K.C. Ball lives in Seattle with her wife, Rachael, and a fussy cat. She is a 2010 graduate of the Clarion West writers workshop and won the Hubbard Writers of the Future award in 2009. Her fiction has appeared online and in print here at EDF and at Analog, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Daily Science Fiction. Her first collection of short stories, Snapshots From A Black Hole & Other Oddities, was published in 2012 by Hydra House Books. Her novel, Lifting Up Veronica, was published by Every Day Publishing that same year.
The girl stood stock-still, her arms at her sides, on a bus bench along a two-lane road near a fast-food restaurant. She had on a ragged purple corduroy jumper and a blouse that never would be white again. A backpack… Continue Reading
Finish up your chicken, child; those potatoes and green beans. Seventh-Hour Man will get’cha if your supper plate’s not clean. — A childhood cautionary The Canuck Territories | 1 September 1905 Charlie Haggard always felt more alive after a wedding,… Continue Reading
Eddie Horrigan was a ride jock for a carnival. Angela came by the carousel first night in town. She pulled at the gomer with her. “Let’s ride the merry-go-round, Delbert.” Delbert studied Eddie. “We’ll ride the Ferris Wheel.” “I want… Continue Reading
Once upon a time, a young man stopped in at Leon’s Neon City and asked for work to tide him over until spring. The shop foreman grinned and winked at one of his journeyman crafters. The fellow winked right back.… Continue Reading
Morgan woke to the weary shoosh of airbrakes. The bus jittered as its engine died. Cold glass pressed hard and slick to Morgan’s cheek. Blackness lay beyond the window. Someone shifted in the seat beside him. A man pushed in… Continue Reading
His parents named him David, but his friends on the streets of Key West called him Dougie. He was fifty-five years old but if you didn’t know that you might guess his age at seventy. He was a familiar sight… Continue Reading
Maggie became aware of the presence of her inner child the first day of high school, that September she turned fourteen. Her friends, the girls she hadn’t seen all summer because her aunt Louise had wrangled her a job as… Continue Reading
The heady scent of caramelizing onions wafted through the Cooking Network’s kitchen studio, although it was well past midnight. Mandy Sweet looked up from the baking table, where she’d been kneading bread dough. “Remember Andre’s rule for goulash,” she said.… Continue Reading
Reginald Tanner stomped to the top of the stairs, clutching a wet bath towel about his ample middle. “Melissa?” he called. His wife didn’t respond. The bitter-apple taste of his brand-new body wash prickled his tongue and he could feel… Continue Reading
Tim fled from his afternoon nightmares to answer the insistent clamoring of the telephone. He tucked the receiver between the sweat-soaked pillow and his ear. “Yeah?” he mumbled. Godliness with contentment is great gain / those who desire to be… Continue Reading