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The Ripple Effect
Born of Dirt & Dust is a collection of short fiction stories ranging from social horror to feral love and tales of survival in a broken world. What draws you to write speculative flash fiction?
Writing speculative flash fiction ignited for me when I sat inside a tattoo studio in Lahaina, along the west coast of Maui, in May 2023, a few months before the horrific wildfire scarred the land and the many, many families affected by the tragedy. At the time of having a beautiful sea turtle tatted on my arm, I learned about the artist working on me. A young woman, approximately in her late twenties, who came to Maui to escape years of marriage with an abusive husband. I could see in her shadowed eyes, her flinching body language, the deep bruised color of her dyed hair, and the violent tattoos inked on her body, the degradation she felt. I could see her need for a portal, an escape, to a very different existence—a world beyond the pain and suffering inflicted upon her. She found that temporary reprieve in the warmth, beauty, and embracing culture of Lahaina. Yet, after only a few months, Hell broke loose, and she lost herself again. This time, in the fire that raged upon her world. It was that moment, seeing the devastation broadcast on the news, feeling the heartache, thinking about her, that I knew I had to write about bending space and time, about churning our world differently in order to find a place where we belonged, where we could—and would—survive, no matter how broken we felt inside. No matter how threatening or violent our environment. In writing speculative fiction, I wanted to capture the worst of what we faced, illustrate the blood we shed, and explore the rising of our spirit to become more than the shrinking ways our world defines us. I wanted to prove that human kindness and resilience win in the end.
Were there any personal experiences or observations that influenced the themes in this collection, and how did they shape the characters or stories?
Two stories in the collection specifically focus on the young life of a boy. “Henry Didn’t Have A Chance,” and “Stuck At A Dead End.” The premise behind the stories came to me from articles I heard on PBS NewsHour while driving to work. The first is about a toddler boy who died at a very young age. Local authorities arrested his mother and her boyfriend on suspicion of murder. The other story aired as a documentary about children of parents who served in the military and returned home with PTSD—how the traumatic affliction affected their children. I knew at this point in writing the stories for Born of Dirt & Dust that I wanted to open a lens for readers to fully experience the character’s world, how trapped they felt, how they chose to move forward, and the ripple effect of those choices. As human beings, we are connected in so many ways. I truly believe that every action and every reaction triggers a ripple effect that touches each of us. Most often in a very minuscule, microcosmic way. Yet it breathes upon us. A tiny molecule. It hits us. No matter how quickly we forget.
Which character in the collection was the most challenging or rewarding to write, and why?
I’m one of those writers who thinks the last story or chapter I’ve written is the best yet. The one that counts. The most brilliant of all. Of course, it’s wishful thinking that comes to light when I re-read what I’ve written a week later and spot the obvious corrections needed. In the case of Born of Dirt & Dust, I favor the story, “Hands That Make A Man.” I have a weak spot for wanting to see the best circumstances for young children in which they grow up to feel loved, secure, and happy. Although my stories tend to lean towards horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, I want the best for my characters. A type of freedom they never thought they would experience. No matter the deepest cuts to their heart and soul. The young boy in “Hands That Make A Man” adores his father, and when Dad is no longer alive, the boy takes something—stitches it to his own young body—and knows full well his life without his father will turn out all right. No matter the loneliness he may feel or the environment where he resides. He gains confidence and feels that he will do right in life.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
There are three books in which I’ve completed first and second drafts—a middle grade book about a young girl who adores space travel and yearns to be a scientist when she grows up; a young adult book about an otherworldly character who hides and survives in the bodies of the recently dead; and an adult thriller about a teenager gaslit by her parents who continue to bury the truth about a family member’s suspicious death. All three books still need another round of editing. The goal (fingers-crossed) is to have them published in the coming year.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Born of Dirt & Dust
Born of Dirt & Dust is a sharp-edged collection of speculative flash & short fiction that keeps changing masks from urban dread, grief-myth, social horror, bruised fairy tale, while staying faithful to one obsession: what people do to survive when the world won’t stop chewing. Across stories like “Smokin’ with Death,” “Pretending,” “The Last of Our Kind,” and the title piece, Renee Coloman drops me into intimate, first-person rooms where love is feral, hope is conditional, and the aftertaste is usually smoke.
What hit me first was the voice: immediate, unvarnished, and weirdly tender even when it’s being crude. In “Smokin’ with Death,” the narrator sizes up Katelyn, pink hair, tattoos like warnings, a body already half-ghosted by addiction, and the dialogue snaps like a lighter: transactional, defensive, heartbreakingly ordinary. The story doesn’t ask me to approve of anyone; it asks me to recognize them, which is harder and more bracing.
