BIO

KIERAN SHEA’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thuglit, Dogmatika, Word Riot, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir ...as well as in some beefy-looking anthologies most of which will make you question the tether of his shiny, red balloon. To his self-deprecating astonishment he's also been nominated for the Story South’s Million Writers Award twice without sending the judges so much as a thank you note. He co-edited the satiric transgressive fiction collection D*CKED: DARK FICTION INSPIRED BY DICK CHENEY and his debut novel KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY is out now from Titan Books. Kieran divides his time between 38°58′22.6″N- 76°30′4.17″W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W.

8/27/09

Charlie Byrne

I've been working on this character for a year now--Charlie Byrne...a south Jersey, half-baked security consultant and ne'er -do-well, scraping out a life on the Jersey shore. Repos, divorce work, some Dumpster diving... the occassional lost soul. Charlie has been around. Sometimes he's up in Point Pleasant Beach chasing down a gold-digging divorcee...sometimes he's in Atlantic City scanning tapes for a buddy at one of the casinos to settle a loan. Most of the time, however, Charlie is behind the curve and way out of his depth. Hell, one time the poor guy got left in a dark place in the middle of the Pine Barrens with the Jersey Devil on his ass and a coven of screaming meth-addicted nail salon technians looking to burn him alive. Charlie has problems. He also has a three-legged cat named Chomsky. He's been at David Cranmer's BEAT TO A PULP, the blistering cold POWDER BURN FLASH, and (most recently) Charlie crashed the tea party at ELLERY QUEEN and threw up all over the rug. Needless to say, I'm still fleshing out his sorry excuse for a life.

Today, however, Charlie is deep inside NFC East enemy territory--Philadelphia. See, Charlie (like me) is a huge NY Giants fan. Personally, I like Philadelphia (sport teams notwithstanding), but Charlie? Shit, the dude has issues. He's bitching about the grind for a minute or two today over at Geoff Eighinger's EASTERN STANDARD CRIME.

Just a breather flash-fiction and I am the king of typos so forgive me. But where to next? I can only hope and wonder...maybe even pray for Charlie's future.
Posted by at