Author Archives: Mack W. Mani

Poetry

The Breeze & The Black Door: Poems by Mack W. Mani [OUT NOW]

I’m pleased to announce the release of my debut collection of poetry, available now via Amazon. Most of these pieces have been published separately in literary magazines over the last ten years, and it’s my pleasure to present them alongside several previously unpublished poems. Complimentary digital copies are available upon request for the purposes of review (see below). Here’s a little more information on the collection:

A cold breeze on a hot summer day.

Hot breath on Halloween night.

Distant stars beckon and blink out of existence.

From within the dusty halls of an old mansion, the black door is calling, waiting to be opened…

In this debut collection from award-winning poet Mack W. Mani, haunted houses, nuclear reactors, dystopian cityscapes, and unincorporated territories are twisted and reflected into prophetic visions of the past, present, and future. By turns startling and profound, these poems find new connections and meanings in the genres of horror, myth, and science-fiction. Purchase a digital or paperback copy via Amazon, with other retail options forthcoming.

If you would like to read The Breeze & The Black Door for free, with no obligation other than providing an honest review, please reach out to the author via email at MWMani@gmail.com with your name and preferred format of document (epub, pdf, docx, etc). Reviews can then be left on the website of your choice, though Goodreads, Amazon, or your personal website are preferred. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the above address.

Standard
Poetry

The Breeze & The Black Door

Have you ever lost someone to themselves? Watched slowly as they slipped away from you, despite everything you’d been through? My latest poem in Deadlands Issue #41 is about the ones we love and how they can change right before our eyes, day by day, until all that is left of them is a memory. Read the full poem here along with the rest of the issue for FREE. But here’s an excerpt to get you started:

I heard some movement at my front door
but it was just a storm.

Drank my beer over the sink
so I didn’t stain my shirt anymore.

Fixed the leak
and found a place on the floor.

Wife’s been leaving the back door unlocked.

Not every night,
but enough to raise the question.

She bought some paint and a brush home
from Benny’s Department Store.

Had me paint that old back door
as black as a raven.

So I stripped myself to the waist
to feel the Halloween breeze
and did as she pleased.

I heard her unlock it
last night in her sleep.

Standard
Short Fiction

The Halloween Man

Last fall, I was happy to be a part of the Rooted in Rite Halloween Anthology from Rooted Literary Magazine. You can buy the digital or physical edition of that anthology here, as well as their latest Rooted in Home anthology. Here’s an excerpt from my story, “The Halloween Man”.

He’s haunted me since I was a child, fumbling with a dull kitchen knife against the pumpkin fat. He is the stomachache of sneaky snacks, the guilty thrill of Jolly Ranchers popped quietly at midnight. He’s what you light the jack-o’-lanterns against, the costume you’re too scared to wear, the horror they don’t show, the gore you can’t explain away with latex, corn syrup, and movie magic. If Halloween is a white sheet, then he is the two black holes, sightless and unseen. I’ve felt his presence as far back as I can remember, but I didn’t see his face until I met him, one lonesome October, in the back of a haunted house.

I was almost thirteen and tired of hearing, Aren’t you getting a little too old for this, Will? You can have all the candy you want at home! I knew my trick or treating days were numbered, but each year I wished more and more that Halloween would never end. I was obsessed with horror movies and would rent successive sequels from the video store downtown. My favorites were the slashers, Halloween and Friday the 13th, anything with screaming girls and gleaming knives. Like a lot of kids that year, I was going as Ghostface, while my little brother Nick was going as a cowboy (he’d hide under his blanket for any scary movie that wasn’t Hocus Pocus. We’d already carved our pumpkins and

watched Linus wait all night in his empty patch. I had convinced my mom to show me The Silence of the Lambs, the only horror movie she could stand, and had seen every movie they played on TV that month, carefully recording the ones I didn’t already own on VHS.

One night, during the commercials, I saw an ad for the promised land.

Coming this Halloween weekend to the Marblemount Community Center: A spine-tingling experience not for the faint of heart!

Thrills! Chills! Tricks! Treats!

Dare you enter…The Macabre Manor?

Standard
Poetry

Champagne Remnants in The Non-Binary Review

I have a new sci-fi poem out now in The Non-Binary Review issue #40. The theme was epiphany and I had a great time writing this one. Read an excerpt below and get your copy here!

