The Man Who Came and Went Joe Stillman

 

From the writer of "Shrek" comes "The Man Who Came and Went," a magically realistic novel about a grill cook who can mind read orders, and a small town diner that changes lives. 

The Man Who Came and Went 

Joe Stillman

Genre: Magical Realism / Mature YA / Literary Fiction

Publisher: City Point Press

Date of Publication: 3/1/22

ISBN: 9781947951389

Number of pages: 240

Word Count: 64,000

Cover Artist:  Barbara Aronica-Buck and Susan Stillman

Tagline:  

A grill cook who mind-reads orders.  

A diner that changes lives.

Tips appreciated. 

Book Description:

Fifteen year old Belutha Mariah, our storyteller, is the oldest of three kids from three different fathers. Her life’s goal is to keep her dysfunctional mom, Maybell, from procreating yet again and then to leave the coffin-sized town of Hadley, Arizona the second she graduates high school. 

Along comes the new grill cook at Maybell’s Diner, Bill Bill, a mysterious drifter with the ability to mind-read orders. As word spreads, the curious and desperate pour into this small desert town to eat at Maybell's. Some believe Bill knows the secrets of the universe. Belutha figures he’s probably nuts. 

But his cooking starts to transform the lives of locals and visitors, and Belutha finds her angry heart opening as Bill begins to show her the porous boundary between this life and what comes after.

Amazon     BN     BaM     Bookshop     Indiebound

Excerpt

            That day, the day Bill arrived, my mom was serving up eggs and complaints.

            “Dammit, that daughter ‘a mine,” she yelled to Dolene, across the diner. “She’s like walking birth control. Does she think I’m trying to have babies? ‘Scuse me, Darlin’” Maybell gave Clover’s bubble walker a little kick, sending it between tables 4 and 6 so she could get by and dump a load of dishes behind the counter.

            Dolene was homegrown, like the tumbleweed, with eyes like a golden retriever that never quite looked at you directly. She was smart enough to add up a check, but you could tell she was never getting out of Hadley. “I take it you didn’t get laid last night.”

            Maybell pointed to her sour puss. “Does this say ‘laid’ to you?”

            There was a ‘harrumph’ from booth 5 by the window. That was Rose. Rose was an old woman by the time she was 30. Now she was in her late 60s, a widow since before I was born—in other words, forever. She liked to spend her afternoons at Maybell’s Diner, reading her book and keeping an eye on the goings on around her, as if she was the town’s homeroom teacher.

            “Look at Saint Rose,” Maybell said, stuffing dirty plates into the plastic tub under the counter. “Thinks she smells better than Mentos. I ain’t running a library here, Rose. Next time bring Reader’s Digest!”

            There was another sound from Rose, something between a ‘well’ and a ‘pfffft.’ She never took her eyes off her book.

            The door opened with a DING from the bell that hung on it. No one noticed Bill entering. He was about average in height, but his skinny frame made him look taller. You could tell from his face that he was in his mid-20s, but those were hard years he had lived, and his body looked frail and geriatric. His clothes were old and clung to him like an extra layer of skin, with a smell that would never wash out.

The angles of his face were sharp and careworn. But his eyes, those were different. His face was hard and weathered, but his eyes were soft. They seemed brand new.

No one in the diner even looked. If they did they would have seen those eyes taking in every little detail: the people talking, forks carrying food, the string lights behind the counter, Dolene ringing up a check. But what drew Bill more than anything else was the grill. Harley, the grill cook, must have had four meals going at once, each with its own set of sounds and smells. Most of those meals involved eggs. His spatula made a metal-on-metal scrape as he turned them. Bill was riveted. He went to sit at the counter to watch.

            Down the counter, a porkish-looking man named Earle—probably one of three men in town who had never slept with my mom—raised his empty cup. “Can I get a refill, Maybell?”

            Maybell stopped and faced him. “Seriously, Earle? Is it so goddam much trouble for you to get up off your ass and get it yourself? Can’t you see I’m working here?”

            “Well…” he stammered. “I just—was I—I was—”

            Maybell pointed to the coffee pot. “How far away is that? Two feet?”

            “Sure, I guess…”

            “Am I your personal slave, Earle? Is that why God put me on earth?”

