What the Hell is a Storyside?

Greetings, WYMOP fans!

If you’re following me on Facebook, or even Twitter (and I’m mocked for my pathetic level of Twitterliness, I can assure you), you’ve probably seen me posting about The Storyside, or even things from The Storyside. You may have clicked into them, you may not, but I’m pretty sure at one time or another you’ve thought What the hell is a Storyside?

Well, I’m here to tell you.

By now you ought to know I’m a writer—you’re reading something I’ve written right now, for Christ’s sake. But I do write more than blog posts, Facebook posts, and the (very) occasional tweet: I write stories. I write fiction. I have an Amazon author’s page, where you can find the two dozen places I’ve had my short fiction published. I’ve even—I’m going to blow my own horn here, something I don’t do often because it makes me very uncomfortable—won a couple of industry awards, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (kind of a big deal for me) and had an honorable mention from a pretty prestigious “Best Of” list.

It isn’t enough.

There are so many writers out there, all trying to make a go of it, it’s hard to get noticed. The crowd is so big it’s not enough to just stand out from it, you have to stand way out. Your stuff can’t just be good: it has to be great.

In late 2014 I got word of a small group of writers, most of them fairly local to me, who were joining forces with an intent that had me pricking up my ears: they wanted to pool their resources to put out the best product possible. They intended to mesh their individual skill sets to act as a lens, focusing each individual’s work like a linguistic laser. They were banding together to fight injustice, to right that which is wrong, and to serve all mankind!

Oh, wait, that’s the Super Friends.

Sorry. They did look at me a little funny when I asked them if I could be Batman, but—after a vetting the likes of which the Secret Service could take a lesson from—they allowed me to join them in their endeavor. They don’t have to know I sit behind my word processor in a cape and cowl now, do they? Nope. Nobody’s business but my own.

So that’s how I managed to team up with the group now known as The Storyside:

David Daniel—winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel contest and a Shamus Award nominee, author of, among other things, the Alex Rasmussen detective series and more than eighty short stories

Stacey Longo—a 2015 eFestival of Words runner up for Best Anthology: Wicked Seasons (Editor), Featured Author on the 2014 Connecticut Authors Trail, professional copy editor, author of, most recently, Ordinary Boy, and My Mom has MS

Ursula Wong—regional winner of the New Hampshire Writer’s Project flash fiction contest, author of the novel Purple Trees

Vlad V. —editor, publishing consultant, freelance writer, former newspaper correspondent, author of The Button, and Brachman’s Underworld, and now our managing editor and fearless leader.

Oh, and me. I, uh, write and edit stuff.

Or, as I like to think of them, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, and Superman. But they don’t need to know that, do they? Nobody’s business but my own.

So that’s what The Storyside’s all about: five writers determined to help each other raise the level of their game, and bring you, the reader, the best product possible, whether it’s a book one of us has for sale, or a short-short story we’re offering on our blog for free. Some of us are dark; some of us aren’t. We are self, small-press, and traditionally published. We are writers, editors, and (let us not forget!) readers. We are men and women with one goal in mind: to bring you, the public, the best possible stories, in the highest quality books. The Storyside has already published two anthologies of dark fiction—Insanity Tales, and Insanity Tales II: the Sense of Fear—and I’m not really going out on a limb when I say they are damn good. And that was while we were still finding our feet, and learning to work as a team.

You might want to keep an eye on us. We started out doing it right, and it’s only going to get better.

To try a sample or two of what we’re all about, click on the links below to get to The Storyside blog:

“The Visit,” a free short story from Rob Smales

“How I Was Inspired by a Homicidal Cannibal,” by Stacey Longo

“Adverbs Aren’t Your Friends:” writing advice from Vlad V.

Go ahead. Check them out.

Talk to you later!

P.S.—I’m Batman.