As I kept reading, the book’s recurring textures started to feel intentional rather than merely intense: cigarettes as countdowns, bodies as battlegrounds, love as a dare. “The Last of Our Kind” is a brutal little poem of devotion, an oxygen tank, a warning label, and a woman who can’t stop reaching for flame anyway, as if self-destruction is the last language she and her husband share. And in “Born of Dirt & Dust,” Coloman leans into mythic framing, Adam’s rib, inherited venom, a woman trying to outgrow the “dirt and dust” she’s been assigned, turning family damage into something almost ritualistic. Sometimes the prose repeats or swells on purpose, like a chant you can’t quite step out of; for me, that worked more often than it wobbled.
Coloman’s collection is for readers who want speculative fiction, flash fiction, horror, dark fantasy, magical realism, stories that move fast but leave residue, stories willing to be ugly in the service of truth. If you’ve loved the bite-sized dread and emotional torque of Carmen Maria Machado, you’ll recognize the same appetite for turning private pain into a blade with a shine on it. Born of Dirt & Dust is a small book of big hauntings, each story a matchstrike in the dark.
Pages: 215 | ASIN : B0FZLMZR77
Breathe and Believe
Breathe and Believe, by Arthur Wiggins, drops readers into the messy, money-soaked world of American Midwest University athletics, where one bad week blows up an entire department. Bruce McDermott, a marketing specialist on the rise, watches his mentor quit, his secret relationship implode, and his football program slide toward NCAA sanctions and budget disaster. Interim athletic director Tara Gantt battles power-hungry basketball coach Ron Hill and his boosters over gender equity, football vs. basketball priorities, and the push to build a new multi-purpose facility, while a tragic road accident involving the women’s tennis team shows the very real cost of all these decisions. By the time Bruce walks into a legislative hearing with a giant check and a campus-wide vision, the book has turned a spreadsheet crisis into a story about ambition, grief, and what it really takes to keep a university sports machine alive.
The storytelling has a slow-burning style that works overall. The early chapters around the motel incident, the surprise resignation, and then the van crash hit hard and fast, and I caught myself thinking, “OK, this is not just a sports novel, this is a whole train wreck of a weekend.” The author writes meetings, press conferences, and budget talks with the same seriousness as big games, and that gave the book a grounded, insider feel. There are passages packed with numbers, acronyms, and institutional history where the tension dips. The dialogue often carries the weight, with characters stating the stakes rather than letting subtext do more of the work. Still, when the story leans into crisis scenes or personal confrontations, the pacing snaps back, and the pages move quickly.
What really hooked me were the ideas underneath the plot. The book digs into Title IX, gender equity, and the brutal math of “too many sports, not enough money” in a way that feels honest. We see how a 53 percent female student body sits next to only 39 percent female scholarship athletes, and you can feel how wrong that is without the author giving a lecture about it. Tara Gantt’s arc, as a veteran woman administrator who built a separate women’s program only to see it merged, trimmed, and constantly second-guessed, gave the book heart.
Bruce’s role as a marketing guy caught between ideals and survival felt believable to me; he is selling walk-a-thons, naming rights, and spring game hype so the department can pay back a 1.3 million dollar overspend, and the whole thing feels both clever and a little desperate. The tennis team crash is handled with a blunt, unsentimental style that hit me in the gut; it underlines that all the talk about TV contracts and conference moves sits on top of actual young people in vans on bad roads.
I also liked how Wiggins treats politics and media as part of the same ecosystem. The scenes with the local newspaper scrambling for a “thumper” front-page story and sniffing around the athletic budget felt very true to life, and there is a sly humor in how leaks, half-truths, and spin drive the narrative around AMU more than any scoreboard does. The boosters, legislators, and campus leaders come off as flawed rather than cartoonish villains, which I appreciated. There were moments when I wished for more time inside the student-athletes’ heads and a bit less time inside meeting minutes. Even so, I came away with the strong sense that the author has lived in this world, and that authenticity carries the book.
I would recommend Breathe and Believe to readers who enjoy behind-the-scenes sports stories, campus politics, and workplace dramas where the real action happens in boardrooms, press boxes, and budget spreadsheets more than on the field. If you want a thoughtful, occasionally heavy, very human look at what modern college athletics does to the people inside it, you’ll enjoy this book. Arthur Wiggins has written a grounded, slow-burning sports novel for readers who love college athletics stories packed with messy politics, money trouble, and real emotional fallout.