            “No, I don’t think you’re—”

            Maybell grabbed the pot and sloshed coffee in his Earle’s cup. “There. You happy now?”

He nodded meekly.

            While she had the pot in her hand, Maybell filled the cup sitting in front of Bill. “I’ll be by to take your order in a minute, hon.”

            Maybell walked on. Bill just sat there and stared at the coffee. For him, there was no diner anymore, no Maybell, no clanking dishes or dumb conversation. He leaned closer to that cup like it was the only thing in the world. And there he was, smelling coffee for the first time. And it smelled like life. Like a whole world. Like this is how a planet smells if you’re up in space and could take a deep breath. Bill was motionless for who knows how long. And then, when he was good and ready, he took his first sip.

            Those eyes, the ones that didn’t belong on his head, they closed as if he was praying. No, more like he was hearing a prayer. The coffee was praying to be heard, and Bill heard it.

 

About the Author:

Joe Stillman co-wrote “Shrek” for Dreamworks which earned him an Academy Award® nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Annie and BAFTA Awards.  Other produced features are “Beavis & Butthead Do America”, “Shrek 2”, “Gulliver’s Travels”, “Planet 51” and “Joseph King Of Dreams”. 

In television, he was co-producer and writer on “King of the Hill,” for which he received two Emmy Award® nominations. He was a writer and story editor for Nickelodeon’s “The Adventures of Pete and Pete” and a writer on MTV’s “Beavis and Butthead”. More recently he worked on Nickelodeon’s “Sanjay And Craig” and “Kirby Buckets” for Disney. Other TV credits include “Albert” for Nickelodeon, “The War Next Door” for the USA Network, “Clueless”, “Doug” and “Danger And Eggs” for Amazon.

Joe is currently working on “Curious George” and “Half-Baked 2” for streaming on Peacock.

https://www.joestillman.com

https://www.facebook.com/joe.stillman.16

https://twitter.com/JoeStillman1

https://www.instagram.com/joethestillman/ 

https://www.tiktok.com/@joethestillman 

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The Bruja's Guide to Everyday Magic

 

The Bruja's Guide to Everyday Magic

With the publication of Practically Pagan ~ An Alternative Guide to Magical Living, many readers have asked me what I mean when I say I write about and practice ‘everyday magic.’  In fact, a number of people have picked up my new book expecting complex spells and occult practices, only to be disappointed by pages filled with anecdotal stories and tips about energy, intention, and conjuring so subtle it’s part of our daily lives.  The irony, of course, is that these simple acts of energetic awareness—what some people call mindfulness or intentional living—are actual magical practices! These daily conjurings might lack some of the sparkle and flash of more elaborate mystic practices, but they are some of the most powerful forms of spell casting and an important foundation for any kind of magical practice.  I’m all about keeping it simple.  Our thoughts are spells. Our energy tells us everything we need to know about a specific situation or person, as does their vibe. Our daily habits shape the kind of life we want to live—so we need to be intentional about it.  We can also sometimes get a little carried away with the theater of the occult world, so much so that the real magic gets lost under the hocus-pocus.  I think of it as burning incense to cleanse your home when the space is dirty and what you really should be doing is giving it a good scrub down.  Light those incense, sure, but don’t ignore the important task of tending your sanctuary.  It’s not just dust and crumbs on the floor, but stagnant energy that needs to be cleared out through the literal act of cleaning.  That’s the thing with magic: the best kind is simple, but also hard work.

Hard work—but worth it. 

So if you’re just beginning your journey into the mystic world or are a long-time pagan or witchy soul wanting to get a refresher on foundational practices, check out my Bruja’s Guide to Everday Magic.

This post originally appeared on Enchantment Learning and Living

Hungry Business: A Gothic Story about the Horrors of Dating

Maria DeBlassie

Genre: horror, comedy

Publisher: Kitchen Witch Press

Date of Publication: October 12, 2020

ASIN: B08L48MVHD

Number of pages: 20

Word Count: 4400

Tagline: Dating. It’s hungry business. 

Book Description:

Looking for love can be deadly...

A short story on the horrors of dating during a zombie apocalypse by bruja and award-winning writer and educator, Maria DeBlassie.

