Announcing My Upcoming Short-Story Collection Release

I decided to publish a short-story collection. Having gone through the publishing process with Bootstrap the Far Side, it seemed silly not to put out a collection. I see myself as primarily a short-story writer, so I should publish them. Of course, some of my stories have already been published in magazines, but if you're a fan, it can be quite annoying (and expensive) to ferret around the internet to find all the individual magazine issues that contain my stories. Some of the venues, like Deep Magic, are no longer in business. Then there are all the unpublished stories. Some of them will never reach readers if I don't publish them myself.
 
I'm calling it "Attack on Boredom." The name is part of the prompt I used in Midjourney to generate the front cover art. I also like that it sounds like a pulpy sci-fi movie title. More practically, it reflects my intention for the book. I don't have any pretentious theme. I didn't want to use one of those self-important titles about my life that I sometimes see authors do for collections, like "Reflections on…", "My…Journey" or some drivel like that. The organizing principle of the book is right in the title. I want to please the reader by attacking their boredom with engaging stories. I strive to give people an escape for a little while by transporting them away from the chaos of the world. My ego is in there somewhere, but mainly as a function of whether or not I was able to delight readers.
 
The story lineup for the book is tentatively done. The book is formatted and I just ordered proof copies of the paperback version for final quality checks. There is one story in the collection that I already had out for consideration at a magazine, so if they pick it up, their contract's exclusivity clause would keep me from putting it in a collection for many months. I'm supposed to hear back by the end of December 2024. I might have to do a last-second substitution for that story ("You Get One Warning") if it gets picked up. For that reason, I can't tell you the exact lineup yet, but when it's finalized, I'll post the list in this blog.
 
My planned release date is April 18th, 2025. I'll keep you posted.