Focus Jones, a.k.a Slinky Boy, has an interesting way of escaping his reality.
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Ken Scholes
grew up in a trailer outside a smallish logging town not far from the base of
Mount Rainier in the Pacific Northwest. Baptized into
Story at a young age, he fed himself on Speed Racer, Time Tunnel, Land of the
Giants and Marine Boy sprinkled with a generous dose of dinosaur picture books. When
he was thirteen, he read Bradbury's essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse" and knew
he had to be a writer. When he was fourteen, he started writing stories of his
own and by fifteen, he had started his own Rejection Slip Collection.
After a long
break away from writing, Ken returned to it after logging time as a sailor,
soldier, preacher, musician, label gun repairman, retail manager and nonprofit
director. He sold his first story to Talebones Magazine in 2000 and won
the Writers of the Future contest in 2004. His quirky, offbeat fiction
continues to show up in various magazines and anthologies like Polyphony 6,
Weird Tales and Clarkesworld Magazine.
In 2006, his
short story "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise"
appeared in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy. Later that year,
inspired and taunted by his friends and family to
finally write a novel, Ken extended that story aand
Lamentation was born. Lamentation is the first in a
five book series from Tor Books called The Psalms of Isaak. He has since also written Canticle, Antiphon, and Requiem in that series.
Ken lives
near Portland, Oregon, with his amazing wonder-wife Jen West Scholes and
their twin daughters: Elizabeth and Rachel. If you'd like to know more about Ken, you can contact him through his website or through his blog.
Special Thanks to
Christopher Munroe for producing this story.
Christopher Munroe is a author/actor/comedian from Calgary, Alberta whose fiction has appeared in the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, the Way of the Buffalo and Journey Into… podcasts, and numerous other places around the web, and whose debut novel,
Broken Escalator, is available now in eBook and as a
podcast at Podiobooks. He likes words and ideas, and occasionally has trouble seeing the difference between horror and comedy, which has led to unexpectedly amusing stories and absolutely terrifying standup sets…
Cast of characters:
Christopher Munroe as the Narrator, and Focus Jones
Brad Duffy
as Someone
Alex McDonald as
Another
Cliff Lowe
as Ninja Bob
Kat Fullerton
as Angela and/or Focus' wife
Laurence Simon
as Uncle Joe
Michelle Ristuccia
as Aunt Margaret
Alex Mackie
as the Guidance Counselor
Becky Shrimpton
as the Real Counselor
Spellbound (1945)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Solaris (2002)
Sphere
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Music used in this production:
"Trippy" by
Voice
Several sound effects were found at freesound.org.
Theme music: Liberator by Man In Space
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