Books

After the escape of another group of orphans, Supreme Commander Botta blows up and vows revenge. When an underground tunnel is discovered leading to the Sage Mountains and the Earth’s surface, he knows exactly what to do. He will use it to stage a surprise attack on the tracliodytes and humans. He can’t wait to rain down death and destruction on...

In the 27th century, ten-year-olds Sammy and Cal work digging tunnels beneath the streets of the underground city of Pierpoint. When two huge rats attack them, Sammy is wounded, but their boss refuses to give him any time off to heal. With a bleak future ahead of them and Sammy’s infected wounds getting worse, the boys decide to run away. Their...

Life for Lenny and Alex is not pleasant. It’s the 27th century, and they are living in an orphanage with thirty other boys like themselves. They are labeled Defectives. They don’t fit the accepted mold for the appearance-based society. Their faces are covered in purplish/red birthmarks, their vision is poor, and they are slight in stature. They...

When he fails to help curb the worldwide pandemic in the 21st Century, time-traveling healer Torak loses confidence in himself. When his boss Master Healer Robbikan sends him back in time to help with a plague that is sweeping the land of Anon, Torak vows to do better with this second chance. In Anon, he meets good people like the innkeepers...

A love-struck modern-day whiskey runner. A man addicted to fruit. A young boy’s horrific experience running away from home. These stories look deep into human nature and how we cope with life’s many challenges.

A deathbed wish by an estranged father forces his son to confront his past. A man tells his friend an unexpected secret and hopes his...

In this collection of stories, Jim shares with the reader the lives of ordinary people who each have a unique story to tell. Mitch’s life is enhanced immeasurably when he meets fellow stargazer Loren and his daughter. Doug and Evie form an unlikely friendship while riding the bus to work. Dan and Tim meet Michael at a concert and learn the...

When Jena’s new boyfriend Herm announces that he is traveling the Northshore of Lake Superior to meet commander Donner, she is skeptical. After all, Herm is convinced that he is an alien from the planet Xylan who has been sent to Earth to search for rare minerals. As far as she is concerned, he is living in a dream world. However, Herm is also a...

In this collection, Jim looks into what it means to be human in this day and age. How do we cope with the loss of a loved one? What brings us joy? How important is friendship? Can Nature heal?

These are heavy questions, and Jim tackles them head-on with stories that are both intriguing and entertaining. He is not afraid to delve deep into life’s...

Sherry and Zeke are two at risk teenagers who meet in their high school chemistry class and develop a bond over their shared love of science. In this follow up to Periodic Stories and Periodic Stories Volume Two, Jim takes us on another entertaining ride. This time he uses elements sixty-four through seventy-seven of the periodic table as the...

For fifty years Ebar, an alien from planet Rykos, has lived in human form on earth as Kyle Johnson. When Ebar gets into a fight at the sewage treatment plant where he works, he is put into jail. A jailer overhears Ebar trying to contact his home planet and tells the authorities. Ebar is sent to the psychiatric ward of the Buffalo County Hospital...

Overlapping memories, overlapping lives, wide open spaces and soft but sometimes heart-breaking reminiscences, with the mighty Mississippi running through it all — let Jim Bates take you on rich, human, intertwining journeys into a landscape of souls where you can glimpse beauty and peace, longing and contentment, the burden of past decisions...

Tiny tales of horror.

We all have a fascination for things that scare us—the thrill, the heart-stopping jump scares, the terrifying suspense. From the youngest age, we’re fascinated by the fiendish and furry, the creepiest critters, the naughty and the nasty. Horror is all around us, from the clowns who hide under our bed, to the things we might...

This is a short sharp collection of well-told stories by Jim Bates who once again brings us some evocative writing with a strong literary voice. We meet a plethora of characters, each with their own concerns and triumphs. They face life’s challenges and often have to turn situations around. Will they succeed? Will they make life good again?

In...

For Quinn and his young family, life in 2220 was a depressing dead-end existence. The mandatory enforced lifespan was forty years, and then you were unceremoniously put to death and turned to compost.But only if you lived that long. In the aftermath of global warming, Quinn makes a fateful decision with a disastrous effect. One that forces him,...

The first thirty-one elements of the periodic table are each used in the thirty-one stories in this unique collection. Will Warren always be lonely? Why does Lonny’s grandfather like balloons so much? How come Derek’s new fishing rod is so important to him? Why is Paul excited to learn how to test for chlorine in swimming pools. How did Eric’s...

A collection of stories about life, love, loss and emotions.

Remembrance Day is special for one grandfather. Which story of he and his brother at the lake will John remember today? Blake loves his garden but he’s not so sure about the rabbit. Tyler stands up to his dad while hunting crows. What really did happen in the room at the Inn on the...

