It is firefly season in the mountains and my short story Faerie Lanterns has finally been published in The Dread Machine. Faerie Lanterns is a story about suburban sprawl and the trauma of being uprooted from a place you called home and forced to put down roots in a new place. It is about the…
Dr. Garbanzo Writes the First Draft
If anyone knows an agent who likes speculative metafictional farce and a dazzling light show of lampshaded pulp detective tropes, please, please, point them in my direction.
Breaking the Block
This morning I stumbled across an article by Alexander Chee that had a lot of helpful advice for breaking writer’s block, which is why I’m writing this, I suppose. Just something to flex my fingers and force my brain to connect words and ideas, something to summon the Muse. A conjuration. Last spring and summer…
Approaching Behemoth
Winter lumbered onto the scene like a slowly approaching behemoth. Blizzard-black clouds loomed on the horizon. The distant mountaintops were already suffocated in snowy drifts. The howling winds came down off their ridges with the ferocity of a charging horde. Icicles formed from the snot that dripped from my nose as I tried in vain…
Highway Mattress Roadkill
Is a poem a song that springs from the heart? Or is it a work of deep concentration and editing? I walked out my front door this morning and I smacked my head on a poem. It was floating on the front porch like a potted plant in a hangar. Its leaves were brittle and…
Filament Brilliance
Filament brilliance Segmented ligaments Mislabeled elements Militant elephants Vigilant governments Kindling tinder-kits
90s Comic Deep-Dive:Knightfall
[I wrote this as a part of a “application process” for an online magazine. I didn’t get the job, but the project wasn’t a total loss, since the Knightfall story arc is probably my favorite Batman story. I know there are better stories, but I’m biased. I was a pre-teen in the early 90s, and…
Cuticles
[Cuticles is a 100-word drabble that I just got published in The Horror Tree, an online horror ‘zine and a great resource for authors and horror fans alike.] It’s Andy’s fifth pedicure this month—his cuticles won’t stop growing. Bags sag under his eyes; his lids are long and drooping. The technician fills Andy’s footbath. His…
Unstrung
That old unstrung guitar Sits cobwebbed in the corner. My callouses are gone – Fingers sanded soft & Weak from lack of practice. Ancient songs unsung – By lungs for far too long. My voice and knuckles crack. When will the muse come back?
A Checklist of My Bones
I skinned myself and made a checklist of my bones. I labeled my insides and read the expiration dates of every organ. I consulted the Fabrica of my bowels and the fibrosis of my lungs. My gut bacteria and microbiome. I inventoried my nutrients and found myself deficient. Picking up my discarded sack of flesh…
Tim Burkhardt 