FERAL - SNEAK PEEK!

I'm delighted to share a new sneak peek of my forthcoming FERAL:


Pre-order FERAL from your favorite outlet.

FERAL SNEAK PEEK #2

Following the starred PW review, I've filmed another sneak peek video.  In this clip, we pick up with Serena as her killer pulls her from the high school basement's window:




Click here to pre-order FERAL through your favorite outlet.

FERAL: A READING + PRE-ORDER

In honor of Indies First Storytime Day, I'm posting a first-ever sneak peek reading of FERAL!  Watch the video below to hear the opening pages of my next YA (and first mystery / thriller):



Now that you've whet your appetites, be sure to pre-order FERAL, in order to ensure that your copy will arrive as soon as possible!  (In honor of the spirit of Indies First Storytime Day, I would of course encourage you to order through your own local indie bookstore, which can be located through IndieBound.)  To order from any major or indie retailer, or to locate your local indie stores through IndieBound, click here.

SUPER COOL REVIEW + SNEAK PEEKIN' (PLAYING HURT)

I just got one of the coolest reviews of all time on Amazon. Seriously. Check out this last paragraph in the review for PLAYING HURT:

“In the book, Chelsea and Clint vow to "never live timidly," and to never take the coward's way out again. As a storyteller, Holly follows her character's advice. She doesn't hold anything back, whether it's exploring sexuality, living with regret and pain, or hurting the ones you love the most and dealing with the fallout. Her characters live and breathe, and in the end, become a part of you.”
—R. Harris

Really. How incredible is that?

I’m also proud to announce I’ve got my PLAYING HURT reading finished!

You have no idea what I had to go through to get this reading. Really. No idea. Every time I opened my mouth, kids started screaming in the street. Construction trucks parked outside and honked. My dog started snoring.

I honestly expected some of Dr. Seuss’s tanktookas and bambloozas to start blaring!

But here she is, finally: my reading of PLAYING HURT…

Those of you who’d like to read more (especially from Clint) can check out the sneak peek at The Serpentine Library!

A BLUE SO DARK: A READING

...In all the excitement over PLAYING HURT's impending book birthday, I didn't want to overlook my other baby...

Here's a cool new reading of several sections of my firstborn, A BLUE SO DARK:

LAST INSTALLMENT IN THE FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE (TIME TO VOTE!)

This is it, kiddos—the last installment in the Flash Fiction Challenge. I’m sorry to see it go, but it won’t be the last piece of creative writing you see here on the blog. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’m happy to announce that the last prompt comes to us courtesy of Jo Stapley, who blogs at both Once Upon a Bookcase and Ink and Paper. She suggested the phrase “What the eyes can’t see,” which I’ve also used as the title for December’s entry:




“What The Eyes Can’t See”
Holly Schindler

Ice struck Heather’s forehead as her numb fingers struggled to latch the chains her father had put in her trunk last month, when she was home for Thanksgiving. She panted, having already tossed every four-letter word she knew against the night sky. Her glasses slipped farther down her nose as she fought.

She’d heard the forecast; she knew she only had until seven-thirty, eight at the latest before getting caught by the storm. But Professor Franklin was famous for his sadistic streak. That, and his scarred face. Gouges and dips and silver stripes, evidence of a boyhood nightmare. Dog attack—the words circled through the English department, around the TAs’ mailboxes and the coffee machine in the student lounge. Wild stories about some crazed, rabid encounter.

Heather had told her friends that the attack had changed Professor Franklin into something wild, dog-like. He’d barked at her, in class and in red ink on her essays: Poor citations. Weak argument. She couldn’t win with Professor Franklin, any more than he could have won against the dog who had tried to chew him to bits when he was little. Someone had to save him, then. She’d wished someone would save her, too.

She should have known he’d unleash a brutal all-essay Brit Lit final. The kind of test that made her legs feel like crumbly, overworked dough. The test she’d worked on until a quarter after nine.

And now, the ice.