Pages: 309 | ASIN : B0DFCHCWND
Creation Unfolding
Nothing and Blank Save the World and Other Tiny Works follows a constellation of poems and stories that intertwine cosmic creation, human vulnerability, and the beauty of connection into a single, awe-filled tapestry. How do you balance scientific wonder with emotional truth in your writing process?
As the second-to-last poem, “A Scientist with an Arts Degree” hints—or, rather, outright states—I have both a science (Biology) and arts (English and Creative Writing) degree, obtained in that order. I think the order matters. For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated in the sciences; the theories and explanations of the unknown, and the possible answers to impossibilities. That curiosity, and perhaps a tiny bit of staring at and learning about the night sky, is what fueled many of the works in the collection. The physical world can be explained in complex terms that people read in textbooks or academic journals. Elements of the human experience, much like atoms, chemical compounds, and even space dust, are also tangible, universal (no pun intended), and can be explicated.
But what if, I thought, it was more than that?
As a person of faith, one of my favorite things in the world is things that are unseen. Faith is the evidence of it. Evidence of the unknown, the not yet, the maybe. How can we as humans answer unknown questions or give unknown answers? That, I believe, is the vehicle of this collection that the fuel powers. There is what we know, there is what we don’t know, and then there’s us, smack in the middle of the two. I wanted to write about both together—to form that ever-so-peculiar balance. I pick an idea or concept or person and just… think, and write down my thoughts. Take, for example, a star. We know it’s there. We know what it’s made of, we think. But… how did it get there? What is it, really? Can it think like we can? What if it could? How does it spend its life? What if, what if, what if? The exact same thing goes for people. Everything is a wonder, and, with the right words, they can be explained further or explored from different angles. I’ve, as someone I talked with recently put it, “allowed myself to feel” this sense of wonder and curiosity, and the very human emotions behind them. Writing them down was the next logical step. Somehow, it all fits into two hundred thirty-six pages. And curiosity fuels the cat.
The title story feels allegorical and foundational. What inspired the beings who created the world out of light and darkness?
The characters Nothing and Blank are probably the earliest concepts that have come from this book. Over a decade before the publishing of the book, I wrote a little bit about the two in a smaller version of the final poem. In the early stages of my fixation on space, I fashioned small beings in my brain made of stardust, just floating somewhere in the universe with nothing to do but play around. I came to the conclusion that the two were children, curious about the world around them. So curious, in fact, that they would want to participate in their surroundings after watching it all happen for some time. Nothing and Blank simply watched creation unfolding. At some points in life, that’s all we as humans can do. Watch beauty form. Watch things change and grow. And, when given the opportunity to make something of our own, we use what we have and what we know to mold something else. Nothing and Blank are the embodiment of cosmic inquisitiveness—in many ways, my cosmic inquisitiveness, and my own quest for creation from childhood to adulthood.
It’s not easy for me to describe what exactly the light and darkness are in the poem, and what connotations are connected to them. They are both powerful forces coexisting. But I think it was important that the two characters were not one-hundred percent light or dark, and that there was a little bit of each other within. Balance. Equilibrium. Order. A more neutral version of yin and yang. I think writing “the balance thereof is life” was the moment I reached an epiphany concerning the ideas of the poem. The two beings, with their light and darkness, worked together to make a world, to save a world.
The balance of light and darkness as a concept is present in many beliefs and symbols on Earth. Neither can exist without the other, so to speak. There is good in bad; there is bad in good. The balance thereof is life. Everything that was created, I think, is a result of that concept. In my own life, I’ve had to sort of come to terms with this, more especially the good in the bad. Maybe I longed for the balance when creating the poem, or I wanted to know where the balance came from, or what it felt like. Both light and darkness were used to create in the poem. It gives me assurance in a weird sort of way.
Your imagery is vivid and recurring. Are there particular symbols you return to intentionally, or do they emerge organically as you write?
Sometimes I look back at my own work and, while laughing, I notice quite a few recurring ideas: life, death, space, and the unknown human experience. All things I love writing and learning about. All things I have never fully understood or participated in myself, save for a few decades on Earth. I look at my surroundings, again with laughter, and find that I am bombarded by these ideas every single day. I know of life. I know of death. I read about space all the time. I hear stories from people I could never be doing things I could never do.
Sometimes, I come up with thoughts and scenarios about these ideas in hopes that I am close to an answer for them, or at least something that makes sense to me. I’ve never died or stepped outside of our galaxy. I’ve never gotten married (yet?) or been to Washington state. I’ve never seen a constellation up close or run away from home.
What would it be like?
