Central Kansas Library System

I was on the bottom rung of the music business.Then my new friend Dewey invited me to play a basket-house night with him in the middle of nowhere.Now I'm convincing him of my musical worth like my life depends on it because, for all I know, it does.This is a short-story in the Artists Of Leaves End universe.(Also available in an earlier form in Street Apples Magazine #1)

A gay man and a black woman meet in the woods outside Leadville, Colorado. Well, they don't really meet. They run into each other when the gay man (Quincy) is running from the cult of Tree Tree McForest Face and the black woman (Maya) is running away from two QAnon conspiracy theorists who have just dissected their friend in an attempt to find evidence of a deep state plot to weaponize gayness to reverse global warming. A pursuit through the Colorado...

When investigative reporter Kerry McDonough finds double-dealing Senator Ralph van Patten dead in her bed, she can't call the police. Any investigation would paint her as suspect Number 1, putting her in an unwanted spotlight. Plus if it gets out that she slept with an interview subject, her career would be blown out of the water. And she couldn't live with herself if people knew she was with a slimy Republican!Instead, Kerry calls her jack-of-all-trades...

Chris Benson looks up to his older brother. In fact, everyone looks up to Chris's older brother. Most have no choice when they're lying on their stomachs in the middle of Barclays bank. But when Gavin Benson gets sent down for 15 years, the somewhat unprofessional trio of Chris, Sid and Vince are left without a ringleader. As if Chris hasn't got enough problems, his adulterous partner Debbie is spending money faster than he can steal it, his sexually...

"Hope", one must have it, for, without hope, what else is there? "Cockroachalisms, Life Lessons Learned On My Journey Through Life", allow the guru of wellness that is Xavier Cockroachal Damon to lead you down the path of happiness with life lessons only he could teach. "Motel Hell", the place where lost souls dwell. "Climb from Hell", Supustrus is trying to rescue himself and his wife by escaping hell. Will they make it? "Gus Versus the Evil Gods",...

Seven Plays. "Off With the Head", an absurdist styled comedy about what is, quite likely, the absolute worst king in history. In "Dung", a full length play, Roger and Pith are supposed to go out but they can't because someone is outside the door. Eventually, the someone leaves and Pith says now they should go out. Roger says if they do, and make just one wrong step it will land them in a someplace worse. They do go out. Do they make that one wrong...

Three comedy novels about the world's worst life coach. Cuthbert Huntsman is a bankrupt barfly with eight broken marriages who thinks he's wiser than Jordan Peterson and Deepak Chopra combined, but clearly isn't. How Not To Live Your Life chronicles Cuthbert's search for the rules of failure. Cop Lives Probably Matter sees Cuthbert embroiled in a ludicrous crime caper crammed with heists, hitmen, and murder. Trigger Warning puts the life of a disgraced...

Dawn is the story of the man as he crawls through his, quote, life, close quote, through what he sees as an ever ugly world, encountering characters along the way, all of whom he very much wishes he had never encountered at all...except for one. The book begins with the man awaking on a beach, unsure of where he is. The man eventually finds his way back home, only to find he in no way knows the people inside and recognizes none of the belongings within...

A nameless figure arrives unbidden at a far country's department of immigration and declares himself a nonperson. He provides for officialdom no useful biography, and a complicated detainment ensues. Months before the man had resolved to spend down a modest windfall. The money allows him to leave one place for other points. Early on, he falls into acquaintance with a woman whose assorted vexations and defeats have led to furtive dealings from home....

The odious Jeanette Sobriquet is dead and her granddaughter, Fizzy, is too relieved to grieve. Unfortunately for her, when Fizzy announces her refusal to attend the abusive woman's funeral, her life becomes a living nightmare. Now, she has demons, ghosts, and the threat of homelessness hunting her down, all demanding she caves into the dead woman's iron will. Bar owner, Affidious Dixon, is forced to carry out Fizzy's dead grandmother's last requests;...