ANDREW BISS

I've just released my latest collection " BrokenWorld " on Amazon, which consists of three darkly humorous dystopian short stories set in a world gone wrong. Are these tales a harbinger of the future of our planet or a testament to what's already taken place? Perhaps they're both. I hope you'll check it out and decide for yourself... Broken World : Three strange and darkly humorous dystopian tales of a world gone wrong: Cafe Grotesquerie In a broken world there exists a strange and sinister eating establishment unlike anything known or imagined - referred to in some quarters as Cafe Grotesquerie - where only the most discriminating and well-connected are privileged enough to enter its doors and devour its dark delicacies. Once inside, however, status still reigns supreme, and for one particular couple - Audrey and Aubrey - a hunger for power proves far more desirable than anything on the menu. But when confronted by a supercilious sommeli

The next story in my Broken World collection will be Foreign Bodies , the cover of which I'm revealing here. This is the second of my darkly humorous, dystopian short stories that depict a world gone wrong, a world gone mad, a world that is broken. Part political commentary, part dark satire, Foreign Bodies should be published and available in the Kindle Store sometime over the next two weeks. Stay tuned!

The original stage play version of Cafe Grotesquerie has just been published by Smith & Kraus in their anthology The Best Ten Minute plays 2011 . As you may know, I recently adapted the play into a short story as one of the Broken World collection I'm putting together. I hope to have the rest of those stories, and the complete collection (or omnibus edition) out over the next few weeks. I'm also going through some changes and transitions in my private life (all good), which has resulted in me not being very present around here or much of anywhere lately. This situation will continue for a little longer, and then when the dust has settled, I'll be back with a vengeance. And since I'm shaking things up and reconfiguring some things in my life right now, I've decided that this would also be a good time to redesign the blog, so if you happen by here sometime over the next few weeks and think that you've come to the wrong place, don't worry -

Yes, it's my first post of 2012 and despite my resolution to shill less often with my posts, I'm starting off the year by doing just that! Well, in this case I sort of have too, as this is a new book release. Yes, A Stunning Confession is finally live in the Kindle Store! It's a quirky, darkly humorous short story taken from my forthcoming collection "Strange Tales of the Curiously Uncommon" . Here's an overview: As Ron and Jan made themselves comfortable on their sofa, they thought they were settling in for just another quiet night in front of the television. But beneath the surface of this seemingly benign evening of domestic routine, each was withholding a guilty secret from the other, and on this particular evening one of them found they could contain themselves no longer. Questionable paternity, a murderous child, artificial insemination - all of this paled in comparison to the evening's final, sensational revelation! I hope to have the complete coll

Yes, okay, it's a free download, but trust me, getting big downloads, even for free copies, can be quite a challenge. Yesterday I decided to do a 2-day free promotion of my short story collection The Impressionists to see if I could get it some attention that it had been severely lacking. I consider the stories in that collection some of my best writing, and as proud as I am of them, it pained me to see them drift off into that vast sea of obscurity in Amazon's mega slush pile. So imagine my surprise (not to mention happiness) when I saw that it had reached the #1 spot for short stories (free bestseller list) on Amazon US! I just hope that when those who have downloaded it get around to pulling it out of their (probably massive, with all the free books that are available right now) TBR list, that they enjoy them. Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying having reached this little milestone. Back later with my end of year final post!

I realized I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought I'd give a quick update at this most wonderful (and busy) time of the year. I'm currently working feverishly at completing my next short story, A Stunning Confession , from my upcoming and as yet untitled short story anthology. This "untitled" business is currently the bane of my existence, as I'm very particular about titles and I can't seem to settle on one for this collection. It could be simple or it could be rather more thought out and crafted - it really doesn't matter as long as it feels right to me. But so far nothing has felt right. So I'll keep going back to that drawing board in my head until something clicks. Don't forget, the first tale from this anthology, A Familiar Face , is now available from an Amazon or Nook store near you. In the meantime, look out for the upcoming release of #2 of "Untitled" in the next few weeks, which fortunately does have a title - the afore

My new book release, A Familiar Face , a new cozy mystery short story is available now on Amazon UK for just £0.86p and Amazon US for just $0.99c. Here's a little bit about it: Two elderly Cockney women, old friends, meet up in a London café shortly after one them, Dora, has been widowed. As Dora's grief and anger grow increasingly fervent, her good friend Eydie begins to suspect there may be more to her angst than the loss of a loved one. When Dora calmly removes from her shopping bag a large glass jar containing a human head, discussions over its mysterious identity and how it came to be lodged in the cupboard under her stairs lead to some startling revelations. If you do pick it up, I hope you have as much fun spending time with these characters as I had writing them.

This is the cover for my upcoming new short story release A Familiar Face . It’s the first in a collection of short stories based around ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. I’ll be releasing another stand alone story from the collection early next year, with the entire collection following a little later. Here’s a little about A Familiar Face : Two elderly women, old friends, meet up in a London café shortly after one them – Dora – has been widowed. As Dora's grief and anger grows increasingly vehement, her good friend Eydie begins to suspect there may be more to her angst than the loss of a loved one. When Dora calmly removes from her shopping bag a large glass jar containing a human head, discussions over its mysterious identity and how it came to be lodged in the cupboard under her stairs lead to some startling revelations. Nothing odd in that, right? Hopefully it’ll be out in the next couple of weeks or so. In the meantime…don’t touch that dial!

