“We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.”― Stephen King
Scary stories are a Halloween tradition, and this fall more than ever before I do need some make believe to cope with the wild changes in our world! Here are a few of my published books touching on macabre and psychological horrors – and a bit about the real ones behind the writing.
Memory, Fear or a Dream?
16 haunting tales make up my noir fiction short story collection Death & the Dream. Characters uncover faces of death around them. Settings come from rural scenes of my childhood in the Catskill Mountains, to crises of conscience I felt in New York City’s research labs. The stories illuminate both beauty and horror in ordinary lives, and grew from memories, dreams and imagination. As author Stephen King notes, it’s certainly been true for me that making up stories helps me cope with real horrors.
Touched by death, fictional mothers, daughters, scientists explore the fine line between hopes and dreams. In the story “Mouse Chimera” a scientist gets locked in the laboratory with virus-infected chimeric mice she created. A dreaming student searches for love in the NYC bars of The Village in the dream tale “Hills of Rabbits.” A girl with schizophrenia fights for her right to affection in “Mother’s Love.” In “Underground” an anxious city commuter tries to guess a victim’s identity after a haunting subway incident (which I did indeed see). A researcher finds her experiments contaminated workers around her in “Lab after Dark.”
In real life, I did have an irrational fear getting locked in with my experimental mice while working as a scientist. It’s also true that the threat of contaminating and harming our coworkers was an ever present fear in my research lab work.
2nd edition came out in 2025 with additional stories not previously published.
1st edition independently published in 2011, 2014.
Available most places books are sold as paperback, ebook or audiobook editions.
Where to Find Death & the Dream
BUY LINKS: Purchase the book to read or listen at your local independent bookstore or the links below.
US, 2nd Editions: Bookshop.org / Kindle / Audible (1st edition)
UK, 2nd Editions: Kindle / Paperback / Audible (1st edition)
Canada, 2nd Editions: Kindle CA / Paperback CA
Exposing the Forbidden in Our Psyches
What do you dream? My four fictional novellas in The Doctor’s Dreams reveal the secret inner lives of scientists and doctors faced with sudden changes and grim uncertainties (2nd edition, 2025). These include a series of nightmares, a haunting medical mystery, and speculative fictions about alternate futures.
The Doctor’s Dreams
On New Year’s Eve, Doctor Marsha Arzt has mysteriously gone missing on her way home. Looking for clues, her brother discovers Marsha kept a secret diary of macabre nightmares (which I did actually dream in a frightening series one year, although I don’t have a brother). Her dreams of death reveal a crisis of conscience, challenging what he thought he knew about their lives together.
Mosquito Song: Dreams in Old San Juan
After an unborn baby’s mysterious death, a molecular biologist travels from New York City to Puerto Rico to investigate. Fears of a new pandemic virus carried by mosquitoes haunt the scientist’s plans and dreams. Her next DNA experiments reveal a personal stake in a future she’s not ready to face. (This fictional story came to me the year Zika virus was a horrifying threat, at a time when I covered it in the health news at my actual worksite.)
The Finest Mask
In a dystopian, disease-ridden society, a perfect gene holds the cure. What if the Europeans who came to North America 300 years ago had been susceptible to epidemics, but the 500 Indigenous nations’ people were not? This is the alternate history world of “The Finest Mask.” Disease has already disfigured nearly all of Europe’s population. A gene hunter travels from London to New York City in search of the illusive gene for perfect skin, to prevent the ravages of infections and disfiguring scars. (This imaginary scenario was part of a thought-experiment challenge from fellow scientist Samuel Peralta, to ask “what if?” and then share our tales of alternate histories.)
After the Layoff
After a surprise layoff at work, fictional chemist Eve Wissen feels like a decapitated, single head of household. As a workaholic now adrift in the city, numbers are no longer her friends. Her sudden “freedom” thrusts her into a void where she scrambles to find a way to support her two sons, and to reinvent meaning for her life. (Based on two real experiences of layoffs in NYC which had thrown me way off course for a while, though in real life I have daughters, not sons.)
2nd edition published in 2025 includes four novellas.
1st edition independently published in 2014 includes two novellas, “The Doctor’s Dreams” and “After the Layoff”.
Available most places books are sold as paperback or ebook editions.
Where to Find The Doctor’s Dreams
BUY LINKS: Purchase the book at your local independent bookstore or the links below.
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