Stan Dryer fiction short story writing
The on-line magazine Fabula Argentea has just published my story Compassion. The hit-man Striker has the job of eliminating a sweet little old lady. What could possibly go wrong? An interesting feature of this story is that in the plot it embodies five of the seven deadly sins including one that drives the surprise ending. To follow Striker along on his adventure, click on Compassion
Enjoy, Stan Dryer
Two years have passed since Mystery Magazine published Three Dark Riders and I now own its rights so I can put the story up on my site. For those of you familiar with Dustville (Coyote Woman ) you’ll find some familiar faces here including Nancy Turgis and the sheriff. This story was published in the July 2023 issue of Mystery Magazine (which unfortunately went out of business last year.) The story is now available on my blog site. To take another trip back to Dustville, click on DarkRiders
For those of you who have fully recovered from the emotional impact of Three Dark Riders, a new bit of humor is available. Despite the objections of a number of enraged individuals and institutions, Placebo Meadows continues to hold their well known Lecture Series. In this series you’ll learn about the envy=driven life, how to hike the Appalachian Trail for less than six thousand dollars, all about the Horse Shouter and more. This incisive piece of fake non-fiction was published in the July 2025 issue of Defenestration Magazine. To read this short but informative announcement, click on: Placebo Lectures 3
Hope you enjoy the above. Please feel free to leave comments such as whether you’ve found a role model among the new characters, or how your cousin Erma got into the story.
Stan Dryer
Two years have passed since Mystery Magazine published The Saga of Gentleman Bert and I now own its rights so I can put the story up on my site. For those of you familiar with Dustville (Coyote Woman) you’ll find some familiar faces here including Nancy Turgis and her brother Ben. This story was published as the cover story in the March 2023 issue of Mystery Magazine (which unfortunately went out of business last year.) The story is now available on my blog site. To get there, click on Gentleman Bert
Hope you enjoy the story. Please feel free to leave comments such as whether you’ve found a new role model among the varied characters.
Stan Dryer
Stan has just had a couple of new items published. The first is what I think is one of the best serious pieces I’ve written. The second is a humorous bit of fluff, a five minute read that will hopefully brighten your day.
The Other Side of Grief is the story of a young engineer who must go, together with a National Guard major and a minister, to tell a widow her son has died. The heart of this story is in the ending which I put there almost as an afterthought. This story was published in the April 2025 issue of Spank the Carp. As you can comment on the story at the end, please take a moment and let me know what you thought of the story and why. To read it click on: The Other Side of Grief.
Stan’s Idiom Store Did you ever want to touch something you otherwise wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole? Did you ever, while doing something difficult, have someone tell you it’s not rocket science? The items in the Idiom Store can solve these problems for you. This short catalog first appeared in the February 2025 issue of Defenestration Magazine. To read it, click on: Stan’s Idiom Store
Finally, I can now publish one more of the Dustville stories that I had published in Mystery Magazine. Even though they have gone out of business, they still held the rights to two stories for two years, rights that expire in April and July of this year. Thus I’ll be putting up The Saga of Gentleman Burt on the Blog site in a couple of weeks. It’s another chance to meet Nancy Turgis, AKA Coyote Woman.
Happy Reading, Stan
Suppose someone were to start a service to support brides or grooms who might want to hesitate at the altar and say NO when asked the will-you-take question. That’s the service Sylvia runs, and things go smoothly until… To read this short story, click on: Decline-A-Vow. If you like the story, please vote for it by clicking on “Vote for your favorite work”
When I completed the novella, The Americanization of Lo Pac, I was faced with the problem of trying to get some reputable on-line magazine to publish it. It was way too long a story for most publications to consider and it contained enough controversial satiric material so that I thought most other publications would be too fearful of negative comment to accept it. I thus decided to self-publish it. It is now available on Amazon (in print or on Kindle) where you can read a description of the story (click on the cover). To access the Amazon listing, click here: Lo Pac
(RiverMead residents can purchase a copy at the Country Store.)
I hope you enjoy the story, and if you do, please leave a comment on Amazon.
Stan Dryer
It’s two months since Mary-Elizabeth, Killing Machine was published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, so I can now put the story up on my blog. To read it, click here: Mary Elizabeth
I’ve also recently received some bad news. Mystery Magazine, one of the magazines that had published a number of my short stories, has gone out of business due to Amazon shutting down Kindle Newsstand. I think they still hold the rights to a couple of my Dustville stories, but I’ll be able to put them up for you to see in April and July of next year.
A couple of new stories are now available under “Unpublished Stories” on Stan Dryer’s blog page.
First of all, just in time for Halloween, you can read a little bit of horror, Come Ride With Me. I thought this story was going to be published in an issue of Sirens Call, but they went out of business last week. So here it is. To read this story, click here: Come Ride with Me
Second, I’ve put up an old science fiction story thanks to an e-mail from someone researching Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions series of anthologies who wanted access to it. So here it is, my view in 1972 (updated to 2018) of what the future New York City (Megayork) would look like. To read this story, click here: Halfway There
Finally, in a week or so I’ll be putting up Mary Elizabeth, Killing Machine for those of you who have not had a chance to read it.
Happy reading, Stan Dryer
Stan has just had another short story, Mary-Elizabeth, Killing Machine published in the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. (Mary-Elizabeth had never thought of herself as a killing machine until the day she ran out of Bernadette’s favorite cat food.)
The magazine is available at your local magazine shop or free on Kindle Unlimited. Stan hopes to be able to publish this story on his blog in November and will let everyone know when that happens.
Another Placebo Meadows Lecture Series has just been published. Learn how to control your fear of fear itself, how to help protect arctic garbage dumps and more. This pithy piece of fake non-fiction was published in the July 2024 issue of Defenestration Magazine. To read this short but informative announcement, click on: Placebo Lectures 2
Stan Dryer has also added another story to his “Unpublished” stories, stories that I think should publishable but for which I found no interested publisher. Five Games of Chess is a Civil War story about a chess game between Union and Confederate soldiers. click on Five Chess Games
Stan has had one recent big sale. Alfred Hitchcock Magazine has purchase Mary Elizabeth, Killing Machine. It will be published in the September/ October issue of that magazine. As they hold the publication rights for several months after September, I probably won’t be able to give you a free link to it until early next year.
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