"Simple yet detailed, unique, and innovative. A brilliantly written little gem that is equal part creepy with the plague of walking dead and equal parts cozy with the hot chocolate and watching the neighbor's cat."

"Drawing parallels between the pitfalls of dating and dating in the zombie apocalypse, this short story packs a big world into a few pages."

"Just the right size to occupy your time while waiting. I hope you find the humor I found."

You know how it goes.

You go out, hoping to meet someone.

You wade through your fair share of brainless automatons, lifeless bodies, and ravenous undead, good at passing as human.

The more you go out, the less hope you feel and the colder your body gets.

But you keep at it.

All you need is one beating heart to match your own before yours stops pumping altogether.

How hard can it be to find one living, breathing human in a city full of bodies?

Dating.

It's hungry business.

CW: Assault

Amazon

He said he’d love to have you for dinner—but you are careful.

A woman has to be careful.  Never give them your address.  Don’t drink too much.  Be aware of your surroundings at all times.  Carry grave dirt to throw at them if they get too forward.  Be ready to run to the nearest safe space if needed.  The good news is that the Hungries, while persistent, are dumb as fuck (brain rot, you know) and slower than the sickness overtaking their bodies.  Unless, of course, they are well fed, which is rarely the case.

This one looks a little better, you think optimistically.

You sit across from each other at the dinner table.  The white tablecloth is as smooth and unblemished as his collared shirt.  He has dressed for the occasion, taking care to hide the evidence of his affliction as best he can (though truly there is only so much he can do with a missing ear and half a brain).  Still, the tuxedo and carefully applied makeup are enough to create the illusion of pumping blood beneath his pallid, blush-stained cheeks—in the right light. Which is another reason why you chose this place.  Candlelight can hide a multitude of sins.

His manners are studied and smooth, as if he has spent a lot of time practicing more human-like movements and behavior. You admire a man who makes that kind of effort.  He watches you as much as you do him, as if he is trying to remember what it was like to be alive. When you reach for your wine glass, so does he—only his thick decaying fingers almost crush the stem, whereas your nimble live ones carefully bring the dark red liquid to your mouth. You try not to notice how he stares at your lips—stained now from the wine—wondering, perhaps, how you taste. As it turns out, he does get a taste of you. You’ve been surreptitiously picking at a hangnail on your pinky finger—that’s how scintillating the conversation is—when you looked down and realize it is your whole fingernail that has come off.  You stare at it in horror, letting the truth of your situation sink in.  

At least he has the decency to wait until you’ve left the table before grabbing your napkin and stuffing your bloodied nail in his mouth.  A little color comes back into his face.  He groans in ecstasy.

Nice to know you could still have that effect on a man.

About the Author:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic and Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning and Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she's reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there.

Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at www.mariaddeblassie.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enchantmentll

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enchantmentll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdeblassie.writer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA

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The Terrible Delights of Spooky Stories

I love scary stories. I’m also a total chicken. I grew up telling stories on the playground, huddled around trees or crawling into quiet places with friends to to listen to urban legends and frightening tales, from La Llorona to to Bloody Mary, to strange tales of a woman with the ribbon around her throat that literally held her head on to creepy dolls come to life the moment you closed your eyes to sleep at night…I couldn’t help myself. I devoured them!  

In class, we learned more about La Llorona (a figure that inspired my novella, Weep, Woman, Weep), Baba Yaga, and all sorts of spooky stories that gave me a good chill but were rather less terrifying than what I heard on the playground.

Of course, there was no better time to tell and listen to these stories than the fall, as the season slowly ripened into Halloween, the days got shorter, and the cool evenings and turning leaves were the perfect backdrop for stories that reminded us that there is more to this world than meets the eye.

I would come home from school filled up on those terrible tales and, after playing in piles of leaves in my backyard, would feel a growing sense of unease as the sun began to set and darkness took over. I was certainly grateful for the comforting presence of my dogs when darkness stole across the sky. The feelings were pushed away with dinner, in the cozy brightness of the kitchen and the warmth of family, but readily came back when I was tuckedin bed later that night.

