Travis Richardson is a regular contributor to Shotgun Honey starting with his first story “The Day We Shot Jesus on Main Street” originally published in 2012. Since then he’s contributed his short fiction to a number of fiction sites and anthologies, becoming an award nominated and well respected writer of short fiction. His work recently […]
Tom Pitts is a longtime fixture of the hardboiled scene. His new book, “101,” is a ferocious journey through Northern California’s weed business, set on the cusp of legalization. Its central character, Vic, is a reclusive weed farmer and all-around badass who ends up tangled with some very bad folks. The bodies pile up, along […]
When I was a wee lad, us neighborhood kids would assemble on Friday nights and march down to the local multiplex, to see whatever action spectacular graced the screen that week. If the movie in question was a sequel, there was a high likelihood we would leave the theater complaining about the reheated plot, the […]
When I first read Marie S. Crosswell’s Texas, Hold Your Queens, I was struck by the ferocity of its prose. It’s a novella with serious teeth, which it sinks into some pretty meaty themes: vengeance, justice, love, trauma, death. Although it takes place in the desert, it’s also a very different beast from the glut […]
Hola Honeys! That’s what I’m calling all of you now. Yes, it’s terrible and yes you all deserve it. You know exactly what you did and where. So, in keeping with my rigid and concise schedule, we’ve got another FROM THE HIP for you with Shotgun Honey’s very own Nick Kolakowski. He’s got a corker […]
Welcome to the relaunch of Dodging Bullets where I will talk shop about all things Shotgun Honey related, plus a few odd and ends that I find interesting. What do I find interesting this week? Shotgun Honey turns 6 years old this month and we still churns out some of the best crime flash fiction […]
Today Shotgun Honey is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Eric Campbell and Down & Out Books (downandoutbooks.com), an independent publisher of literary and crime fiction. Shotgun Honey joins the Tampa, FL based company as a new imprint focused primarily on short length crime fiction: collected short stories, novellas and short length novels. Shotgun Honey has a […]
“All writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.” – Martin Amis, “The War Against Cliché” Some things take a few minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master. Games like chess, for instance, or knocking off a bank and getting […]
The SWAT cop kicked in the front door of the crack shack, and Ricky followed him inside, scattergun pumped and ready to fill the air with an unhealthy amount of lead. The cop behind them shouted something about arrest warrants, but Ricky had no intention of arresting anyone today, especially if the ‘anyone’ happened to be Ivan, his ex-partner in a recent entrepreneurial venture.
The column of SWAT ants headed left, into the seedy living room with the brownish curtains, while Ricky veered right, through the kitchen piled high with soggy paper plates and crusted pots. Past the kitchen, a short hallway, and the bedroom beyond—Ricky’s finger whispering on the trigger. When the shadow darted into the bedroom doorway, he almost blasted it to shreds, stopped before the last quarter-pound of pressure by a familiar face—two familiar faces, in fact, one barely visible behind the other.
Most clients ask me for pills, or a phone, or some weird porno they can’t score from anyone inside. One crazy bastard even paid for a trained mouse, so he could send messages and weed between cells. But Fast Times Ricky asked me for a one-of-a-kind item: Respect. I once spent eight hundred and ninety-two […]
By late January, even the most powerful, take-no-shit chainsaw you can buy at the last minute from the Home Depot has trouble chewing through the thick ice of Lake Michigan. Joey, working hard to cut a precise circle, craved a cigarette. Blah-blah lung cancer blah-blah, but at least a lungful of smoke would relax him a little. Lord knows, the seven guys standing around him, toting pistols and pissed-off expressions, weren’t doing a whole lot for his peace of mind. Nor was the bruised, bloody chump tied up on the ice beside the hole, for that matter.
You’d think the chump would’ve been scared, watching someone carve him a personal swimming hole in a frozen lake, but no: He just kept smiling in a creepy way that made Joey want to smoke a whole pack.
Today we launch the third volume of the Both Barrels series with Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked and Loaded. Featuring 25 stories by: Available in paperback and Kindle editions. Buy your copy today!