Heather coughed against the stream of exhaust pouring from her ten-year-old Dodge. Her fingers slipped; the chain gave. Her glasses flew off her face as a black sedan passed.

The crunch of lenses made Heather’s stomach drop like a bowling ball into a pile of feathers.

She just wanted to go home.

Now, though, there was no driving anywhere. Not with 20/900 vision. She’d have to buy another pair of glasses first.

She screamed, unleashing another round of violent curse words as she picked up the mangled fragments of her glasses.

Disgusted, tired, and lonely, she climbed into the car to cut the engine. Without her glasses, the world beyond the windshield was a smear of colors. The street lamps at the edge of the parking lot were planet-sized gold balls from her mother’s Christmas tree.

But Heather wouldn’t see the tree for another couple of days at best, now. Her friends had already left town. Stupid night class, she thought, through tears. Stupid suitcase college.

A knock to her window rattled her. “Heather?” The voice through the glass was saturated with such kindness that her tears stopped, instantly.

Rescue? But by whom? Who was left?

“Are you hurt? I saw the car—he didn’t hit you, did he? Please, open this door. I need to know you’re okay.”

Heather squinted. Her heart leapt. Yes. Rescue. It had actually come. “Who?”

She rolled the window down, thrust her face forward. The truth, blurry and clear at the same time, attacked her with its teeth.

“It’s me—Professor Franklin.”



…Now, it’s time to vote on your fave! If you’d like a look back at the past entries, check out:

September: “The Fear Of Clouds”

October: “…Until The Laughter Dies”

November: “Free Of Charge”

Go ahead and vote below! (If you'd like to view the form on a larger screen, click here.) Voting is anonymous, and you can vote as many times as you’d like! But be sure to tell your friends, because voting ends December 15. I’ll tally up the votes and notify the lucky winner…Good luck to the entrants! (Can’t wait to see who comes out ahead…)

OCTOBER FLASH FICTION: …UNTIL THE LAUGHTER DIES

Okay, so I said I wanted scary…but October’s prompt actually made me think of scary in a new way. The prompt comes from Darlene Beck-Jacobson, who can be found online at darlenebeckjacobson.com. She sent this phrase: everyone has them.

…And here’s what I came up with:

…Until The Laughter Dies
Holly Schindler

I figure we probably look a little like fifty-year-olds in prom dresses, the way we’re clustered on sleeping bags in front of the TV.

I mean, seventeen is way too old for slumber parties. But when Marie flunked the over-the-counter pregnancy test, we all decided to celebrate old-school. Even gave it a theme—80’s night, complete with tightrolled jeans and Mom’s VHS tape of FOOTLOOSE. Mom’s gone for the weekend, after all, and will never know we tunneled through her memorabilia.

“To not being forever linked to Dylan Street,” Marie shouts, and we touch the tips of our unwrapped candy bars in toast.

We laugh even louder than the girls on the tape, rolling into a heap of out-of-date concert T-shirts.

Until the laughter dies, along with the lights.

Blackness saturates my basement.

Lacey and Vanessa laugh again, snickering like the little girls we’re pretending to be.

“…breaker box,” I mumble, but as I grope through the dark, the door to the stairs slams shut. The unpredictable lock clicks.

Snickers again from the cluster of sleeping bags, softer this time. This laughter has a question mark behind it.

“I’ll—just—“ I say, pointing to the door to the outside.

A knock explodes against a window near the ceiling. Vanessa shrieks. I jump, turn, but darkness has dyed the glass, too.

The knock returns. Three knocks, this time. Each. Spaced. Evenly.

I grab a flashlight, fighting the fear that turns my arms slack. I feel every breath in the room being held as I inch toward the window.

When I flick on the beam, the window fills with hunter-orange—a ski mask. And an angry snarl of a mouth.

The basement explodes with screams; I drop the flashlight and the face disappears.

The door to the outside rattles beneath repeated blows.

I try to tighten my trembling fingers around the shaft of the putter Mom left beside the couch.

