New! Now you can listen to my witty repartee (I hope) on matters of Authortunities here:
Fresh, smoking hot new Authortunities are now available at authortunities.substack.com and they go very well with cappuccino. Beginning this week, you can also listen to me stumble over my own tongue as I try to add voiceover content to my weekly calendar mail out. Nearly 200 author opportunities, plus all my love. 🧡 And now for your regularly scheduled event…
Celebrating National Black Cat Month with 13 Days of Halloween
Dancing in the Shadows: A Tribute to Anne Rice [https://amzn.to/40g2LRn] edited by Elaine Pascale and Rebecca Rowland [from Yuriko Publishing] will be free on Kindle from Wednesday, October 25, 2023 to Sunday, October 29, 2023. If you download the book and read to the end, money is earned for the Animal Rescue of New Orleans.
100% of all proceeds from sales and Kindle Page Reads goes to ARNO as a tribute to Anne Rice. It was the shelter she loved, and she frequently donated to their rescue cats program. Everyone donated their stories, editing, art and more for this project. Cover and interior art by Jeanette Andromeda.
Authors include: C.W. Blackwell, Morgan Sylvia, Greg Herren, Holly Rae Garcia, Douglas Ford, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, Gordon B. White, Tim Mendees, Stephanie Ellis, Scotty Milder, Holley Cornetto, Lamont A. Turner, KC Grifant, Lee Andrew Forman, Anthony S. Buoni, Trish Wilson, Angela Yuriko Smith, Christine Lajewski and E. F. Schraeder.
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe pt 9
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates, the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard, about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar, as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.
Part 9 of 12 to be continued tomorrow…
