My next story on Amazon for FREE is “Orifice,” a story that originally appeared in Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, back in 1996.  It also was awarded an Honorable Mention by Datlow & Windling in their Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.

It’s mildly sexually explicit, so adults only, please.  But, as I say to people, it’s a love story.  A twisted love story, to be sure, but a love story nonetheless.

It’s FREE at Amazon this week.  Go here to get it:

http://www.amazon.com/Orifice-ebook/dp/B005C6CENS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1327852731&sr=8-4

I’ve made another fantastic sale of a short story that I can’t discuss just yet, but, again, it’s a big one.  Not quite as big as the other big news that I still can’t announce, but pretty big.

2012 is shaping up to be a very, very good year for me so far!

OK, the great news first.  My story, “Dust at the Center of All Things,” was accepted by Evil Jester Press for its Evil Jester Digest Vol. 1.  It was one of 10 stories that were accepted out of 200 submissions, so I’m pretty stoked about it.  It should be available in March, and I’ll have more information about where/how to get it as time approaches.

Here’s the TOC, if you want to see who else is in with me:

• “The Girl Who Drowned” by Tracy L. Carbone
• “Sharpe is Extraordinary” by David Dunwoody
• “Widdershins” by Hollie Snider
• “Dust Devil” by Gary Brandner
• “GPS” by Rick Hautala
• “Look Behind You” by Eric Shapiro
• “Lone Wolf” by Gregory L. Norris
• “A Gentleman’s Folly” by Phil Hickes
• “Dust at the Center of All Things” by John F.D. Taff
• “The End of Autumn” by Aric Sundquist

Some pretty cool names in there with me.  Evil Jester is also publishing Call of Lovecraft toward the summer, which includes my story “The Tentacle.”

And the fantastic news?  Well….not quite yet.  Got to wait for some contracts to come in first, but that should be soon.  But the news is pretty fantastic, I promise!

Yes, that’s a speculum.

This week’s FREE story on Amazon is called “Omnimpotent.”

No, that’s not a typo or misspelling in the title.  You read it right.  Think about it for a minute…

While you’re thinking, let me tell you a little about the plot.  The devil is always on the lookout for new ways to capture souls, right?  Don’t you think he’s tired of all the usual ways–money, power, beauty, sex, being a Kardashian?

What more desperate soul than a woman who can’t have a baby?

In this humorous dark fantasy story, get ready to meet the gynecologist from Hell…literally.

This story was on Fictionwise for a while, and it was by far my most popular story.  Go figure.  I think it’s kind of comical, but don’t know why it would have sold hands down about 10 times what my other pieces did.  Anyway, now on Kindle…FREE this week.  Go get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Omnimpotent-ebook/dp/B005C67D8O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327264256&sr=8-1

It originally was published in Aberrations, Issue No. 25, 1994.

Warning: Explicit (but funny!) Sexual Content.

Just finished two stories, and am working on three more to have a total of five before plunging headlong back into my new novel.

“Bolts” is a story about the prop neck bolts from the 1931 Frankenstein and a dead girlfriend.

“Sex and the Elder Edda” is not a horror story, but I guess a kind of urban fantasy mash-up between Sex and the City and Norse Mythology.  Debbie didn’t like it, so I have to work on it some more.  It’s a total tone thing.

Next up:

“Squirm” about an ex-preacher who is filled with voices…and a lot of other nasty things that all want to get  out.

Then, I dunno.  I have an idea for a story about C-Pap machines, another about fingernail biting leading to an infestation of…well…something really nasty.  And perhaps one about vampires…but not what you’d think.

And another story of mine goes on sale fore FREE at Amazon on Monday.  This one is more humorous, and definitely adult in nature.  It’s called “Omnimpotent,” and that’s not a typo.

More on that Monday!

Also note that I’ve changed the picture to the right to a stunning portrait of yours truly.  Taken today by Deb at the Missouri Historical Museum.  Trying to go for something that looks professional and authorial without looking douchebaggy.  Well, at least too douchebaggy.

Don’t quite get the Volkswagen connection…

OH, BTW, wait for the end for the Imperial Walker…

Long title, but the story that’s up for free at Amazon (until Friday!), just got a very nice, 5-star and wholly unsolicited review:

“History is not a genre that I normally seek out. However, this book was offered as a Kindle freebie, and the description drew me in.  I was not aware of Mr. Taff, prior to reading this book. I am now, and if this story about President Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth is representative of his writing style – which I found to be VERY smooth flowing – I will most certainly be reading other of his works.”

Thanks, WD, whomever you are!

Go here to get the story yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Booth-at-Orpheum-ebook/dp/B005C6CDRU/ref=zg_bs_157087011_34

Then how about Franklin Delano Roosevelt fighting Nazi Werewolves!

First off, the next free story up at Amazon is a pretty good one…and not a horror story for those of you who aren’t fans.

This one, “Lincoln & Booth at the Orpheum” is an alternate history, sci-fi sorta, kinda story.  Basically it examines how I believe certain things are meant to happen, even in an alternate timeline where they don’t happen exactly as we know them.  Got it?

Well, what would happen if Lincoln wasn’t assassinated?  Or at least not how history shows us.  It’s a riff on destiny and fate and how things, some things at least, are meant to be.

It’s at Amazon for free this week.  FREE.  As in not even the miserable 99 cents it usually goes for.  Here’s the link.  Now, go get it:

http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Booth-at-Orpheum-ebook/dp/B005C6CDRU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326690919&sr=8-1

Now, here’s the update on the last story, “Just a Phone Call Away.”  It “sold” 250 copies during the free promotion last week.  Now, the six of you who regularly read this will remember that the story prior to this, “The Dark Level,” “sold” a whopping 2,550 copies during its free promo run.

The two that went up prior to that also “sold” around 250 copies.  So, something obviously happened during the promotion of “The Dark Level” to push “sales” to the level it did.  And I need to figure this out.  Really.

Well, anyway, this promo thing is helping get my name out there.  I got a new review on “The Dark Level” from someone who downloaded it…a very nice review.

“A steady, flowing story that doesn’t disappoint. Very well written, I could really feel it. I will definitely try his other works.”  Thanks, Enid Wagstrom.  (Real name. Not making that up.)

So it’s working, just as with everything else, not a whole lot of money attached to it…yet.

This is fantastic!

Portraits of Dogs as They Shake Off Water.

This story is free at Amazon through this Friday.

“Just a Phone Call Away” is what is charitably known as “erotic” horror, and is therefore only appropriate for adults.  Ummm, that means explicit sexual content, if you were wondering.

But, it’s really more about control than sex, or the lengths that people are willing to go to to recapture control once they’ve lost it.  Is it erotic?  I dunno.  Is it disturbing?  Yes.  Will there be blood?  Oh, most definitely.

This story received an honorable mention in Datlow &  Windling’s Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Ninth Annual Collection in 1996.  When the guys who bought it turned it into their editor at Pocket Paperbacks, because this was originally published in Hot Blood:  Seeds of Fear (1995), she singled it out as her favorite of the collection.

Anyway, it’s normally 99 cents, but free til Friday.  Here’s the link, go get it!

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Phone-Call-Away-ebook/dp/B005CBIQX0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1326124247&sr=8-6