Champagne Remnants

Shipwrecked on Blackstone Delta
S.O.S.

Her hometown became a dream,
a glittery story filled with secrets,
caricatures and blue neon hues;
Twin Peaks by way of John Hughes.

Small town gods,
brief and beautiful
finite and divine:
mayors and mayor’s sons
garage bands and single moms
shiny linoleum dulling all summer long,
cigarette smoking schoolgirl dreams
descending every night to rocky shores
of methane swamps where it is said
2001 is a nursery rhyme.

Standard
Short Fiction

Dreams of the Ghost House in Black Sheep Magazine

My latest short story is in the new issue of Black Sheep, on sale now! Read an excerpt below and pick up your copy of the magazine (digital or physical) here.


There were only two homes on Lost Loon Lake, the Arthur’s sleek modern summer house and a gimcrack mansion directly across the water, half shrouded in pine and time. Its cracked and peeling Georgian columns and rococo balustrades spoke to a bygone era of old money, when for the ultra-wealthy bigger was always better. That place had two names and the first was Autumnhall, enormous and empty.

The older people of the nearby town (if twenty miles can be said to be near) rarely spoke of it, and even then, only to comment on something else. Brodie had heard his mother or his aunt or the women at the diner saying things like, “Don’t run around with Charlie Mayse, he takes girls past Autumnhall and dumps them come spring.” Or “Lord, I tell you she can’t keep a house! Her place puts Autumhall to shame.”

They used it like a ward, as if to diminish it in their minds. The younger people in town were nowhere near as reserved and it seemed like there was always some new wrinkle being added to the legend of The Ghost House on October playgrounds or whispered on late and wild drunken teenage nights.

Standard
Short Fiction

The Whiteout Murders

My latest horror short story titled “The Whiteout Murders” is up over at Story Unlikely, below is an excerpt. You can read more by following the link and subscribe to read the whole thing!

The next murders would occur mere hours later in a similar house, in a similar cul-de-sac, just a few streets over from the first. Around 2:00 a.m. the blizzard conditions worsened. Through the sleet and snow, the houses would have looked almost identical. Indeed, they had been manufactured by the same company in the early 1950s. Galway & Hobbes was one of the first to capitalize on the mass production of “cookie cutter” homes in the area. The Pascal residence was even painted the same hue as the Harrisons’—an off-color teal. The only difference that fateful night was that, unlike the Harrisons’ house, the entire Pascal family, Miles (41), Taylor (39), Marco (8), and Gabby (3) were at home, peacefully sleeping while a near whiteout storm raged just outside the warmth and safety of their abode.         

What did The Mangler think as he stalked the Palace Green Neighborhood’s backyards? He had already taken one life that night and gotten away scot-free. It would be another six days before the Harrison family returned from Florida to find what was left of their housekeeper strewn up and down the stairs. Art Harrison would later recall that had the weather been any clearer, their flight would have departed as scheduled and they would have arrived home almost twelve hours before the killer entered the house. If we continue to follow the theories of Sheriff Hutchins, The Mangler would have been anticipating their arrival. For him, the killing of Juana Herrera had been an act of necessity but after he looked at what he had done, seen the way he had spread her intestines out along the banister, the way her half-lidded, lifeless eyes stared up at the unlit Christmas tree (still up two weeks after New Year’s) he felt unsatisfied. He knew that his unholy urges would not be satisfied by the offhand murder and mutilation of a cleaning woman.         

He hungered for innocence.     

The last three sentences of the chapter had been sloppily underlined with a blue pen, and the word NO was scribbled in all caps in the faded yellow margin of the page. The book was titled The Whiteout Murders: An Analysis of the Most Disturbing Unsolved Homicides in American History by Damien Magalhäes & Harper Kinnaman. Noel had bought it partly because of its lurid cover: a hulking figure in a bulky winter coat, seen from behind. He stands in front of a row of perfect houses, shrouded in a snowstorm. From his right hand dangles a long-handled axe, dripping blood onto the ice below. As a screenwriter, it was the kind of imagery that Noel always tried (and often failed) to inject into his scripts. But the larger factor that drew him in was the smell. The smell of old paperbacks, the kind mass-produced in the 1970s, held a musky nostalgia for him, conjuring images of his grandfather’s little attic library stuffed with hundreds of old westerns and spy novels. Even the quote at the beginning of the volume seemed to echo this:

“Nostalgia cannot exist at a single point in time.”- Edwin Poe (The Innocent Dead)
Standard
Poetry

New Poem – Trans Rage 2: The Reckoning

My newest poem, Trans Rage 2: The Reckoning is available now over at Strange Horizons to read for free. Below is a link and an excerpt.