It’s really convenient that these ideas are, in many ways, both constant and changing continually. I think they’ll stick with me for a very long time.
What part of this collection challenged you the most to share with the world?
Though most of the poems and short stories are fictional, there is a little piece of me laced in some of the letters. I was most afraid of… doing that. A good writer will place themselves somewhere in their work to make it more relatable, either through characters, plot, or other story elements. But me? The hardest thing to write about is myself. If I were to place myself in this book, what would happen? Would people understand? Would people get it? Would they paint a picture of me and pass some sort of judgment? I was afraid of writing about my experiences and thoughts in their raw form. I was afraid of revealing so much about me, even in subtle ways. I didn’t want people to know (the real) me. For months, I struggled with pouring out my heart into the pages as I typed and being honest and open about myself. But I realized that it was the only way to breathe life into the poetry and stories and make the language authentic. Short stories like “Coffee Stains” and poems like “6/8” or “Sussan’s Sonnet” became much easier to craft.
The review of my book called me “brave.” I think that’s the word for it. It took a lot for me to be as vulnerable as I was, allowing myself to be myself. Allowing myself to be. It was okay to be honest and expressive. I didn’t have to limit my emotions or interweave my diction with superficial statements or imaginary sentiments. I could be genuine. It sometimes feels, in real life, that I can’t. But on paper, I can.
Now that this book is out, readers can catch a glimpse of my mind, of me as a person. And, ultimately, it was a great decision to make.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Break From Our Mental Pain
In Finley’s Song, readers meet a pianist who is battling grief and despair after her husband’s sudden death and struggling to raise her son through it all. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Finley’s Song was inspired by observing how grief can affect us in ways other than just making us sad or lonely. Guilt can often be an emotion we are grappling with in addition to grief. What could I have done to cause a different outcome or to have had a better relationship with this partner, parent, or child? This can be heightened by a sudden and premature death of that loved one. We always think time is on our side, until it isn’t. I also found it inspiring that Finley and Max never stop trying to find their way back to a healthy relationship while working through their grief in very different ways.
What are some things you find interesting about the human condition that make for great fiction?
Regarding Finley’s Song, I find it interesting how grief, coupled with guilt, can damage our ability to think in a rational or responsible manner. Why is this? I believe we can become overwhelmed with the starkness of reality. I can’t change or fix this outcome. I must live with the finality of it and decisions I made leading up to the end of my relationship with this partner, parent, or child. It can cause us to search for ways to escape… alcohol, drugs, sex…. and other distractions to give our mind the tiniest break from our mental pain. How this plays out in my characters’ lives becomes intriguing and insightful.
Was Finley’s backstory something you always had, or did it develop as you were writing?
Finley’s backstory was something that developed as I wrote. I always know the main plot and themes of the story before I begin. I acquaint myself with the major characters, and I know approximately how the story will end. The middle is a bit of a blur that constantly develops as I write. It is true that at some point the story begins to write itself as characters, settings, and behaviors fall into a pattern. Eventually, I clearly see how to resolve their issues.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
I am halfway through my next novel, called The Writer. It is a story about a woman who discovers she is pregnant and has terminal cancer at the same time. She decides to give her baby girl up for adoption, but then fate, as per usual, has its way with her. She must maneuver through the unforeseen twists and turns of what she had once thought was a well-planned resolution for herself and her daughter.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Winter Goose Publishing | Website | Amazon
Finley’s Song
From the first page, Finley’s Song drew me into a story that mixes music, grief, and the stubborn hope that follows loss. At its heart, the book tells the story of Finley, a pianist whose husband dies in a sudden accident, leaving her to raise their son, Max, while stumbling through her own guilt and despair. The novel moves between their shared silence at home, their escape to Paris, and the healing they cautiously piece together through new connections, old memories, and the enduring pull of music. I liked how much this is not just Finley’s story but Max’s too, a portrait of a mother and son mourning in parallel yet trying to keep each other afloat.
The writing had me hooked and sometimes unsettled in the best way. Kathryn Mattingly paints grief with raw strokes, never dressing it up, never trying to make it neat. Some passages felt like a gut punch, especially when Finley blames herself for Simon’s death. The guilt is heavy, almost suffocating, and I could feel the weight of it. But then there are these glimmers, moments with Max by the river, or Finley staring at the Eiffel Tower, that break through like sunlight. I found myself both aching and rooting for them, wanting them to reach those fragile pockets of beauty again. The language isn’t flowery for the sake of it. It’s direct yet tender, and it left me pausing more than once just to sit with the feeling it stirred.
