Romance
The short story appeared in the August 2011 issue of Playboy and recently screened as a short film at Cinequest. If you happen to be in the US, details regarding screening can be found on the official CP website,
The Cult. CP has also made the complete audiobook downloadable on
Downpour for FREE.
Phoenix (Out now!)
Phoenix is CPs exploration with the third person where the story does not follow the classic Palahniuk style short story. Phoenix is the latest in the line of fiction and is composed of 32 pages. Dennis Widmyer, webmaster of the Cult wrote about it being perfect for the Kindle Single Program. On Phoenix, Palahniuk
said:
to write it, I had to jettison my punk rock aesthetic. Instead of starting loud and fast, I start slower and quieter, but build to something more awful.To be honest, part of my recent stress is caused by the concentration required to write these longer -- 30 to 60 page -- stories. They're almost novellas. That, and switching to third-person has eaten up all of my time and attention for months. It's as if I'm back in school, starting to write from scratch, and Amy's been drilling me to shed my old, comfortable writing tics."Phoenix" is a weird one. It's so cruel, but there are a couple big laughs which occur at some of the most upsetting moments. In that way it's very similar to "Guts."Thank you for shining some light on it. I've been so nervous about it that I didn't want to jinx it by talking about it.
The Kindle single PHOENIX is unfortunately not free (as it seems, CP has bills too) but it can be bought for only £ 0.99 from Amazon.