Short Stories

Richard Rayner’s short story, Cougar Witch Plot, was published in Dirty Magick: Los Angeles.

In the dark corners of the new centuries, there are people who use their magic. Many practice the art, but the bands of rogues who stalk the city with profit and power as their only motive use the magic as it was never intended. “Dirty Magick: Los Angeles” is the new urban fantasy anthology from Lucky Mojo Press. Focusing on the intersection of two genres (fantasy and detective/crime), this collection highlights the place where magic survives and flourishes in the concrete heartbeat of Hollywood. Here are the ne’er-do-wells who use magic to commit crime and the hard boiled wizards who would stop them.

Buy it on Amazon.

Richard’s short story After the Movie was published in The New Yorker’s April 30, 2007 Issue.

Ed Vickery and his wife, Kate, came home late from the movies. They’d seen that big hit about ancient-Greek guys making a last stand against the Persian hordes. Ed’s mind had been elsewhere, however, with the I.R.S. and dodgy A.R.M.s, not severed heads in C.G.I. He felt flat, exhausted. His back hurt. His athlete’s foot itched. The rich, sickly smell of night-flowering jasmine swamped his lungs, and all of a sudden he had trouble breathing.

Read it here.

Richard’s short story A Discourse on the Elephant was published in Granta 28: Birthday Special.

The anniversary edition of Granta features the works of Nadine Gordimer, Richard Ford, Russell Hoban, Louise Erdrich, George Steiner, Salmon Rushdie, and more. Each of the contributors has been previously featured in Granta.

Read it here.