Blog Archives
Fan of RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER? My short story “No Sweet Bird” now available!
I actually scared myself writing my contemporary gothic ghost story, “No Sweet Bird,” which is now available to read for free over at Crow & Cross Keys! See below for link to the story.
I read this and all I could think of was ‘WTF—didn’t these guys read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?
Every one of my tales has a story behind it. This one is about what happens when you spit in fate’s eye. I’ve recently seen this happen to someone—if you believe in that sort of thing—and I think it’s interesting that a story I wrote two years ago saw it coming. It seriously is weird that, metaphorically, I described what would happen.
While the brain’s a really amazing thing, the moral of story? Karma’s a bitch. When the universe gives you a gift, you don’t throw it back.
And for God’s sake, don’t be dumb enough to kill an albatross. After all—the Franklin Expedition actually did this, and look what happened to them.
You can read “No Sweet Bird” free online over at Crow & Cross Keys here: https://crowcrosskeys.com/2022/02/02/no-sweet-bird-kristi-petersen-schoonover/
I’m incredibly honored to have this story featured in this publication. They publish some stuff that’s in my wheelhouse, so be sure to check out the other stories, as you might like them, too (no really, if you do enjoy my stories, you will definitely enjoy what they’ve got going on over there).
A visit to Mystic Seaport’s Figurehead Exhibit
“Carving Grace” has an enormous back story of inspiring experiences. One of them was a visit to Mystic Seaport’s Figurehead Exhibit, which Nathan and I visited in February 2021. At that point, I’d started the story, and I felt I needed a kick.
While vaccinations had started to happen, we wouldn’t be eligible for ours until March. We desperately needed to get away, and because most of the seaport is outdoors, it seemed the perfect place to secure a change of scenery (we’d also gone there in September of 2020 for our anniversary).
Nathan and I on our way to Mystic, CT for a special birthday/Valentine’s Day escape (to also do research for “Carving Grace”). The weather was beautiful. Winter overcast, but definitely not too cold; it was the perfect atmosphere. In my mind, Mystic Seaport itself is what the community of Timber Inlet—to a point—looks like.
My seaside ghost tale “No Sweet Bird” accepted at CROW & CROSS KEYS!
A lantern below decks on the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT.
“Carving Grace” isn’t my first story about terror by the sea. Although I didn’t grow up near the ocean—I grew up in the middle of the woods by a lake instead—I have always been fascinated by all things salty. While it probably had something to do with the fact that, because of my dad the English teacher, I read both The Old Man in the Sea and Moby Dick before the age of ten, I truly fell in love with the sea’s raw atmospheric power when I read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school.
2020 was my best writing summer ever—I had every evening after work and weekends to do nothing but write. One story I’d always Read the rest of this entry
DARK DISCUSSIONS enjoys ONCE UPON A TIME … at the annual Mystic Meetup!
Dark Discussions’ fourth annual Meetup in Mystic, Connecticut was a huge success! The DD crew and our friends from The Dorkening enjoyed a couple of meals and a flick, in this case, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.
The DARK DISCUSSIONS and DORKENING crews sport our meetup T-shirts–courtesy of DD’s Mike–pre-movie at the Waterford Regal 9. In case you’re wondering, we’re standing in front of the POP for 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED.
Want to know what we thought about Tarantino’s latest Read the rest of this entry
A look back at DEATH IN THE ICE: THE MYSTERY OF THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION
This is, perhaps, the most haunting tale surrounding the lost expedition: this message was in a letter left in 1847 on King William Island, and its contents hinted nothing, of course, of what was to come for the unfortunate crew.
If, last year, you watched the first season of AMC’s The Terror, then you have an idea of what this post is about: an exhibit about the mysterious fate of 1845’s vanished Franklin Expedition, the most infamous of Britain’s attempts to find the Northwest Passage.
For those of you who don’t know, the NP was a fabled Read the rest of this entry
