Death Sparkles

The Death Sparkles Anthology collection of scary and mysterious short stories based on the writing prompt of “The diamond necklace dangled from the dead woman’s hand.”


"Put together a room full of writers (even virtually), toss out a prompt, and you get an a rich, astonishing mix of interpretations.


We found each other online, via Savvy Authors, and the authors featured in these pages were all part of a one-year intensive writing program. “Class” makes it sound like something they could dip into once or twice a week. This commitment was more like a life-changing obsession. Once accepted, they had to commit to writing a minimum of 1000 words per day for the year, finish the first draft of a novel, go through an intensive editing process, start a second novel, and write, edit, and submit a handful of short stories throughout the year. Different short story assignments had different parameters. This one was simply to have the above line, intact, appear somewhere in the story.


We had such fun with our stories, we decided to collect them into an anthology, and donate any proceeds to a literacy charity.


The voices in these stories are as strong and unique as the individuals who created them. They cover a range of genres, but all of them use a diamond necklace and a dead woman as the fulcrum. I love finding new-to-me writers through anthologies, and we all hope you like the range of creative voices presented in these pages.


--Devon Ellington

September 2012