERN, ITERANT, Fleas on the Dog, The Tiger Moth Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Angel Rust, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, Monterey Poetry Review, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Ranger magazine, PPP Ezine, Bending Genres Journal, Rat's Ass Review, Cajun Mutt Press, minor literatures, Audience Askew Literary Journal, Spirit Fire Review, The Gravity of the Thing, Ballast Journal, Star 82 Review, The BeZine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Synchronized Chaos, boats against the current, The Decadent Review, Corvus Review, American Diversity Report, Unlikely Stories, Triggerfish Critical Review, The Moth, Ripple Lit, Rock & Sling, Meniscus, Rabid Oak, ZiN Daily, Stone of Madness, The Cortland Standard, Quarter Press, Schredder, Wilderness House Literary Review, Poetry Porch, Chewers & Masticadores, The Big Windows Review, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Third Wednesday, Cosmic Double, Dialogist, Consequence, Cool Beans Lit, Poets Choice, BarBar.

Kim Ransley lives in Tasmania, the small island at the bottom of Australia. She has a PhD in psychology and her stories often explore hallucination and altered states of mind. She has published poems and short stories in Australia and overseas and is currently working on her first novel. She has also published several non-fiction articles about the brain for news and science media around the world.

Mark Williams's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Eclectica, The Baffler, Cleaver, The Main Street Rag, Bull: Men's Fiction, and Gargoyle. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, Beyond Words, and elsewhere. Kelsay Books published his poetry collection, Carrying On, in 2022. This is his third appearance in a Running Wild Press anthology. He lives in Evansville, Indiana.

Beck Erixson writes about the beautifully awkward world of navigating the journey to happiness through friendships, love, and family--be it blood, found, or chosen. Her stories enhance the importance of positive interconnection, even when we feel lonely. She lives on the Jersey Shore and can often be found either writing by the river, or in it in some way.

Ibtisam Shahbaz is an emerging writer and poet based in Naarm. Her work is influenced by her childhood in Australia and Pakistani heritage. She has worked with Red Room Poetry, on their annual Poetry Month and Poem Forest projects. Her fiction has been published by outlets including Monash University Publishing, Old Water Rat Publishing and Hawkeye Publishing. She is currently the Poetry Editor at Be: longing Magazine. You can find more about her writing journey at www.ibtisamshahbaz.com.

Jennifer Cinguina lives in New York. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University and a master's from The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Her writing can be found in The New York Times and various online literary magazines.

Brittany Bell is a middle school teacher who lives in Queens, New York with her husband and two tiny humans who call her mom. She holds a BA in English Literature from CUNY Queens College, an MA in Special Education from CUNY Hunter College, and is a proud Teach for America alumni. Brittany has been writing since childhood and currently belongs to two local writers groups, including one she moderates. You can usually find her reading, writing, playing outside with her kids, or snuggled up next to one of the family cats.

Morning. Caroline Shannon Davenport sits here half asleep. Needing coffee. She reads from her soon-to-be published novel, Terror at the Sound of a Whistle, and looks back through time. She considers her short story published in Anthology #7, "Perennials." She could dream up something else in this state of mind. Would it be too redundant? If not, she'll use it, otherwise she'll dream...and a cat strolls by.

Joseph A. Schiller is a high school social studies teacher in Houston, TX USA, where he lives with his wife and three sons. Joseph has had several poems and short stories published along with a fantasy novel, Spanish translation of that novel, a non-fiction historical investigation, and an upcoming graphic novel.

Born and raised in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, John Tavares is the son of Portuguese immigrants from Sao Miguel, Azores. Having graduated from arts and science at Humber College and journalism at Centennial College, he more recently earned an Honors BA in English Literature from York University. His short fiction has been published in a variety of print and online journals and magazines, including anthologies and community radio and newspapers, in the US, Canada, and internationally. His many passions include journalism, literature, economics, photography, writing, and coffee, and he enjoys hiking and cycling.

Jerry Purdon writes dark fantasy and horror stories. "Bloodlines" in Incurable: Stories from the World of CURE anthology appeared in Spring of 2025. Earlier works include "Beer in a Bar" and "Graveyard Game". His favorite thing in the world is to sit outdoors engrossed in a great book. He holds a B.A. in Literature from the University of Houston, Clear Lake. Jerry resides in Texas and is married to his ideal reader.

You can find Jerry @ www.jerrypurdon.com

Justin Lowe lives in a house called Doug in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney where he edits international poetry blog, Bluepepper. "Portobello" comes from a work-in-progress comprising short stories, memoir and letters conceived while I waited on word from my publishers regarding my latest poetry collection (contracts are being drawn up as we speak).