Nelson’s hardboiled fantasy novella On The Head Of A Pin is now available from either Amazon for the Kindle, or from Barnes & Noble, both for only $2.99!

When “Sufi chick” spa owner Núr Lucas hires him to locate the angel of despair, private detective C. R. Oliver thinks he’s taking another safe and easy missing-person case, but he soon finds himself swept into the otherworldly schemes of the Seven Sins, the emotional manipulation of his own client, and the temptations of a young fallen angel who clues him in to the secret for  cheating Death Herself .

PRAISE FOR ON THE HEAD OF A PIN FROM AMAZON: Read more »

Hardboiled fantasy novella On The Head Of A Pin now available for $2.99 on Kindle.

When “Sufi chick” spa owner Núr Lucas hires him to locate the angel of despair, private detective C. R. Oliver thinks he’s taking another safe and easy missing-person case, but he soon finds himself swept into the otherworldly schemes of the Seven Sins, the emotional manipulation of his own client, and the temptations of a young fallen angel who clues him in to the secret for cheating Death Herself.

With two short works published under the Cenolith imprint, it is time to hand over promotional work — including this blog — to my promo team.

Veda J. Taylor is an artist and professional session photographer living in Virginia.

John C. Sorello is a political activist  and “book addict” in the District of Columbia.

Samson Krugg is an intelligence professional and amateur comic designer in Maryland.

They’ll be discussing literature, art, publishing, and other matters here at Leith Literary.  They will also be promoting my writing and their own artistic endeavors.  Feel free to say hello!

I am a firm believer in the “traditional” approach to publishing, with its dreaded “gate-keepers” filtering literature’s incoming content for quality. And, of course, for commercial viability. It’s an imperfect, uncomfortable process, sure, but even an imperfect process is better than anarchy.

So then, why self-publish On The Head Of A Pin?

After years of writing without submission, mostly short stories but also a couple of novels, Pin forced itself into my consciousness … the way stories do. It started as a single sentence, which is still the opening line of the story, but quickly exploded into the sort of metafictional literary stunt commercial authors typically wait to pull until well after they have achieved some degree of success.

Having completed it, I could have shelved it while working on more conventional fiction, but I recognized (as the story itself demonstrates) that Death might find me at any time.  And, Pin is clearly not the sort of thing that would turn an agent or editor on to a first-time author — try pitching a novella sometime, even a high-concept one.  “Private detective on a missing-person case, and the missing person is an angel?  Cool!  Only 20 thousand words?  Hmmm, have you considered expanding it into a novel?”

After you read Pin, you’ll realize the story could not be stretched far without undermining its pacing reference to the inter-medium romance between text and film.  From a literary standpoint, the story must remain in that unGoldilocks dead zone between the periodical-friendly short story and the house-friendly novel.

So the only option was to don armor and rush into the self-publishing riot.