Jack of Harts

The Stone and Sky anthology by Opal Kingdom Press is available right now. They wanted us to write stories about gargoyles, so I had fun with them. I researched the earliest Gothic structures in America, found the Gothic Church on the New Haven Green, found the stories about a good guy Indian spirit putting a bad guy Indian spirit to sleep under the Sleeping Giant just north of New Haven, and I had a story.

And that is how Captain William Carter returned home to see gargoyles sitting atop the Gothic Church on the New Haven Green. Everything else is just what happens when an old school hunter of otherworldly creatures and threats to mankind sees something wrong and decides he needs to do something about it.

And that’s just my story. A full mix of fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction tales await you if you inside the pages of Stone and Sky.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

For me, I’m thankful for family and friends. I’ve seen some this week and I eat with some of you today. Many I will see over the next week or two, and others throughout the Christmas Season to come. Others are too far away for me to see at all, and so I tell you now that I’m thankful for you as well.

Those still alive and those who have died. I am the man I am today because of the influence of family and friends. All of you get a bit of credit or blame, depending on what you wish, for all of that.

I thank God that you are in my life.

Seyla.

In this week of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for Charlie.

He spoke in the most dangerous of places. Liberal colleges. He talked about God and Abortion and faith and anything else young men and women wanted to talk to him about. He answered their questions with grace and kindness. He always sought for a dialogue. Even when he got death threats for it.

He went into the lion’s den again and again and again. He was answering a question about transgender mass shooters when a trans-aligned shooter shot him in the neck and killed him.

He never stopped talking to them, and that’s why they had to kill him. They couldn’t out talk him, but they hated what he said so much that they had to silence him. In any way they could. So they killed him. And their joyous animalistic celebration of his death showed everyone who they were.

That’s not why I’m thankful for Charlie of course. I’m thankful because he gave us an example to live up to and those of us who are human are actually trying to live up to it.

He was a happy warrior who never stopped trying to reach out to those he thought could be turned to our side. And we should never stop.

Just like Charlie.