Before I started writing I thought the old adage “write what you know” makes sense. Why wouldn’t you, I thought? It would be so difficult to write things that you didn’t know. WRONG. It’s boring as hell to write what you know. If I were to do that I’d be writing a diary, not fiction, and the diary would induce sudden-onset narcolepsy, from which the reader would NEVER RECOVER.

Anyway, write what you know is out and “write the shit that makes you laugh and cry and want and feel” is in, which is why I’ve written a short story set in 1920s Wichita. That’s prohibition-era, folks. What a perfect place to throw a WWI veteran and a lethal slayer who looks like a wide-eyed ingenue together. What a perfect time to stick them between rival gangs of bootleggers and vampires and let them figure their way out.

I’m posting the story – One Night in Wichita – on Wattpad, for free, with scenes going up as I edit them. Find it HERE.

The blurb is below:

Wichita, 1920s – Bootleggers, speakeasies, vampires – oh my!

Jake Mathisen survived the Great War only to return home to find there’s little work for a pilot and, worse, the vampires of Europe have been emigrating to the States. Working for bootlegger Toliver Cain means good money, access to a sterling airplane, and enough free hooch that he doesn’t have to think too much about how Cain earns that money.

Until Cain dispatches him to drive Miss Vera Avery to a vampire house. The one job that Jake regrets, and the one that Cain uses to keep him close, involved the death of Vera Avery’s father. And while Vera plays the wide-eyed ingenue, there’s something hard inside of her. Could the blonde with the bright smile be as lethal as the vampires she’s sent to face and, if so, what’s going to happen when she finds out what Jake’s done?