But I should have reached for the deadbolt instead.

The knob turns; the door creaks. Screams pelt my shoulders like winter rain.

Four against one, I think, trying to lean on odds.

I’ve barely started to lift the club when the ski mask steps in, snatches it from my hand.

I have nothing; I’m absolutely naked with defenselessness. I open my mouth, but I’ve lost my scream.

Moonlight stretches through the open door, lands across the ski mask.

Screams circle like sirens all around me as Marie, Lacey, and Vanessa charge to my side. Screams intensify as the man in the doorway grabs the mask beneath his chin and begins to peel it.

Lights pop, illuminating his face.

And Dylan Street dissolves into gotcha laughter.

The girls at my sides moan. Their laughter returns—staccato, hesitant. Still—laughter.

I try to shrug, playing like I’d suspected as much. I’m humiliated by the goose bumps racing down my arms…until I realize everyone has them.

Even Marie, who already knows that the only thing Dylan’s good at is scaring girls.

See what I mean? Really—what’s the scariest event here…the ski mask or the over-the-counter test? We all face really frightening things in our everyday life…far more frightening than any slasher movie!

Thanks to Darlene for giving me a bit of a fresh take on scary…and congrats to her as well! She’s now in the running for that holiday prize.

…And stay tuned for the details for November—coming soon! (I’ve got a super-fun idea for that one…)

FIRST FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE: "THE FEAR OF CLOUDS"

I'm so excited to post this: the first piece in the Flash Fiction Challenge! The first prompt come to us from Kate Higgins (who can be found online at kathleenhiggins.blogspot.com and cedarmoonstudio.com).

Kate sent a collection of randomly chosen words to include in my piece: andiron, hurricane, Novocain, tomato, mustache, nephophobia, and oscilloscope. And I worked them all into my (500-words on the dot) piece you can either listen to me read in the video clip or read below...

Kate's prompt was fantastic, and I can't wait to see what prompts roll into my inbox for the October chapter of this challenge! More details about the October portion of the Flash Fiction Challenge will come soon...in the meantime, congrats to Kate Higgins, who is now in the running for the yet-undisclosed prize in time for the holidays...

The Fear Of Clouds

Holly Schindler

“Safe,” Mia says, same as she had when we first stepped through the front door five years ago, smelling like a couple gators who’d crawled right out of the bayou.

I’d trusted her, back when summer sweat lay far thicker on my lip than my spindly mustache. Trusted her like boys always trust their moms…Even though she made me call her by her first name, squirming every time I slipped and didn’t pronounce that first vowel. Squirming every time I accidentally called her Ma.

“Don’t know nearly enough to be anybody’s mother,” she’d always said, the way pretty girls roll their eyes at compliments because they already feel beautiful.

She was older than any of the other mothers in my class. And she loved that years had taught her to measure up a situation like an oscilloscope, tracking electrical currents around her. She could sense things no one else could, making decisions and moving forward without any fear she might be wrong.

“Landlocked,” she’d said when we’d first arrived, letting me think of the miles from the shore as an enormous security blanket.

I was safe. Mia said so.

Now, scraggly remnants of last summer’s tomato plants bend the way palm trees had five years ago, when we’d raced from that angry hurricane, that Katrina, who tore our house apart like old rags…just like Mia knew she would. Suddenly, Missouri’s arms don’t feel comforting at all—just hard and cold, like the andiron by the fireplace.

“Maybe we should leave,” I say, my voice buzzing against my raw gums, my sprouting wisdom teeth making me wish for a Novocain-laced milkshake. Were you supposed to run from a tornado? Or fall to the ground and play dead, like an opossum, waiting for the danger to pass? I look to Mia for an answer.

She just laughs, like I’m totally irrational. Like I’m a hypochondriac, or an agoraphobe. Nephophobia (fear of clouds). The word pops into my head. But don’t dark, churning clouds make everybody’s mind wander into a hundred murky directions? Is it a phobia if it isn’t really irrational? What’s wrong with her?

