An Altered Grand Rapids begins here

Happy Holidays Folks!

A few announcements...

If you are interested in reading some good and dark fantasy adventure, you need to check out FADING LIGHT: An Anthology of the Monstrous.

The BIG book has a slew of great authors as well as great stories within. If you have a e-reading device like a Kindle or a Nook (or iPad, etc.), you can pick up the little BONUS book with yours truly within. The tale within is the FIRST "altered Grand Rapids" short story I have written and have to offer.

Link to the BONUS ebook with my altered Grand Rapids tale FINAL RIGHTS can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fading-Light-Anthology-Monstrous-ebook/dp/B0094IC7XC/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1356284985&sr=1-2&keywords=fading+light

The ebook edition of the BIG book is here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fading-Light-Anthology-Monstrous-ebook/dp/B0094IC60G

The print edition can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fading-Light-Anthology-Monstrous-Marquitz/dp/1479213489/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/187-9833996-3311019

 





Next, if you are still hungry and interested in some great action-adventure tales from the mixed up mind of Peter Welmerink, you can find another alt-Grand Rapids tale set in the 1950's and featuring a Cthulhu-esque beastie rising out of Lake Michigan.

SIGNAL IN THE DISTANCE is currently offered in e-format only, and can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Signal-In-The-Distance-ebook/dp/B00AGFISN0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1356285049&sr=1-1&keywords=welmerink

There is more to come with tales centered around Grand Rapids and West Michigan.

Stay tuned!

New Short Story UPPPP!

I just subbed and got word that my 1950's Cthulhu story is now available at the Kindle store.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AGFISN0

I had submitted to a publication, shooting for publication in a anthology, and it was not accepted. (Though editor was nice enough to state it was very good and was hard to make a decision to accept or not...or maybe that was all them just trying to be nice LOL)

I worked long and hard on that little ditty, ie, SIGNAL IN THE DISTANCE. It was as creepy to write as it was exciting. I had do to some research into the 1950's, the Korean War, vehicles, fallout shelters, etc. Did a lot for a tale that was to be kept to no more than 7k words.

When it was done and I had gone through it. I sent it to a friend who edited it for me. (She's a pubbed writer and grammar guru...so, she did a bang up job on hitting me over the head and showing me my evil writing ways...and things to clean up to really have a polished piece.) I subbed it. Waited. And got work back in a timely manner. (It was great to work with a editorial team who tells you when they will get back to you and they keep their word). Got the NOT ACCEPTED notification and said, SCREW IT! This thing felt and reads too good to just stuff it away and wait for the next opportunity.

The next opportunity was to take the bull by the horns and DIY it through Kindle Direct Publishing and getter up for public consumption.

This will be the first time I have directly put something up on KDP. We'll see how it all shakes out.

---Pete

Don't Hate Me For Thrashing Grand Rapids

I have been writing stories taking place in Grand Rapids since I got my hands on my first notebook and started writing way, way back in elementary school. That was an age of real discovery and adventure back then, as far as me-myself starting to slowly see the world outside my door.

I ventured up into the woods just west of our home. I was riding my bike down streets and alleyways. I was making friends, playing with friends. I was going to school, learning new things about the world, playing things on the playground. And just east of school was the big downtown Grand Rapids, the big city, and the busy expressway with cars and trucks going back and forth to who-knows-where. I'd walk home from school, peering down those side streets, wondering what was down there. Walking by old buildings, wondering what story and history they held.

And dreams. It seems I had a lot more vivid and adventurous dreams back then as a child. Many of the dreams were about school, or about Grand Rapids, or about my neighborhood.

Watching television and movies and reading books added to that imagery both during waking and dreaming hours.

And to a kid with a pen or pencil in hand and a blank lined page in a spiral-bound notebook...I was off.

I had my first official fictional story centered around Grand Rapids published just last month in an anthology. FINAL RIGHTS made its debut in the ebook pages of FADING LIGHT: An Anthology of the Monstrous.
The Grand Rapids in this story is a place in the not-too-distant future but totally (and hopefully) totally fictictious. But it gave me ideas for other stories along the same lines...dark, gritty urban fantasies I suppose you'd call them.



I will keep you posted on the whats and whereabouts of these creative works of putting Grand Rapids and the west coast of Michigan through its paces.

And just so you understand, these stories are written with an underlying love and appreciation of the town I grew up in, that filled me and my mind with adventure and scenes for adventure.

I remember some time ago some naysaying out-of-towner said THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS PLACE (Grand Rapids). They were and still are VERY wrong.

What the hell is he doing now?

Grand Rapids really is a boring town.

That is what people used to say. That is what people used to say before local big business leaders (philanthropists with the money to do something good) and community leaders saw the need to re-vitalize the great city on the great Grand River. They knew there could be great events here, great adventurers for her folk and out-of-towners. Hell, you even had that crazy and imaginative Rob Bliss doing attention-getting activities like downtown zombie walks, giant water slides going down Lyon Street and a city-wide viral video rendition of Don McClane’s AMERICAN PIE. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPjjZCO67WI)

It is all that kind of forward thinking that brings excitement to a place and puts a great town like Grand Rapids, Michigan, back on the map. (Late 70’s/early 80’s were not so good to downtown GR and other than a map dot, I think we slid off the grid for a while.)

I am going to blow up Grand Rapids.

Okay, not really blow up and not really in a real sense, but in a fictional sense. There are a lot of tales untold of Grand Rapids, both past, present and future.

I mean, really, who knew during a hot and hazy summer bar night in 1987 that Cthulhu roamed the streets of Grand Rapids disguised as a meager bar patron? That a group of superheroes lived in town and headquartered in a sub-sub basement of the Van Andel Museum? That a young headstrong woman was abducted during the Flood of 1904 and held captive by a strange cult on the city's deeply wooded west side? That in a dark future, the city proper will a barricaded fortress of light against mutated man and beast? Or a massive warzone where massive tanks rumbled through the streets? Or... Or... Or...

There are many stories strange, mundane, fictional and true...or slightly altered truth...of our beloved town of Grand Rapids and her surroundings.

What my intention here is to offer you some of those tales, penned by myself or guest Grand Rapidian folks and/or bloggers. Mainly for fun and entertainment, and to show visitor or GR citizen alike, there are exciting things happening in Grand Rapids, Michigan, both past, present and future.

This is where it all begins.

Stay tuned.