This was an exciting piece to see published because when I wrote it, I thought for sure it would have a hard time finding a home. Luckily the editors at SH liked it as much as I do. It was created in response to transgender depictions in horror media, which almost entirely relegate trans individuals to the role of sexually deviant killers, monsters, or disgusting stereotypes.

Excerpt:

What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?

Psycho
Sleepaway Cam-
Silence of the L-

Always the slasher
and never the final girl.

Notes from
the severed
studio heads:

If she does survive,
she needs to be
legless or blind,
eyes gouged out
or wheelchair bound.

No trans heroes
can be whole.

…

Read the rest at Strange Horizons:

Trans Rage 2: The Reckoning

…

And while I have you here I’ll give a shout out to two great organizations that are currently fighting for Trans and queer rights:

Mermaids

The Trevor Project

Standard
Uncategorized

Dead Mountain

The George A. Romero Foundation and Bloody Disgusting are looking for aspiring writers to create stories for their upcoming fiction podcast “The Dead,” created in the spirit of George A. Romero. Here’s my 100 word submission:

That the smoke had drawn the hoard to the valley, they were certain. None had seen the dead in such numbers. Thousands shambled into the mouth of the valley, scrambling over fallen trees, it defied sanity.

If only it would rain. Downpour. Then they could escape through the pass. Connor turned back toward the wildfire burning in the east. 

There was only one way now. Convince the factions to stop fighting each other and row to the center of the lake, to the compound on Druid Island, home to The-Church-Of-Silver-Dawns, isolated since the fall, and beg sanctuary from the cult.

…

This story is titled “Dead Mountain” and focuses on four groups who have survived the zombie apocalypse by eking out an existence in a narrow mountain valley, far from the civilization that fell:

The Rangers: Former members of the forestry service, who still man the lookout tower on the peak of Glass Mountain. They monitor the roads and woods, relaying information by radio to the others below.

The Survivalists: Conspiracy theory doomsday-preppers who finally got to meet the end of the world. While they began the apocalypse well stocked, their supplies are now dwindling. So far, they have been content to trade with the others for what they need, but a new leader has taken over and they want more.

The Campers: The remnants of Camp Tamarack, a summer camp for troubled youth. The few members of the staff, councilors, and campers who did not evacuate have turned the camp into a refuge where they grow crops, hold classes for the children, and try to find a sense of normality. They are the largest group.

The Church Of Silver Dawns: A highly secretive religious organization that has largely remained isolated since the fall. Their compound is located on Druid Island in the center of Lake Tamarack. They are regarded as a fringe cult organization.

Existence in the valley is often tense and fraught with conflict, but thus far the groups have achieved an uneasy peace. However one year after the fall, a wildfire threatens their way of life. To make matters worse, an enormous hoard of the undead has been drawn into the narrow mouth of the valley by the smoke. It will take everyone in the valley to survive what is coming, but can they join together in time?

#pitchthedead

Standard
Poetry

Arcas & Callisto in Polu Texni Magazine

Polu Texni is a fantastic magazine that I was fortunate to be featured in a couple of times. This piece was inspired by the greek legend of Arcas & Callisto as well as the constellations that bare their names. Or should I say…bear?

they always told me,
You should have seen her back when she-
(before she had you)
the beautiful hairless nymphs
of Boucher and Titan
had nothing on her
cut marble eyes
Mariah Carey jeans
endless flowing midnight hair

Your mother was a looker kid,
you know that?

...

[Read the full poem for FREE over at Polu Texni Magazine: http://www.polutexni.com/?p=10850]
Standard
News, Short Fiction

OVERALL WINNER: Mack W. Mani “The Dweller in the Smoke”

Last fall I was proud to accept the award for best micro-fiction story from the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Here is a link to the announcement and a list of the other winners:

https://hplfilmfestival.com/hplfilmfestival-portland-or/news/2022-award-winners-0

And here is a link to where you can purchase a physical copy of the collection including my winning entry:

https://arkhambazaar.com/books/lovecraftian-microfiction-2022-tales-from-the-tainted-inkwell-collection/

Standard