Cover of and Excerpts from 'Milk Like a Melted Ghost' (Thumbscrews Press, 2011)

Here is the cover of my forthcoming novella, Milk Like a Melted Ghost, to be published April 1, 2011 by Thumbscrews Press (Pear Noir!).

Thanks to Daniel Casebeer of Thumbscrews Press for accepting and publishing Milk Like a Melted Ghost, as well as allowing me to help design the cover.

Milk Like a Melted Ghost will be published exclusively online as an e-book in the Issuu format, so anyone will be able to read it for free.

Here is the story this novella bloomed from, originally published in Abjective.

Here is an excerpt/'teaser' from Milk Like a Melted Ghost:

A butterfly, twinkling through the window, through the glass, the window closed, its wings like eyelids fluttering, flirting with Clarabelle, its wings flickering like candlelight on the wall, and Clarabelle, blushing—dawn blooming on her cheeks.

The butterfly, fluttering down to the melted ghost of milk, landing on its shore, licking the edge of the puddle, the melted ghost of milk shrinking as the butterfly drank from it, of it, until the melted ghost of milk disappeared.

The butterfly, swelling as it drank, until it was full, a furry snowball, a rainbow with wings, and it lifted up into the air and, fluttering toward Clarabelle, landed on her belly, clung to her bathrobe, fluttering there.

Clarabelle’s belly, beginning to swell.

The butterfly’s wings, folding upward, like hands, and with hers Clarabelle’s fingers pinched its wings, pulled it from her belly, placing the butterfly into her mouth, swallowing it.

Clarabelle, nervous about swallowing the butterfly—she swallowed the butterfly whole, the butterfly tickling her belly from inside, made her nauseous.

“Farther,” she said.

“ ”

Clarabelle’s feet, sinking into the warm wet sand as she approached the castle, the sun beneath her, glowing up through the sand and into her skin, glittering off the sand’s crystals and broken through her into rainbows.

The sand castle Clarabelle formed from a cloud and tossed back into the sky, the sand castle landing on top of the highrise cemetery, the cemetery wore the castle like a hat.

Clarabelle, crouching, scooping some sand into her palms, its soft crystals sifting through her fingers.

The sand castle’s drawbridge, lowering, the drawbridge a tongue unfurling to lick Clarabelle into the archway of the castle’s mouth, and Clarabelle, stepping onto the tip of the castle’s tongue, its sand squishing between her toes.

Children, running out of the sand castle, laughing and screaming, their arms waving around, the castle’s tongue drooping at the end, the children all sliding down the tongue and into the sky.

Clarabelle, looking down as they fell, wondered where they would go, she turned around to look inside the castle.

The castle, coughing, Clarabelle slipped in the sand, dug her fingers into the sand at the back of the castle’s tongue, the castle gagging, coughed again, Clarabelle on her back, her swollen belly, sliding down the castle’s tongue, falling off the tip of it, falling into the sky.

I hope you will read Milk Like a Melted Ghost when it is published by Thumbscrews Press in April, and please check out other Thumbscrews titles from such authors as Andrew Borgstrom and J.A. Tyler. Thank you for your time...