Tara Maya's Tales

Easter Bunny (Here Comes Peter Cottontail) is ready for downloading! This short story for young readers is only $0.99! Amazon Barnes and Noble Kobo Smashwords Have you ever wondered where the Easter Bunny comes from? How old he is? And how he happened to become a talking rabbit with a fondness for chocolate eggs? Gather around, children, and I shall tell you the legend of Peter Cottontail… Peek inside the first chapter: Long ago, before light bulbs or sliced bread, people lived in houses made of wattle and daub—which is just a fancy way of saying sticks and mud. They cooked their food over a hearth—which is just a fancy way of saying, an open fire. Dragons and goblins roamed the earth in those days, sowing terror and destroying whole villages. At one point, indeed, the goblins, who usually stayed in their cavern kingdoms below the earth, decided to conquer the upper world too. Armies of pointy-teethed, green skinned monsters poured across the land, burning houses, stea...

Rayne Hall   has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include   Storm Dancer  (dark epic fantasy novel),  Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3   (mild horror stories),   Six Historical Tales   (short stories),   Six Quirky Tales   (humorous fantasy stories),   Writing Fight Scenes   and   Writing Scary Scenes   (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the  Ten Tales  series of multi-author short story anthologies:  Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic  and more.   Her short  online classes for writer...

Today, Paul D. Dail, author of The Imaginings, joins us to answer questions about his fiction. 1. Describe the flavour of your fiction in six words. Thought-provoking, unpredictable, spiritually ambiguous, darkly humorous. 2. What do you enjoy most about writing horror fiction? Absolutely everything. I've loved horror movies and books since I was little, so while these days I enjoy reading almost any genre, when it comes to writing, I'm happiest when I'm writing horror. Oh, and I love the opportunity to give someone the creeps. I recently read a story of mine to my classes that I thought was fairly innocuous, but was pleasantly surprised when many of my students said it was "freaky." 3. Many people enjoy reading stories about undead creatures - ghosts, vampires, zombies. What do you think is the appeal? I think these three examples appeal on different levels. If I were to oversimplify, I would say people like ghosts because it gives them a sense of ...

Douglas Kolacki writes exciting fantasy stories, often with a Christian flavour, about zombies, pirates and almost normal people. Today he tells us about his writing pleasures and inspirations. 1. What do you enjoy most about writing fantasy fiction?  Remaking this world into a place more to my liking, where all the rules change and fantastic things come to life.  2. Many people enjoy reading stories about undead creatures - ghosts, vampires, zombies. What do you think is the appeal?  I think that in the case of ghosts and vampires, it's the mystery of it all--who hasn't been intrigued by ghosts and the undead? In the case of zombies, there's a sense of adventure in combating all these people-turned-monsters that can't be parleyed with, bribed or placated; you have to use your wits and whatever you can scrounge, do or die. 3. The story selected by editor Rayne Hall s for the anthology Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies features a human who adjusts to...

I've mentioned before that literary writing tells stories about insignificant people doing uninteresting things--but in an interesting way. It shouldn't be thought that this means literary writing should be dull. Done well, it is not at all dull. It has to work hard to sparkle though, and those techniques are worth plundering even if you write in another genre. As I was re-reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, I was struck anew by how she could weave an ordinary event into a riveting story. Take her short story, "A Question of Accommodations." [Spoiler Alert! You've been warned. You who read past this sentence are about to find out what happens!] Nothing much happens. A man and his wife attend the wedding of his old high school crush. And that's it. Seriously. "High Concept" it's not. Reading about this non-event should be as dull as paint drying...but not in the hands of Lahiri. She begins with a straightforward account of the coup...