Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in an online short story contest sponsored by John Kenyon on his blog "Things I'd Rather Be Doing." The theme of the contest was too intriguing to pass up: update a fairy tale as crime fiction. The contest outgrew its initial beginnings and evolved into a bigger project that recently popped out in its finished, fiendish form, an anthology titled Grimm Tales.
John explained how he got the idea:
This anthology is the result of considerable work by many talented writers who ran with an idea I got while reading to my son. When he grabbed his collection of illustrated (and sweetened) fairy tales for the umpteenth bedtime, I discovered a valuable skill: I could read these tales with one part of my brain and think about something completely different with another. While recounting the exploits of Puss in Boots, I began to wonder about how the story could be recast as crime fiction.
With that idea in mind, I started to dabble with an idea or two, but found I needed motivation to push me through the process. I decided a writing challenge was in order. I put out the call on my blog, Things I’d Rather Be Doing, asking my fellow crime writers to adapt a fairy tale as a crime fiction story. Sixteen fellow writers answered the call, and as I read compelling story after compelling story, I realized that it would be a shame for these stories to languish alone on blogs scattered across the Web. They deserved to be together and to be read.
That’s where the kind folks at Untreed Reads got involved. They agreed that these stories deserved a wider audience and we began to assemble this collection.
Grimm Tales includes an introduction by Ken Bruen and stories by Patricia Abbott, Absolutely*Kate, Jack Bates, Eric Beetner, Nigel Bird, Loren Eaton, Kaye George, Blu Gilliand, Seana Graham, Eirik Gumeny, R.L. Kelstrom, John Kenyon, BV Lawson, Evan Lewis, B. Nagel, Sean Patrick Reardon and Sandra Seamans. The e-book has become one of Untreed Reads' bestsellers, and now through January 15th, it's even 25% off. Not only that, but Untreed is providing a 50% discount on Discount Noir edited by Patricia Abbott and Steve Weddle if you buy both at the same time.
And there's nothing grim about that...
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