Silver Webb is very pleased to present Hurricanes & Swan Songs, a 200-page anthology of thirteen strange tales.
Dear Reader,
Hurricanes & Swan Songs was a collection conceived while drunk, laughing, and staring at a moose head nailed to the wall...as are many children, I’m told (conceived, not nailed to a wall). I don’t have children. I’m a writer. I can barely take care of myself and the ubiquitous “two cats” that writers list in their bio blurb as a euphemism for depression. Although I argue that writing a good novel is more difficult than raising a kid; otherwise, everyone would have a Pulitzer stashed in their medicine cabinet.
Occasionally other writers, who are willing to forgive my lack of social prowess in exchange for conversations about semi-colons and Hunter Thompson, lure me out to socialize. Invariably it is to the same two or three restaurants. The places with comfy booths and tsunami-strong cocktails.
I believe it was halfway into a Hurricane and long past the point of dignity that I thought, “I should be writing these conversations down.” I tried. You’d be surprised how fussy writers are about having their words stenographed and read back to them. Very fussy. So then I thought, “I should ask other writers to write their own stories about this.”
I believe the first response was something along the lines of “Write a story about a bar? It’s been done.” Yes, well, perhaps it has. But not this bar. Not this Hurricane. Not this plate of burnt ends. Writers with busy publication deadlines stopped just short of suggesting that I should look into pills for my kind of crazy. But eventually my enthusiasm, if not logic, held sway, and stories began to show up in my inbox. Good stories from good writers. That’s better than a Mai Tai.
And so was born an anthology about that restaurant, where nobody knows your name, and perhaps it’s better they do not. An anthology about love, loss, and mayonnaise. Cockroaches, spliffs, and purgatory. Ghosts, both murderous and helpful, psychokinetic battles, and even a blind date among widowers and a not-so-blind date with Hemingway.
What was the name of the restaurant? Mary’s, Perry’s, Jerry’s...it’s that restaurant in your town, just down the street. And if you can’t find it, look no further. Have a seat next to us, order a cocktail, and let the tall tales roll.
Where Have All the Good Times Gone?
by Ted Chiles
Sitting Here in Limbo
by Max Talley
For Thee
by Chella Courington
Buggery
by Tom Layou
How Mad Matt Won the Nobel Prize in Literature
by Matthew J. Pallamary
Nutritional Value
by Lisa Lamb
My Dinner at the Boy Restaurant
by Shelly Lowenkopf
Ghost Moose of Clary’s Cafe
by Nicholas Deitch
The Third Hurricane
by John Reed
East Toward the Sun
by Christine Casey Logsdon
Closing Credits
by Dennis Russell
The Hurricane: Mercury in Retrograde
by Silver Webb
A Turn with Worms
by Stephen T. Vessels
The anthology is available Amazon here, and for those local to Santa Barbara, at Chaucers Books by mid-April.
Best,
Silver Webb
Editrix