Sometimes Finley’s voice frustrated me. Her self-blame circles back so often that I caught myself whispering “let yourself breathe.” Yet, that honesty made her real. People stuck in grief do repeat themselves, and the author didn’t shy away from that truth. I also found Max’s perspective refreshing and painfully accurate. His teenage awkwardness, his longing for his father, his quiet way of observing the world, they rang true. If anything, his sections gave the book a balance it needed, grounding Finley’s spiraling thoughts with the bluntness of youth. That duality is what made the story so enjoyable for me.
Finley’s Song is filled with small, luminous moments that feel earned. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to read about loss in a way that doesn’t smooth the edges but instead embraces the messiness of it. Fans of books like Little Fires Everywhere or Where the Crawdads Sing will find a similar mix of emotional depth and vivid sense of place, but Finley’s Song feels more personal and raw, like a private journal you’ve been allowed to read.
Pages: 226 | ISBN : 978-1952909344
Open Your Heart
Color Me Skye follows a 12-year-old girl battling fear, grief, and a distant stepfather following the car accident that leaves her mother in a coma. Where did the idea for this story come from?
This story came partly from my own experience of losing my father, who served in the military when I was very young, and then dealing with the addition of a stepfather to our family. I would have loved to have had a book like this when I was growing up, to know that there were other kids like me experiencing the feelings I did. That’s my hope for this book, that it will reach kids who’ve lost a parent, or are dealing with a new step-parent, that they’ll see themselves in the story and learn that healing is possible and there are resources available to help them.
When creating Skye, did you have a plan for development and character traits, or did they grow organically as you were writing the story?
I wanted Skye to grow and change into someone who was more other-centered at the end than she was at the beginning. But some of the specifics, like her being unable to sit in the front seat after the accident, weren’t planned.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
People are seldom who you think they are, healing doesn’t always look like what you think it will, and it comes when you open your heart to new possibilities.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m working on a middle-grade fantasy in which the main characters are fairies who must go on a quest to save their forest and insect friends from destruction by humans. I have no idea when it might get published, but I’m enjoying the journey of writing it.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Then last year her mom married a quiet, distant guy who Skye calls Dim Tim. He doesn’t seem to be interested in having a stepdaughter. And that’s okay with Skye; she doesn’t want a stepfather, either.
But now, a car accident has left her mom in a coma. Which means she and Dim Tim are going to have to figure out how to do all the stuff her mom did. To actually talk to each other. Worst of all, one question is tearing Skye up inside: What if her mom never wakes up?
Told in free verse, with color filled words and sketches, Color Me Skye follows the emotionally charged journey of Dim Tim and Skye as they navigate their new normal. Along the way, Skye discovers a best friend who is funny, feisty, fabulous, and the perfect antidote to Skye’s troubles. For ages 9-12.
Color Me Skye
Color Me Skye follows twelve-year-old Skye as she navigates the aftermath of a terrifying car accident that leaves her mother in a coma. Stuck with her emotionally distant stepfather, Dim Tim, Skye battles fear, loneliness, guilt, and grief all while slowly learning to open her heart again. Through days spent at a hospital daycare called the “Fun-ny Bone,” she meets Star, a larger-than-life friend who helps Skye rediscover joy, hope, and strength in unexpected ways.
The writing is lyrical but raw. Adams paints Skye’s emotions with texture and depth, layering them like strokes on a canvas. It doesn’t pull punches. The pacing is fast, the chapters short and sharp, often written in free verse that mirrors the chaos and swirl of grief. Skye’s voice is crystal clear, funny, moody, honest, and incredibly relatable. There were pages that made me laugh and others that cracked my heart wide open. What moved me most, though, was how the story treated pain not as something to run from but something to live through. And how beautifully it shows that healing doesn’t always look like you think it will.
I also really appreciated how the book handles relationships. Skye and Dim Tim’s dynamic is awkward and strained at first, which feels true. He’s no superhero. But he tries. That matters. Watching them slowly fumble toward understanding was as satisfying as it was believable. And Star? What a sparkplug. She bursts into the story like a firework and stays lit the whole time. I wanted to bottle her energy. Their friendship gave the story warmth and color just when it needed it most.
If you’ve ever lost someone or felt like your world was tilting sideways and couldn’t seem to right itself, this book will feel like a soft place to land. It’s ideal for middle-grade readers and anyone who’s dealt with grief, change, or feeling like the odd one out. I’d recommend it to parents, teachers, and counselors, too. It’s the kind of story that starts conversations.
Pages: 184 | ASIN : B0FBKYS69R
