To read “Don’t Upset the World’s Best Second-Rate Writer,” click here.

I’m kind of excited to learn this is now available electronically, as it came out in print a month ago.  First published by Soliloquies Anthology in Issue 20.2 on 14 April 2016.

Many thanks to editor-in-chief Kailey Havelock and Fiction Editor Mike D’Itri for accepting this into this lovely international publication out of Concordia University. The print edition is well-made and stocked with great reading!

This story features a recurring family for me, the Leggetts.  In the flash that started it all, “Joseph Conrad Took Twenty-Five Years to Bust My Balls, That Twit,” I created Louis Roddan Leggett, a bit of a clubby snob who insulted THE Joseph Conrad when Conrad was at his most vulnerable.  Conrad’s cold revenge?  He uses Leggett as the inspiration for his murderous stowaway, Leggatt, a.k.a. “The Secret Sharer.”  HAH!

Well, it turns out that Leggett had a super-snobbo son, Kenneth, who followed in papa’s foosteps and took it upon himself to insult the writer John O’Hara at a wedding in Connecticut. This Leggett casually pulled a gun on O’Hara! (The man the critics have at times dubbed a “first-rate second-rate writer,” from which the title of this story comes.)  O’Hara is cool in the moment, gathers his wits, and serves revenge cold.  O’Hara’s revenge?  Oh, yes. He turns Leggett into the cad Weston Liggett in his novel, Butterfield 8.

Oh, hah hah, turns out Kenneth had a son, too.  His name is Brad.  You can read the story of how he abandoned his wife and three children in “Jean, 1948.”

I do have a story in the works about Brad’s son, too, and I think maybe this time the Leggett men will get it right.  Or not.  They are rather terrible people. I adore them.

Of course these are all works of fiction!  And soon, one will bumble his way into writing a bit of erotica.  God save us all.

Until then, enjoy a hot summer wedding in Connecticut, won’t you?  Thank you for visiting my blog, and thank you for reading my stories.  Here is a link to “Don’t Upset the World’s Best Second-Rate Writer.”