Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

This is a flashback flash fiction piece from 2016, a bit of (maybe) harmless Halloween fun...   Witching Weather   “Fog’s rising.” Jack made the observation in a detached sort of way, not sure if it mattered.   “More fun that way,” Jill answered. If he was unsure about the weather, she was not. She straightened the tall, pointed hat that kept threatening to tumble from her head. “It sets the right sort of mood.”   The boy and girl grinned at each other. Both wore sweeping black robes, rather in the fashion of the students of Hogwarts. A close observer might have even thought they had come from the costume shop, but with the fog settling in and the daylight gone, no one could be sure. Jack wore a silver circlet around his forehead, while Jill sported the afore-mentioned pointed hat.   “At least half the kids will be spooked before we even begin,” Jill said, eyes aglow with excitement.   Jack nodded, seeing her point. “And the other half will be spo

While I'm away, I'm running some flash fiction from years gone by. This story from 2013 came from one of the prompts Chuck Wendig used to run weekly on his blog, Terribleminds.com (I believe it was a random selection of a psychic power). It seems a good choice of story as we approach Halloween, being one of my few ventures into horror (ish) that doesn't turn comic. It's a little long at 1090 words, though I tightened it up a bit. The Choker   I was with Brian when it began. I knew something had happened, but when he said nothing, I let it slide. That was my first and biggest mistake, but we who have these powers are slow to speak of them, and with reason.   Brian had taken me with him to shop for a birthday present for his wife. She liked old jewelry—not necessarily antiques, but old. Brian had seen a shop he thought looked promising. You know the kind: half junk store, half antique shop, where a few good bits may be mixed in with a ton of tra

I'm off again to get more trail time and, with luck, some great photos of one of my special places, the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, you can enjoy these initial shots from my September trip to the Canadian Rockies. We started our trip (the real stuff, not the long drive from Seattle) in the Kananaskis Country, a collection of Provincial Parks east of Banff, but still hanging out in some spectacular mountains. Here are a few highlights from the first few days. For those who like logistics, I was traveling with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. They rented a camper, which gave us a warm place to sit and eat on often chilly (and once or twice wet) days, and provided suitable sleeping accommodations when we were at Lake Louise hard-sided campground later, where tents are not permitted. My little car gave us mobility. On first arriving, I did a quick hike up King Creek Ridge, an excessively steep hike that reminded me that I was no longer at sea level. View SW from the ridge Kananaskis L

What's here? Well, not the new book, but--we have a cover! It's been a lot longer process than intended, but so has the editing process! Both are now under control, and I'm happy to announce that Washed Up With the Tide has a cover and a release date! This is awkward, because I'm heading out on the trail again so I'm not able to promote as much as I'd like, so feel free to share and boost! Coming... November 18, 2024. To celebrate, I'm dropping the price of the ebook of Book 1. A Coastal Corpse is now$3.99 at most retailers, through the end of November! Washed Up With the Tide Baked goods, beautiful weather, and … bodies on the beach? There’s trouble in Smelt Point and it’s up to Seffi to solve the case!   S effi’s pleasure in her long walks among the fall colors is more than a little marred when she encounters cantankerous fisherman Bob Hughes washed up on the shore—sodden, entangled in a net, and very definitely dead.

Although the WEP group--Write...Edit...Publish--has ceased regular operation, our wonderful leaders brought it back with an October prompt to write about what terrifies us. To see the contributions, check the list on the WEP page .  I've been needing some motivation to write flash fiction, so I'm happy to have this nudge, even if horror isn't my thing.     We are meant to provide a tag-line for the story, so here's mine:  On a gloomy wet day, a writer discovers what is truly terrifying in a world that can seem hostile all around. 835 words, full critique acceptable. True Terror What terrifies you? What makes you shake in your shoes and go watery at the knees? It may not be what you think. I’m afraid of heights. Well, not really heights. I like mountain tops. I just don’t like edges. The feeling that I could fall, and can imagine just what it feels like when I hit the bottom. That’s bad enough, but a person can manage it, mostly by staying away from

It's the weekend, and time for more eye candy! Back at the very end of August I joined my brother-in-law and his nephew in a 4-night, 5-day backpack on the Timberline Trail around Mt. Hood in Oregon. At about 42 miles, with around 10,000' of up and down (if you think a trail that draws a circle around a mountain stays at the same elevation, think again!), we chose to take our time. We met a startling number of people with a different approach: trail runners doing the whole thing in one day. I admire them and envy them, but my days of imagining I can emulate them are definitely over. Since we started with a four-hour drive down from Seattle, we didn't hit the trail until 2 p.m. the first day. That meant hiking until dinner time to get to a particularly scenic campsite in Paradise Park. The first photo is by my brother-in-law, photographer Tom Dempsey, whose amazing work can be found at Photoseek.com . At the risk of making you lose all interest in my post, his take on the tr