Day 5 of the WordCrafter “Midnight Roost” Book Blog Tour

Welcome to Day 5 of the WordCrafter Midnight Roost Book Blog Tour. It’s been a great tour so far. We’ve met contributing authors Isabel Grey, M J Mallon, Christa Planko, Chris Barili, Paul Kane, Julie Jones, and Keith Hoskins. Each has shared their inspirations for their stories, or readings from them, or both. Check the schedule below to see who’s still coming up, or to go back and visit any stops you’ve missed for more chances to win one of three free digital copies of Midnight Roost.

Today we’ll be meeting contributing authors, Michaele Jordan and Mario Acevedo. Michaele shares a reading from her story, “Afterwards” and Mario talks about the inspiration behind his story, “Immediate Intervention”.

Tour Schedule

Monday – October 16 – Opening Day –Isabele Grey (Interview & Reading) & Joseph Carrabis (Reading) – Writing to be Read

Tuesday – October 17 – M J Mallon (Reading) & Christa Planko (Interview & Guest Post)– Undawnted

Wednesday – October 18 – Chris Barili (Guest Post) & Paul Kane (Guest Post) – Patty’s Worlds

Thursday – October 19 – Julie Jones (Reading) & Keith Hoskins (Guest Post) – Robbie’s Inspiration

Friday – October 20 – Michaele Jordan (Reading) & Mario Acevedo (Guest Post) – Writing to be Read

Saturday – October 21 – Patty Fletcher (Guest Post) & DL Mullen (Guest Post & Video) – Roberta Writes

Sunday – October 22 – Sonia Pipkin (Guest Post) & Roberta Eaton Cheadle (Reading) – Kyrosmagica Publishing

Monday – October 23 – Closing Post –Denise Aparo (Reading) & excerpts from other stories – Writing to be Read

Giveaway

A chance to win a free digital copy of Midnight Roost at every stop. Just leave a comment to show your support for the tour, the anthology, and all of the fantastic authors.

Meet Author Michaele Jordan

Michaele Jordan’s contribution came by invitation, and I was pleased to include her story, “Afterward” in Midnight Roost: Weird and Creepy Stories. Last year, I worked with Michaele with the Visions anthology and I’m tickled to be working with her again. Her story is a paranormal tale which speaks on the human psyche. I’ll let you judge for yourself with the reading below, but I hope you’ll enjoy her story just as much as I did.

Reading from “Afterwards”

About Michaele Jordan

Michaele Jordan was born in LA, educated in New York, and lives in Cincinnati. She’s worked at a kennel, a Hebrew School and AT&T. Now she writes, supervised by a long-suffering husband and two domineering cats.

Her first novel, Blade Light, was serialized in Jim Baen’s Universe, followed by her occult thriller, Mirror Maze.

Her work has appeared in the “Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,” “Abyss & Apex,” and “Buzzy Mag”. Horror fans will enjoy her ‘Blossom’ series, from The Crimson Pact series.

Her website, www.michaelejordan.com, is undergoing reconstruction, but just grab a hard hat, and come on in.

Michaele’s story, “Farewell, My Miko” is featured in the 2022 Visions anthology from WordCrafter Press.

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Meet Author Mario Acevedo

I first came across Mario Acevedo back when I was the Southern Colorado Literature Examiner and I reviewed one of his graphic novels. Since then, he has served as a presenter and panelist at WordCrafter virtual writing events, and participated in the Ask the Authors 2022 writing reference anthology. He writes urban fantasy and speculative fiction, so I invited him to submit to this dark themed anthology, which turned out to be Midnight Roost. His story, “Immediate Intervention” is a futuristic science fiction tale which offers a quirky take on the regulation of population growth.

Excerpt from “Immediate Intervention”

Inspiration for “Immediate Intervention”

NASA recently announced that a capsule from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft had landed in Utah. The capsule contained debris collected from the asteroid Bennu.

For us science-fiction nerds, the scenario is all too reminiscent of the plot from Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain. Our government assures us that precautions against contamination are in place. Which begs the question, precautions against what? If we don’t know what we protecting ourselves against, how would we know our protections are effective?

Certainly, there is much to be gained from an analysis of the asteroid’s material, but is it worth the risk? Why not study that extraterrestrial material in space?

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

It’s a saying that’s become more significant with our ever increasing technical and industrial capabilities. Several examples come to mind: The creation of the atomic bomb. Gain-of-function research. News articles that raise the hairs on the back of your neck, i.e., stories involving reanimating dead flesh. Gee, what could go wrong? It’s as if the scientists involved have ignored the warnings of every zombie movie ever filmed. Then comes a story about the Chinese growing human tissue inside pig uteruses. Hello, Island of Dr. Moreau calling.