Every creek, howl of wind, or cricket chirp sounded like aghostly footstep, theweeping woman, or all manner of supernatural threats. Mirrors were not to be looked in, when the sun went down. Windows must be closed at night, lest La Llorona find a way in. Blankets were to be tucked around you up to your chin to protect you from whatever might be lurking under the bed.

I felt would never fall asleep!

But, of course, I did. And with the coming sun, came the confidence of youth that there was nothing truly scary in this world and I went right back to the playground ready to consume more lurid and horrible tales. 

They were terrifying. They were also thrilling.  I couldn’t help myself—even when they gave me nightmares and my mom tried to get me to stop listening to these stories—they had this allure to me, pulling me into a world of the strange and gothic.

The feeling didn’t go away as I got older. Take, for example, the time I went trick o’ treating with a friend in middle school, one of the last times I would venture out on that childhood ritual. I was no stranger to haunted houses—there were plenty in my neighborhood. I livednext door to one and there was another a few blocks away that looked like something out of a gothic novel: big, dark, looming, and a story about a murder so strange and unexpected it devolved into its own neighborhood legend with everyone having a slightly different explanation for why the house just felt…off.

My friend and I were alone on the street and were doing our best to casually walk past the house, feeling very brave and very adult in our fairy costumes, proud of the fact that we could trick-or-treating unchaperoned. But once we neared that house, suddenly home felt so very far away, the other groups of Halloween revelers so very far away.  There was only the darkness surround us and the specter of that gina those before us. 

Then we heard something—a yip, a yell, from someone in the distance—and we screamed, running for the safety of my home.Gone were the bold, brave adults and in their place were two frightened children who wanted nothing more than the warm lights and safety of home. As it turns out, the noise we heard was from a bunch of wildpartiers, but it became so much morefrightening when it was disembodied and the shadows fed my imagination, as did all the terrible tales I’d been coming that season.

As scary as that was, and as silly as my friend and I felt in retrospect, there was no denying the fun we had, nor the deep sense of comfort we felt in returning to my house. That’s what scary stories do for us. They bring us home. We find catharsis in facing the darkness and making it out the other side. We appreciate the light where and when we can find it.  

Here I am now—still loving scary stories. Still a total chicken. Still ready for a good tale of terror…in the daylight. Still not looking in mirrors and closing all my windows at night. And I speed up whenever I have to walk by that haunted house, indeed any haunted house, less the specters inside think to invite me in.

That’s the beauty of these early childhood frights. They gave me a solid appreciate of the thrills of a good scary story and a healthy respect for the unseen worlds or even vibes I get that tell me a person or situation is more than meets the eye. 

This is why I tell spooky stories today. They reveal so much more about ourselves and the world around us than many an ordinary tale. From writing horror comedy about the terrors of dating in Hungry Business to the haunting wails of La Llorona in Weep, Woman, Weep, all my tales are inspired by the ordinary gothic all around us, pairing catharsis as we face the dark and find the light.  What do you love about scary stories?

Hungry Business: A Gothic Story about the Horrors of Dating

Maria DeBlassie

Genre: horror, comedy

Publisher: Kitchen Witch Press

Date of Publication: October 12, 2020

ASIN: B08L48MVHD

Number of pages: 20

Word Count: 4400

Tagline: Dating. It’s hungry business. 

Book Description:

Looking for love can be deadly...

A short story on the horrors of dating during a zombie apocalypse by bruja and award-winning writer and educator, Maria DeBlassie.

"Simple yet detailed, unique, and innovative. A brilliantly written little gem that is equal part creepy with the plague of walking dead and equal parts cozy with the hot chocolate and watching the neighbor's cat."

"Drawing parallels between the pitfalls of dating and dating in the zombie apocalypse, this short story packs a big world into a few pages."

"Just the right size to occupy your time while waiting. I hope you find the humor I found."

You know how it goes.

You go out, hoping to meet someone.

You wade through your fair share of brainless automatons, lifeless bodies, and ravenous undead, good at passing as human.

The more you go out, the less hope you feel and the colder your body gets.

But you keep at it.

All you need is one beating heart to match your own before yours stops pumping altogether.

How hard can it be to find one living, breathing human in a city full of bodies?

Dating.

It's hungry business.

