My brief, strange short story “The Lead Between the Panes” has just appeared at the new online fiction and poetry zine Lakeside Circus. My story falls somewhere between an M.R. James pastiche, a dark meditation on life’s cruelties, and a tone poem. (EDIT LONG AFTER THE FACT: In hindsight, I was going for the sort of thing Robert Aickman did.)
 
I first got the idea for it after visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and noticing a curious trick of light and reflection that made a stained glass window appear to float disembodied above an atrium. A conversation with my wife about why the fat spiders clustered around our porch light kept disappearing also factored in.
 
The story also contains a Tuckerized shout out to our buddy Paul Muse. Luckily he doesn’t mind having his name associated with evil, heh, heh.
 
You can read the story here. Check out the rest of the issue too, there’s a lot of cool people involved.
 
#SFWApro
 

Posted in Fiction, Short stories, Writing