Having contributed blog posts here at Black Gate since 2006 (where does the time go?), it’s time for a change. Time at last to give up on non-fiction, essays, and opinionated screeds. Time to dive headlong into an experiment I’ve long been itching to try, a serialized novel.

According to Black Gate‘s traffic stats, which of course I study daily from the basement of BG‘s vast Indiana compound, my Tales Of Gemen (“The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone“) remain perennially popular. That’s flattering – reassuring, even – and I’m grateful for your readership. Indeed, I feel sufficiently encouraged that I’m ready to offer a brand-new fantasy world in hopes that at least some of you will follow me down what promises to be a truly long and winding road.

Think of this as an experiment in tight-rope walking. I haven’t written to the end. I’m not offering you something that’s already complete. Instead, I’ll be doling out the breadcrumbs of story just as fast as I can tear them from the fictive loaf, and when we reach the end, we’ll get there simultaneously.

So the journey begins, in what I expect will be bi-weekly installments. Remember, this is dangerous territory; there’s no safety net. There’s only the story, the one unfolding in my head, the one I promise to set down as best I know how, for you.

That adventure, In the Wake Of Sister Blue, begins today.

Tell your friends. Off we go.

Read the first chapter of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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Mark Rigney is the author of the supernatural quartet, The Skates, Sleeping Bear, Check-Out Time, and Bonesy, all published by Samhain and featuring his semi-dynamic duo of Renner & Quist. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Unlikely Story, Betwixt, Black Static, The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review, Realms of Fantasy, Witness, The Beloit Fiction Journal, Talebones, Not One Of Us, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and many more. In other work, Rigney is the author of the plays Ten Red Kings, Acts of God and Bears, winner of the 2012 Panowski Playwriting Competition, as well as the non-fiction book Deaf Side Story: Deaf Sharks, Hearing Jets and a Classic American Musical (Gallaudet). Two collections of his stories (all previously published by various mags and ‘zines) are available through Amazon, Flights of Fantasy, and Reality Checks. His author’s page at Goodreads can be found HERE, and his website is markrigney.net.