Subtle Sips and Spicy Shots from David Lee Summers and Lee Clark Zumpe.
The best thing about Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions is the people you meet. David Lee Summers has been part of the SnackWrites panel at Bubonicon for several years now. That’s where I provide writing prompts to the four or five professional writers on the panel, like David, and give them five minutes to write something. The Pro writers are obligated to read out loud what they wrote, and they are great sports. Audience members are encouraged to volunteer to read what they wrote, and many do. It’s a blast.
At the 2024 Bubonicon, I got to know David a little better. We shared a table during the author signing session. We discovered we both had vampire books. I picked up a copy of, Blood Sampler, a collection of vampire flash fiction written by David and Lee Clark Zumpe. This collecition shares some traits of SnackWrites, they are short pieces and they are fun.
From the first story in the collection, I was impressed that the two writers could consistently tell a complete story, with beginning, middle and end, in a few hundered words. Soon I was frankly astonished, however, with something David was achieving in his tiny stories, a twist ending. The story, The Lady of the House, was the first place I encountered this. It is constructed of three paragraphs, one each for beginning, middle and end, AND the end is a reversal my expectations as a reader. David pulls this off time and time again throughout the collection. I got to discuss this with him a little, and told him these stories remineded my of sonnets with their structure of the last part of the sonnet often presenting an alternative perspective to the first part of the sonnet. If I remember correctly, he responsded that he himself had been aware of the similiarity of these short pieces to verse.
If you like quickly consumed, juicy stoires, and particularly if you like vampire fiction, you should check out this collection. https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/blood-sampler-by-david-lee-summers-lee-clark-zumpe