“Cornfield” Arrives in Shortwave Magazine

Sometimes a story just sort of tumbles out of your head fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, wrapped in armor and ready to go. Others, well, they take a while. Sometimes a long while.

In the case of “Cornfield”, which was just published online in the excellent Shortwave Magazine, I’d been kicking around the core concept for years: a phone app that let you wish people away, like Anthony in the “It’s a Good Life” episode of The Twilight Zone. But it was always just that one note, and never the full song. It wasn’t until Alice and Nicki—and their ill-fated relationship—came bubbling up out of the gray matter that the concept finally became a story.

The result is a little bit sci-fi and a whole lot of horror, a tale of fear and power and love. It’s a story about how technology fails us, and ultimately how we fail each other. And that Twilight Zone inspiration? It’s in there in spades. I could practically smell the smoke from Rod Serling’s cigarettes while I was writing it.

You can read “Cornfield” for FREE right now on the Shortwave Publishing website.