More writerly news

Jen Jordan has put together another of her excellent anthologies for Bleak House and I'm in it. Ms. Jordan is a supporter of my writing which pleases me greatly since she's a woman of otherwise great taste. In any event, the book is called UNCAGE ME, and my story is titled "The Biography of Stoop, the Thief, Chapter Three: Stoop and Elizabeth."*

In any event, this is an anthology with one of the most stellar lineups of writers that you'll ever come across. To quote the product description: "Scott Phillips, Allan Guthrie, Christa Faust, Victor Gischler, J.A. Konrath, J.D. Rhoades, Declan Burke, Brian Azzarello, Steven Torres, Stewart Macbride, Simon Kernick, Patrick Bagley, Greg Bardsley, Stephen Blackmore, Tim Maleeny, Nick Stone, Martyn Waites, Talia Berliner, Maxim Jakubowski, Gregg Hurwitz, Blake Crouch, and more!"

Usually "and more" or "and others" refers to me...


In any event, here is what Publisher's Weekly had to say about the collection and my story in particular:

Publishers Weekly- -
While John Connolly ("The Reapers") rightly notes in his introduction that this all- original anthology isn't for the fainthearted, noir lovers will find plenty to savor among the 22 stories from both familiar and unfamiliar names. Steven Torres offers the most moving selection, The Biography of Stoop, the Thief, in which a 14- year- old boy tries to save the mother who abandoned him for a life on the streets as a substance abuser. Tim Maleeny's Prisoner of Love not only features twists and betrayals but manages to make an ambiguous resolution satisfying rather than frustrating. There are some duds, like Maxim Jakubowski's shocker We Mate in the Dark, with its pointless savagery, but on the whole the contributors demonstrate the ability to create believable and memorable characters as well as settings in a few pages.

Now, if you visit Jen Jordan's site, you get an explanation for the one negative comment. (Scroll to the May 22 entry.) Here I'll say a word about the positive comment about my story...It is the first positive thing PW has had to say about anything I've written so I'm quite excited. In the past, they accused me of writing gratuitous sex and violence (that of a book without a single sex scene... The next week another review called my writing "music for the soul". Study in contrasts...) and called one of my books "pointless." (Either that or useless, can't recall... Possibly both.) In any event, it is nice that PW has finally hopped on the Steven Torres bandwagon. A wagon which carries myself, my mother, Jen Jordan, and now PW...

More business news tomorrow.



* The long title is a little more than an affectation - There is a "Biography of Stoop, the Thief, Chapter One: Stoop and Clyde" out there (published by Crimespree some years ago) which is one of my favorite stories. Chapter Two is unpublished.