I am not by nature a short story reader or writer. I prefer to get down in there and really live with a character. But every once in a while I have an idea that lends itself to a short story.

Like my recent short story, By Your Side When the Sun Sets, that was about an old dragonrider and his dragon who is starting to forget him and what to do about that which was inspired by my having an aging dog who makes me sad every time she struggles to stand up.

Usually what I do with these stories is I submit them to the Writers of the Future writing contest, maybe try a couple other short story markets, and then let them rot away on my hard drive. But I realized that I actually had enough of those short stories that I could publish them as a collection.

Now, because I view novels and short stories as two different beasts, so to speak, I put the short stories out under an old pen name of mine, M.H. Lee. But I thought I’d share the existence of the collection here just in case anyone is both a short story and a novel reader.

So if that’s you, then you can find When The Time Comes and Other Stories on major retailers. And one of the stories, The Taste of Memory, which is about creativity and trauma and memory, you can read for free.

(Because this is 2020 and nothing is simple this year, the story collection is stuck in publishing on Nook but will hopefully push through. Of course, I’ve been saying that since the 15th. And the short story is currently free everywhere but Amazon but I have asked nicely so that could change at any moment as well. I tell ya, the writing is actually the easy part of this gig.)