CW: Assault

Amazon

He said he’d love to have you for dinner—but you are careful.

A woman has to be careful.  Never give them your address.  Don’t drink too much.  Be aware of your surroundings at all times.  Carry grave dirt to throw at them if they get too forward.  Be ready to run to the nearest safe space if needed.  The good news is that the Hungries, while persistent, are dumb as fuck (brain rot, you know) and slower than the sickness overtaking their bodies.  Unless, of course, they are well fed, which is rarely the case.

This one looks a little better, you think optimistically.

You sit across from each other at the dinner table.  The white tablecloth is as smooth and unblemished as his collared shirt.  He has dressed for the occasion, taking care to hide the evidence of his affliction as best he can (though truly there is only so much he can do with a missing ear and half a brain).  Still, the tuxedo and carefully applied makeup are enough to create the illusion of pumping blood beneath his pallid, blush-stained cheeks—in the right light. Which is another reason why you chose this place.  Candlelight can hide a multitude of sins.

His manners are studied and smooth, as if he has spent a lot of time practicing more human-like movements and behavior. You admire a man who makes that kind of effort.  He watches you as much as you do him, as if he is trying to remember what it was like to be alive. When you reach for your wine glass, so does he—only his thick decaying fingers almost crush the stem, whereas your nimble live ones carefully bring the dark red liquid to your mouth. You try not to notice how he stares at your lips—stained now from the wine—wondering, perhaps, how you taste. As it turns out, he does get a taste of you. You’ve been surreptitiously picking at a hangnail on your pinky finger—that’s how scintillating the conversation is—when you looked down and realize it is your whole fingernail that has come off.  You stare at it in horror, letting the truth of your situation sink in.  

At least he has the decency to wait until you’ve left the table before grabbing your napkin and stuffing your bloodied nail in his mouth.  A little color comes back into his face.  He groans in ecstasy.

Nice to know you could still have that effect on a man.

About the Author:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic and Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning and Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she's reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there.

Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at www.mariaddeblassie.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enchantmentll

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/enchantmentll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mdeblassie.writer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA

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The Last Man? Journey To New Eden Favian Segovia

 

The Last Man? 

Journey To New Eden

Favian Segovia

Genre: SciFi

Publisher: Writers Republic LLC

Date of Publication:  August 26, 2022

Number of pages:  132 pages

Book Description: 

A new sci-fi book series awaits readers as author Favian Segovia releases the first installment in The Last Man? He invites readers to embark on this journey to the New Eden with the last man on Earth. What will happen to the world, as people know it? Can one man still bring hope despite the challenging circumstances that lie ahead? Readers will find out in the pages of Book One of “Journey to New Eden”. 

A world war of greed and power pushes the governments into their own extinction. A virus outbreak targets men into a near extinction. A military driven by women search for surviving men in an attempt to control a world in ruins. All faith has been lost with no future and no hope. Only one secret place holds the answer to restore peace. One man is the key of hope. 

A man out of the ashes rises forward in search for the last city called New Eden, in the hopes and desperation to re-establish humanity. But he has to find out the hard way the perils of being the last man. 

Book Trailer:   https://youtu.be/Yg9huFumNcY

Amazon     Writer’s Republic

About the Author:

 

Favian Segovia was born in the city of Bravo state of Nuevo Leon in the republic of Mexico.

Favian believes that just like most talented people that were born with a beautiful voice or with an exceptional ability to draw or paint fine arts. He believes that every person in the world has a talent that almost no one can replicate. Everyone is unique in their ability, everyone has a different approach to doing things and building great  ideas or structures of disbelief. Favian believes that the mind is so powerful that it can be used for the good of humanity or its destruction. Favian believes in opportunity for everyone. Sometimes finding a great person is like trying to find a diamond in the rough. Favian wants to be recognized one day as one of the best sci fi writers.

Favian believes he can get to the top if he steps out of the ordinary in writing and goes beyond or above conventional writing. But he also is also a down to earth person knowing that it's not easy going out to change what is already established. But truly believes that nothing is out of reach if you keep dreaming and keep making those dreams come true by never giving up hope and doing everything in his power to make it happen. Once you give up you will never accomplish your dreams.

https://authorfsegovia.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@1980author

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