When disasters strike writers respond and react in words. They share with us their hopes and fears. They describe and rationalise. This volume contains pieces of fiction, flash fiction, script, poetry, memoir and some texts which cannot easily be categorised.

There is a loose chronology here – the texts are listed by the order in which they...

67 present-day published authors answer the question: To Be Or Not To Be A Writer? Their essays about their personal experiences as writers and authors include: What did you think being a writer would be like when you began and how has it actually turned out to be like so far? What are your personal tales of joys, triumphs or successes, or...

How do we form our own views of what is going on in another’s world? By understanding the foundation of imaginative, subjective, ‘inner’ thinking. Poetry isn’t like prose or informative essays or scientific rationality or the outer world — it communicates to us about inner worlds, firstly those of the poets, and then, if the poet is successful,...

Given the task of writing a short story where the main character is a writer, these authors let their imaginations soar. This collection explores plagiarism, the criminal underworld and wormholes. You’ll ride the rails with Cal and Petey and meet Curt’s platoon, visit Bitter Mountain, and a strange town at a sister’s funeral. Follow a psychic...

The Island of Mull, covered in mulls. To mull a drink. An important instrument for making a book. Plenty to mull over here. And plenty to make you think.

As ever, the interpretation has been varied: the Island of Mull, thinking about things, often quite deeply, the odd mulled drink and even something used in making a book – how appropriate again....

114 essays by modern-day authors fiction and non-fiction writers, poets, song writers, playwrights and journalists from across the globe write about the intertwining of their personal lives with their journeys in the literary arts. In this volume authors provide keen insights into the early influences and experiences that transformed them into...

We asked those writers who were published in “The Best of CaféLit 8” to vote for their five favourite stories published on the CaféLit web site in 2019. We awarded five points for number one choices, four for number two and so on. These are the stories that received the most votes.

Each story in this little volume is the right length and...

From Rome to Thebes, Nefertiti to Cleopatra, Aristotle to Sappho—tiny tales of ancient peoples, myths, and philosophies.

What miracles can more than one hundred debut to bestselling authors do with 100 words?

A catalog of 129 books and novels of almost every genre written by some of the best emerging writers on the worldwide writing scene today. All available on Amazon.com.

WHO are the 116 emerging writers in this Who’s Who? WHAT have they written? WHERE do they live? WHEN did they start writing? WHY do they write? HOW can you find out more about them?

Curl up and enjoy more than seventy stories by writers from around the world in this “best of 2019” edition of Potato Soup Journal.Sci-fi, literary, memoir, horror, satire, romance – and pieces that don’t have a category or genre – we’re pretty willing to throw new ingredients into the “soup” to see what happens. The result, we think, is...

For as long as men have lived, myths and legends have permeated cultures across the globe. But for every known monster, are there creatures of lore, gods of fable, and rituals of old that have been forgotten by time?

Delve into the darkness that came before and witness over 100 short drabbles resurrect the ancient world in 100 words or less.

...

Celebrating 100 years since the Roaring Twenties, come with us on a look back at the jazz era. Historical stories with dark and terrible twists.

Within these pages, find the speakeasy girl with two mouths, Mafia gangs with secrets more sinister than history suggests, bloodthirsty flappers, dark tales from the Depression, and many more.

SUPPORTING...

If you picked up this book expecting it to be full of the standard ‘romance’ tale revolving around two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship, then you might be surprised. While these stories are often directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, and many have the...

C. S. Lewis once wrote: ‘Where the children’s story is simply the right form for what the author has to say, then of course readers who want to hear that, will read the story or re-read it, at any age… I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones...

Many of the stories in this collection take place at or near Christmas time. There are stories of new births, of rebirths, of new beginnings, and there are a couple that deal with the joys and sorrows of the annual Nativity Play.

Again this year it was difficult to make the final choice. There are so many skilled writers out there. There was...

Erika lived a careless life, unattached and uncommitted. Young and beautiful, she navigated the night life in Vegas seeking nothing more than a good time. Or did she? A perfect disguise for a professional assassin: The Black Widow, hiding in plain sight.
Also included in this anthology are “Land of the Pharaohs,” “The Red Velvet Cupcake Murders,...

We asked those writers who were published in “The Best of CaféLit 7” to vote for their five favourite stories published on the CaféLit web site in 2018. These are the stories that received the most votes.

Each story in this little volume is the right length and quality for enjoying as you sip the assigned drink in your favourite Creative Café....

Flash fiction is often a small, vivid illustration or incident which fades into a larger, wider, unspoken background. The power lies in the unsaid, the inferred, the after-thrill which comes as the ephemeral piece ends, leaving you, the reader, transfixed and transformed.
Enjoy this set of sixty experiences, brought to you by new and established...