"When you said you were into sea-life preservation, this isn't what I had in mind."

 F1.8, 50mm, 1/100 sec, ISO 400

I met this charming…uh…thing, while on my way to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. You can seek it yourself, if you so wish, at Sea Shell City. It accepts tributes of blood, ancient stones, or a child’s tears. Pay no mind to the strange, fishy appearance of its caretakers. #lovecrafthumor

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Links to my Other Stuff and Things:

Ginger and the Geek – Podcast 030 – Octopus Squad

Geek Speak – Upper Peninsula Odyssey, part 1, part 2

Lovable Geek – A Very Dangerous Animal at the Detroit Zoo

Magic of Eyri – Podcast 040 – Owls Well that Ends Well

The contest was to write a short piece about a character reminiscing of their days at Miskatonic University, a fictional university that is mentioned in the works of horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft.

Winners of the contest will have their stories included in the Tales Out of Miskatonic University anthology (edited by William Jones, who also set up the contest). The anthology is a collection of stories that take place at MU and are written by present day writers.

I’m not getting paid for this, but I get a writing credit–and that’s fine by me, it was a flash fiction piece (a very, very short story–mine was around 330 words), so it isn’t like I wrote an epic novel. Because, now when I send out other manuscripts I can list that in my cover letter (as well as put it on the ol’ resume).

While I can’t put up the actual story online, I can say what it is about–I went with a bit of a different direction, making it more humorous and satirical. The narrator (this is a first person point of view) talks about being awarded a track scholarship to MU and is a background character for lots of wacky stuff going on around campus.

Lots of Lovecraft stories deal with characters finding some kind of ‘forbidden knowledge’ or science gone wrong or beings from other dimensions. My narrator isn’t directly involved in any of that, but his (ever changing) roommates are.

Think Death Star construction workers. Something like that.

I don’t know yet when Tales Out of Miskatonic University will be released, but I’ll do a post once I find out. And better still, I think it might be available at bookstores.

I’m excited!