Here's this week's Book View Cafe short story, "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," which is available for free reading and enjoyment and all that jazz:

"A Citizen in Childhood's Country."

For all the Lost, and all the Found. I love you.

So—as you know, Bob—I belong to the Book View cafe, a truly rocking collective of writers offering free fiction and freelance fancies to the world. It's a really fun group of people, all professionals in their own right, and they do some really strange, really exciting stuff. Really!

Today, the results for my first Twitterfic contest were posted. Our theme was "fairy tale noir," and the entries were so stellar that I really wished we could have ten winners instead of two. Check out the results for a grin. They're really awesome.

As part of what we do over at the Book View Cafe, we all offer short fiction for free reading and enjoyment. My story for this week just went up. It's a fun short piece called "Indexing," and it introduces Henrietta Marchen and the Marchen Containment and Control Agency (MCCA). I really enjoyed this story, and this world. I think I'll probably wind up going back there a time or ten, just for fun.

As an interesting bit of trivia about "Indexing": this was my original concept for Ravens In the Library. I decided it was too frothy at the last minute, scrapped it, and wrote "Lost" instead. So it's a fairy tale flash from the files, and I hope that you enjoy it.

Okay, free stuff, part one:

I belong to the Book View Cafe, a group of over twenty professional authors exploring the wonderful options available to us through the Internet. What does this mean to you? It means, among other things, "free online fiction." Yeah, I thought you might like that one. I'm a Friday girl in the rotation, which means my short stories go online (when they're available) on Fridays—and this week is no different. So take a look at this week's dark fairy tale offering...

Knives.

If you missed last week's story, a little moral fable with vampires in, it's also available to read:

Anthony's Vampire.

Go, read, enjoy, and explore the many wonderful things that the Book View Cafe has to offer.

Free stuff, part two:

There are some truly incredible new icons and wallpapers available on my website icons and wallpapers page. Seriously, these just took my breath away when Tara sent them to me. (Remember, my graphic designer, taraoshea, is available for freelance work! You just can't keep her.) I absolutely could not be happier with these gorgeous giveaways, and they're totally available for you to use on your computer, journal, or whatever.

Happy cat is happy. Free stuff is free.