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Custody Battle—Horror Writers Awarded Poe (Horror Writers Association's Newsletter, May 2008)

Now I have no problem granting mystery writers their Blessed Trinity of Saints, Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Dashiell Hammett, but I draw the line at Edgar Allan Poe. Sorry, mystery hacks, no joint custody allowed. Poe's tortured soul IS the horror genre. Poe is one of ours!

Fine Cuisine (Quantum Muse, August 2001)

I stared at the food critic sitting across the desk from me. He wore the look certain people have, people who could be anywhere between twenty and fifty. His face a sleek plastic with no sign of a five o'clock shadow. His thick, uniformed hair parted perfectly on the side. I realized then what was making me so nervous. His eyes. They moved ceaselessly about the office from my face, to the wall, to the desk, to the door, and then back to my face again. Why would a food critic waste his time giving the manager of an eatery advance notice that their establishment was going to get crucified, and crucified bad, in his column? In the dining industry reviews are typically a hit and run affair.

Glass Jars (Potpourri Magazine, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2001)

Never terribly comfortable with myself, I gave her an embarrassed grin. She smiled back, a moment passed, her eyes became unfocused, lost in a deep thought, possibly the same expression I wore. Then gave a friendly half-wave with the fingers of her ringless left hand, and she was on her way toward the I-Tech parking lot. I was flustered. And it has been so long since I'd been gratefully, marvelously flustered.

The Misbourne Identity (Satire Magazine, Autumn 1998)

Ludlum awoke with a start. Eyes wide, he searched the room. The news had changed into a mid-afternoon soap opera. Ludlum went into a shoulder roll and landed upright on his feet. His momentum caused him, momentarily, to stagger into the coffee table and trip over backwards.

!Note: Shadow Play, a collection of short stories by Jeffrey B. Burton, may be purchased through online bookstores or Pocol Press.