"Life is horror and fantasy, not necessarily in that order."
Author: Lionel Ray Green
Lionel Ray Green is a horror and fantasy writer, an award-winning newspaper journalist, and a U.S. Army gulf war veteran living in Alabama. He loves his mom and misses his dad, who died on July 15, 2015. He ironically loves Bigfoot and hobbits and believes Babe is the greatest movie ever made. Lionel writes a column for HorrorAddicts.net titled The Bigfoot Files.
His short stories have appeared in the anthologies Trembling With Fear: Year 4; Illusions of the Past: Fantasia Divinity’s Best of 2020 Anthology; Inferno; Unveiled Secrets; Trembling With Fear: More Tales From The Tree: Volume 2; Trembling With Fear: Year 3; The Best of Iron Faerie Publishing 2019; Divinity: An Iron Faerie Publishing Anthology; Halloween Horror: Volume 1; Trembling With Fear: Year 2; Trembling With Fear: More Tales from The Tree; America’s Emerging Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers: The Deep South; The Hamthology; Sorry, We’re Closed; Alabama’s Emerging Writers; The Heart of a Devil; Fifty Flashes; How Beer Saved the World 2; Graveyard; Frightening; Tales from the Grave; In Creeps the Night; and 22 More Quick Shivers.
His short story “Scarecrow Road” won the WriterWriter 2018 International Halloween Themed Writing Competition: All Hallows’ Prose and was featured on The Night’s End Podcast for October 9, 2020. His short story “A Tale of Two Shards” was third runner-up in the WriterWriter 2018 International Fantasy Writing Competition: Phoenix Rising.
Lionel’s work has appeared in The Poet’s Haven Digest anthology, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night; in Issue 1 of Cross+Decay magazine; and in the 2017 issue of From the Depths magazine. His fiction has also appeared online at Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear, at Who Writes Short Shorts?, at Visual Verse, and at 50-Word Stories where his “Bedraggled” was selected Story of the Week for June 16, 2019.
Lionel has released seven short stories on Amazon Kindle: “Scarecrow Road,” “One Lucky Girl,” “The Price of the Princess,” “Tap,” “Peace of Mind,” “Dead of Winter,” and “A Tale of Two Shards.”
Cover art by Lynne Hansen at LynneHansenArt.com In Twentieth Anniversary Screening, author Jeff Strand chronicles the tragic history of a terrible 1991 slasher movie titled The Roofer. Written like a retrospective article on a horror news website, the story recounts the bloody history of events surrounding the film. A 2021 Bram Stoker Award nominee for …
I had a delicious list of books to read this past quarter, everything from classic literature to extreme horror. Well, the extreme horror stories weren’t so “delicious.” I definitely needed a sweet romance palate cleanser after those!
Here are my one-sentence reviews for 1st quarter 2022:
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Seriously, Atwood was ahead of her time as this book proves with its questioning of traditional family makeup, its point-of-view manipulation, and its hugely symbolic storyline. Library.
Flesh Rehearsal by Brian Bowyer. Bowyer’s extreme horror novel is written in his signature style that borders on stream-of-consciousness, and I admit that the book went over my head. KU.
Road Narrows by Brian Bowyer. I’m glad I gave Bowyer’s style of writing another shot because this brutal story with high-brow existentialist and theological themes had me in its grip and would not let go! KU.
(Editor's note: This review contains major spoilers.) What happens when you successfully rob a bank, but unbeknownst to you, the hostage you take is a notorious cannibalistic serial killer? Hint: It doesn't end well. The Hostage by Elizabeth Bell is a fast-paced Extreme Horror novella detailing the events of a bank robbery and its aftermath. …
V. Castro and Hailey Piper scored multiple nominations on the Final Ballot of the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards. The authors each have a novel and a shorter work of fiction competing for the premier writing honors in the horror genre. The Horror Writers Association released the Final Ballot on February 23. Winners in all 12 …
The inaugural inductees into the Splatterpunk Hall of Legends were announced along with nominees for the 2022 Splatterpunk Awards by co-founders Wrath James White and Brian Keene on January 18. The Magpie Coffin by Wile E. Young won Best Novel at last year's Splatterpunk Awards. The 2022 Splatterpunk Awards honor superior achievement in the literary …
(Editor’s note: SHORT SHOTS is a column where I review horror short stories.) “The Hay Bale” is the new novelette by Virginia author Priscilla Bettis. I became an instant Bettis fan after reading her debut short story in 2021, the darkly intimate vampire tale “The Sun Sets Nonetheless.” You can read my review of “The …
Welcome to my quarterly book reviews where I try (and sometimes fail) to write a one-sentence review for each book I read. But wait, I have news!
My first standalone story, a Kindle novelette called “The Hay Bale,” will be released January 10, 2022, and is now available for preorder for 99 cents. It will also be available on Kindle Unlimited.
“The Hay Bale” novelette
Now for my one-sentence reviews:
When the Cicadas Stop Singing by Zachary Ashford. This post-apocalyptic novella set in Australia is the survivor-horror genre at its best. KU.
Donn, TX 1969 by Eric Butler. Part of the Donn, TX horror series, this novella installment has some point-of-view issues, but it is a fast, fun (and extremely bloody!) story. KU.
While the Bombs Fell by Robbie Cheadle and Elsie Hancy Eaton is a biography of Eaton’s childhood in England during the 1940s literally “as the bombs fell”…
The recommendation deadline for the fifth annual Splatterpunk Awards is midnight on January 16, according to a release at briankeene.com posted on January 2. Co-founded by authors Wrath James White and Brian Keene, the Splatterpunk Awards honor superior achievement in the subgenres of Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror fiction. The inaugural awards were presented in 2018. …
(Editor’s note: I moved from an apartment into a house starting January 1st, 2020, and I had to toss all my CDs into a big garbage bag during the move. The idea for this feature is I write a review about each CD as I unpack that bag, one CD at a time, and rank …
Here are the fiction and nonfiction books I read during the last three months. It LOOKS like I read a lot, but there are quite a few short stories and novellas, so I didn’t really read that many pages. Anyway, I’ll attempt a coherent, one-sentence review for each without cheating and stringing a bunch of sentences together with and!
For fun, this time I put them in reverse alphabetical order by author.:-)
Telecommuting by L. Marie Wood. There is (practically) only one character in this contemporary, slow-burn mystery novella, but Wood makes it work by feeding the reader clues and creating an anxious, believable setting. KU.
I can’t believe Tidepool is Willson’s debut. It’s SO good!
Tidepool by Nicole Willson is a Gothic-Lovecraftian novel with a misty, dank atmosphere, a protagonist you can root for, and a plot you can sink your teeth into. Kindle.