Dark Arts
by Thomas F. Monteleone

There is a connective tissue between each of these stories.  The seriously wounded artist.  Seeking redemption or damnation or both.

Through the work.

A beautiful young flamenco dancer in search of a forbidden dance.

A painter and a composer, a century apart, who find everlasting fame through the torment of their love for the same dangerous woman.

A bestselling author who can only reach his future by confronting the bedroom of his haunted past.

A theatre stage that can change the way you act out your very life.

An arrogant network reporter whose drive through the fog to a plane-crash site unleashes his soul.

Art links these stories but the blood and bone of them belongs to each of us.  Artist or no artist, you will recognize yourself here.  You’ll recognize your own ambitions, loves thwarted and fulfilled, your own despair, your potential for growth and change and the lack of it, your shots at happiness.

All that’s well worth writing about.

But let’s not forget the scary stuff.  Your encounters with fear.

Those places in your childhood.  Those off-road encounters.

Because that’s part of what Mr. Monteleone brings to the table.  A healthy dose of fear.

(from the Introduction by Jack Ketchum)

About the Author

Tom Monteleone has published more than 100 short stories, 4 collections, 7 anthologies and 26 novels including the bestseller and New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Blood of the Lamb. He is a 4-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award in four different categories—novel (The Blood of the Lamb), collection (Fearful Symmetries), anthology (Borderlands 5), and non-fiction (The Mothers And Fathers Italian Association )—and he’s pretty sure no one else has ever done that. Many of his novels have been optioned for films, and he’s also written scripts for stage, screen and TV. He is also the author of the bestselling The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel (now in a 2^nd edition). Submerged is his latest novel. With his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Olivia, he lives in Maryland (and would like it better if the taxes weren’t so abundant). He has been dragged kicking and screaming into his sixties, and despite losing much of his hair, he still believes he is dashingly handsome—humor him.