When Kaye Booth asked me to contribute a story to this horror anthology, I had the perfect concept to explore “Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should,” as in human inception and gestation in artificial wombs, to incubate what are known as “bag babies.” The so-called benefits of this development include “freeing women from the tyranny of pregnancy,” allowing parents to customize the genes of their baby, and giving the government the opportunity to control demographics to enact state policies. With bag babies, the government can control population growth without the pesky need for humans getting it on. Two examples warning us about the dangers of industrial-scale human incubation came to mind: Brave New World, and The Matrix.

In my story I saw the opportunity to discuss several themes addressing bag babies. The first is that human development is very complicated and nuanced. We know about the importance of an emotional connection between a mother and the infant while in the womb. When the baby is born, its prefrontal cortex is undeveloped and the brain is a blank slate. As the baby matures, what becomes evident is the empathetic connection between the infant and mother, then infant and father, then infant and others. This connection depends on environmental influences upon the baby in the womb, things like the mother’s heartbeat, her warmth, her emotional state, the projection of good vibes from mother to child. Some of this may sound esoteric but we know that babies born in emotionally toxic environments will become emotionally toxic people.

How then to replicate a nurturing environment for the baby in an artificial womb? Certainly, a fetus incubator could replicate heart beats and use soothing stimuli to mimic a human host mother. But would that be enough? Wouldn’t such a loss of the child-mother bond bring the risk of babies not developing a sense of empathy?

What would be the fallout of that?

In my story, this lack of empathy results in an inability to establish meaningful emotional connections, which in turn would lead to isolation, a sense of chronic loneliness, then depression. And from that, a proclivity to suicide.

The other theme would be one of, who am I? What am I? Who are my real parents? The DNA donors? Or the mother—the incubator? Would there be a sense of spiritual estrangement, that rather than feel part of the human continuum stretching back through prehistory, you see yourself as a fleshy widget, a product of commerce, another cog in the government’s machinery?

This leads to the question, who do you belong to? Presently, as a child, you belong to your parents until the age of emancipation. What happens if the state has sole responsibility over you and you’re seen as a replaceable component of the system? If the state had the authority to conceive you, could they not have the sole authority to terminate you?

With this, the elements for a good horror story fell into place. That the mother who bore you is the same monster who will devour you.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

About Mario Acevedo

Mario Acevedo is the author-artist of Cats In Quarantine: A Cartoon Memoir of the COVID-19 Pandemic. He is an award-winning cartoonist and artist who served as a soldier-artist for the US Army during Operation Desert Storm. Mario is the author of the national bestselling Felix Gomez detective-vampire series, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats and most recently Steampunk Banditos: Sex Slaves of Shark Island; the graphic novel from IDW, Killing the Cobra; and the YA humor thriller, University of Doom. He co-authored the Western novel, Luther, Wyoming. His work has won an International Latino Book Award, a Colorado Book Award, and has appeared in numerous anthologies to include Denver Noir; ¡El Porvenir, Ya!; Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the America;, A Fistful of Dinosaurs; Straight Outta Deadwood; Psi-Wars; and It Came From The Multiplex. Mario was a faculty member of the Regis University Mile-High MFA program and Lighthouse Writers Workshops.

Mario has also been a presenter and panel member for both the 2020 Stay in Place Virtual Writing Conference, and the 2021 New Beginnings Virtual Writing Conference. He is also a contributor to the Ask the Authors 2022: Writing Reference Anthology from WordCrafter Press.

About Midnight Roost: Weird and Creepy Stories

20 authors bring your nightmares to life in 23 stories of ghosts, paranormal phenomenon, and the horror from the dark crevasses of their minds. Stories of stalkers, both human and supernatural, possession and occult rituals, alien visitations of the strange kind, and ghostly tales that will give you goosebumps. These are the tales that will make you fear the dark. Read them at the Midnight Roost… if you dare.

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/318L0l

That’s it for today’s stop. I hope you enjoyed meeting contributing authors Michaele Jordan and Mario Acevedo and learning about their stories. You can use the links in the schedule above to go back and visit earlier stops on the tour, but the links for future stops won’t be live until their scheduled day. Don’t forget to comment to show your support for all of the talented authors that contributed to Midnight Roost, and get more chances to win the giveaway.

Join us tomorrow, on Roberta Writes, where Robbie Cheadle hosts contributing authors Patty Fletcher and DL Mullan, who share lots of interesting things about their stories, “Casualties of War” and “Mangled”, respectively.

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