Born of Dirt & Dust: Get ready for a visceral ride, as I share a few of my favorite story titles & character situations.

Get ready for a visceral ride, as I share a few of my favorite story titles & character situations from Born of Dirt & Dust by Renee Coloman

I’m Renee Coloman and I wrote Born of Dirt & Dust, a book of gritty short stories blending fantasy, horror, and sci-fi.

Get ready for a visceral ride, as I share a few of my favorite story titles & character situations. Watch the video above. It's a nice teaser to get you in the mood for what’s in store when you read Born of Dirt & Dust.

Buckle up. Here we go.

• Smokin With Death

  • If Katelyn were a mermaid, I swear she’d be smokin’ the broken coral. Wishing for the ocean to wash her away. Wishing for an oyster with a pearl inside. Something to tell her sure, she’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.” 

    
    

• The Last of Our Kind 

  • “A different kind of zombie lies in bed next to me. I suck on the end of a lit cigarette. Turn my wet eyes toward my dying husband. His flesh is bruised, swollen, knifed open and spilling blood … He’s twenty-eight. We once had a baby. She died too soon, without gasping a single breath of life.

    
    

• Rules to Eating A Dead Dog’s Heart 

  • “Casey needed to cry, to scream out loud, but she hiccupped instead, feeling the anchor of Rule Number One: a sacrificed life is how we thrive. We eat to survive. But the young girl didn’t understand. Why did it have to be her best friend, Winky?”

    
    

• Strings Uncut

  • “The Blue Angel didn’t leave a wishing star upon this forgotten home. A place where my wooden soul seeps through my breathless pores. I’d rather be invisible than a slab of wood petrified and carved: once a woman, now a marionette. Grotesque in form.” 

    
    

• Rabid 

  • The fishbowl atop Hailey’s desk traps a single betta. Aggressive. Territorial. Determined to fight and win. Hailey doesn’t care that it’s black beady eyes spy at her, as though hungry for her flesh–a sharp nibble, perhaps–jaws aiming for the tips of her fingers. She would kill it if she wanted to. Crush it in the palm of her hand. But she refuses to give her beau, Devon, one more reason to break up with her. They’ve been dating for a solid 8 weeks. She promised to be nice.”

I hope these tidbits whet your appetite for more stories, more fringe characters, and more of their haywired worlds.

The background artwork featured in the video emerged from the moody light flickering in my mind. I created the collages. The abstract oil on canvas is from the artist Mira. Reach out if you'd like to learn more about the art. Email RCwriter.pen.ink@gmail.com

Take care friends, and make sure to get your signed copy of the book, Born of Dirt & Dust. Click here to learn more.