A lawn chair does summersaults. Gusts throw pea-sized hail against the glass door. This storm is a late-night invader with a gun. My heart begs my feet to move.

But Mia keeps laughing, the wrinkles around her eyes turning to ditches.

“We’re safe,” she insists, but my worry stretches. I grab Mia’s elbow as a cloud begins to grow its own black arm—a funnel.

“Hey,” she snaps as I push her into the basement. Storm sirens shriek like a wounded dog as I lock the door; the floor above us rattles beneath the angry wind. Mia’s shocked eyes hit me as glass shatters upstairs.

I push her into the corner and huddle over her like a human security blanket. She yelps when my chin rubs her cheek. A surprise to us both that suddenly—and after all this time—my beard is rough as coarse-grit sandpaper.

NEW FLASH FICTION: "ROCKET IN REAL LIFE"

Calling all bloggers! From here on out, once every month, I'll be posting a brand spankin' new piece of flash fiction...and I'll be asking you for the subject. Yup...you'll be sending me the prompts, and I'll be writing a piece of flash fiction (no longer than 500 words) from your suggestions!

The first piece, "Rocket In Real Life," was written using a prompt from Figment, a site scheduled to go live this fall, where I'll be cross-posting my flash fiction. (First line of the story had to be: What were you thinking?) I've included a video reading (turn 'er all the way up to hear me...or just watch Jake, my constant companion, who steals the show...) I've also pasted the entire story below.

...So go ahead, bloggers and YA fans, brainstorm some prompts! (The harder the better...I dare you to try to stump me!)

Email all your suggestions to writehollyschindler (at) yahoo (dot) com. The first piece of blogger-generated flash fiction will go live September 9 (one month from today). Can't wait to see what you have in store for me!

"Rocket In Real Life"

by Holly Schindler


“What were you thinking?” the girl cop asks, shaking her head beneath the throb of patrol car lights.

I let loose a sloppy laugh, because I screamed the same thing at Jason maybe ten minutes ago, as the party clanked around us. “What were you thinking?” while my fingers dug ditches into his bicep and she ducked behind his shoulder, her eyes too wide not to be guilty.

His friends laughed. In the law of guys, best friends got the pass. A girlfriend lived like a blind mole, in the dark, happy and unsuspecting until the metal trap shot into the earth and stabbed her.

“Rocket,” they all moaned, his friends and mine, the way you moan at a bad joke, because I’d had a full cup since the party’d started. As though drunk and overreacting were one and the same.

“Rocket,” they called, using that ridiculous name my parents had given—What were you thinking? I could have asked them sixteen years ago. Okay, so it was Raquelle on paper, but Rocket in real life, because I loved the sound of the engines at the nearby airport. Speed—I’d craved it always, sprinting straight into the arms of anything the rest of the world thought I wasn’t yet ready for…

Especially Jason.

I chased them, out of the house and then down the street when she got in his car, two blocks, around the corner, until the steering wheel slipped from my loose fingers and I hit them, laughing at the crunch of the metal like we were in bumper cars.

But they’d already been following us, the cops. Called to a loud party, and now, it’s the straight line I can’t walk and the nose I can’t find, even on my own face…And Jason’s mouth, which I’ve tasted too many times to forget—the same way I could never forget the taste of Dr. Pepper. And her, still in his passenger’s seat.

The guy cop sticks his hand inside Jason’s window. Cross-eyed with booze, I swear I see a fist bump. A pass.

And in the throbbing blue lights, I finally begin to curse my precious speed, because it’s only raced me here—handcuffed, watching Jason pull away. And wondering if anything will ever feel uncomplicated again.

A BLUE SO DARK: A READING AND THANK YOU TO BLOGGERS...

On the eve of the official release of A BLUE SO DARK, I thought I'd do a celebratory reading! (I'm so excited, I don't even mind the silly phone ringing in the background!)

Now, you can see my words in print and hear my voice...