Here's sixth and final extract from my new short story collection The Impressionists . In this one, Eileen, a reclusive, middle-aged divorcee still haunted by the loss of her son, discovers a new life in the virtual world. WYWH I have presence…can you tell? Can’t you feel it oozing out of my every pore? No, probably not. That’s because I don’t – not in that sense, in the charismatic sense. Never did, really; not in 55 years. Just ordinary, I suppose. Always have been. No one you’d notice…in particular. But, I do have a presence. A web presence, that is. There’s another me floating around out there in the cosmos. It’s a new and improved me that no one can see, they can only sense. It’s another life and it’s ever so much fun. My name’s “Misti”…with an “I.” That’s to say, that’s my alternative me’s name, not the real me’s name – my name. I wanted something with a bit of mystery to it, a bit of the unknown. And a touch of the poetic – a bit more poetic than “Eileen,” at any rate. And

Here's an extract from the fourth short story from The Impressionists . This one is entitled "One Night Only." In it, Denny, a prisoner on death row in an Alabama State Penitentiary spends his final moments reviewing his career as a serial killer in an interview with himself. One Night Only Hey!...Hey!...HEY! I know you can hear me. You’re not so good at pretending, either…I saw ya flinch on the last one. How thick d’ya figure that glass is then? Thick enough to stop me? Probably. Not so thick as to stop my voice gettin through, though, is it? Your little jump gave that away. Come to think of it, this place is probably more miked and wired than a fuckin TV studio. Mike’s everywhere, right? I bet even your name’s Mike. No wonder you jumped. Bet my voice was really loud, eh? Mike? How about if I whisper? Is this better? Can you hear me now? How about that, eh? All this just for me. The lights, the microphones…my very own little stage on which to give the performance of a li

Here's the second excerpt from my soon to be released (perhaps as soon as tomorrow) short story collection, The Impressionists . This is from The Replica and concerns spousal abuse. A number of years ago I received an email from a woman in the UK asking if I could send her a copy of my short play Degraded to read. Degraded was one of several plays I wrote at the time in response to the invasion of Iraq. I used the analogy of a former abused wife in a halfway home who receives a visit from the Department of Social Services, who then proceeds to abuse and rape her, all the while telling her that he's come to help her and that it's all for her betterment. The woman who had written to me was a former abused wife and had read the sample of Degraded and was interested in reading the complete play. I sent it to her, of course, but I also l took a big risk and sent her a copy of The Replica also. This was not an analogy of anything - simply a character study of an abused wife.

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently working on putting together a new collection of first person short stories, entitled "The Impressionists." Each story juxtaposes an individual's public face with their private turmoil. I thought it might be nice to preview each of the six stories here on my blog as I'm preparing it for publication, so I'm beginning today with a sample from "Big Girl." It's the thoughts of an overweight young woman, named Peggy, appraising her recently purchased self-help book, “The Bigger the Better.” This is a relatively long sample; others may be shorter. Please excuse the line breaks. Since tabs aren't an option here (that I know of) it seemed the best alternative. I hope you'll enjoy it. PEGGY I weigh 276 pounds and I love every single God-given one of them! I don’t, actually. Not if I were being honest. But that’s what you’re supposed to repeat, according to the instructions in the book. It’s called

My new mystery novelette The One-Eyed Guru is finally ready for primetime. I was originally going to label it a short story. However, I've since learned that a work the length of The One-Eyed Guru is technically a novelette. At first I was hesitant to call it that, as I imagined many readers wouldn't be familiar with the term. But I've decided that even if they aren't, anything using the suffix "ette" denotes something that is diminutive, so there shouldn't be a problem. I was also wary of calling it a short story because these can be as short as 1,000 words, and I didn't want someone dismissing looking into the book further if they thought it was really short and not worth spending a buck on. (Guru is around 8,000 words, by the way.) So a novelette it is. A mystery novelette. It should go live on Amazon in the next day or two. Sales for The End of the World have been picking up lately, so I'm hoping that if The One-Eyed Guru does well, it'll

I've decided that my next project will be to adapt my one-act play The One-Eyed Guru into a short story. Generally, my writing tends to fall into one of two camps: a heightened reality/absurdist style or straightforward realism/naturalism. I didn't decide this...it's just how I write. The One-Eyed Guru was, at the time that I wrote it, the most naturalistic play I'd written up until that point, which was still very early in my writing career. I have no idea where the idea for the story came from, but it appeared in my head one day and I wrote it all out. For whatever reason, I never really pushed that play in any marketing sense, though its had several productions and still generates interest from visitors to my website. But I've never really given it the attention that I honestly think it deserves. Part of that is the onset of the "anything longer than 10-Minutes will not be accepted" trend in one-act festivals that has taken place over the past decade.