Tag Archives: FIGHTING WORDS

Watch your language? Um, 5*#& no!

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The potential book buyer looked mild-mannered and it turns out he was.

At a recent book selling and signing event, a man talking to the author next to me asked if there was any bad language in his books. My adjacent author friend acknowledged that there was some but that he didn’t use a lot of it and used it only where appropriate.

The man went on to complain about the cursing (by the Frank Castle/Punisher character) in the new Spider-Man movie and said it soured him on the film. (And yes, as my fellow writers know, people who are ostensibly there to consider buying a book will tell authors virtually anything that’s on their mind, even things far less relevant than cussing in the latest Marvel movie.)

I’m not sure if the man ever bought a book from my friend. I know he didn’t buy one from me, and that’s a good thing because I do include cursing in my fiction.

He sure didn’t buy a copy of FiGHTING WORDS, the Leonardo Audio anthology that has my story “A Fighting Life” in it. In my story, set in 1948, three siblings – the youngest only about 9 as the story opens – decide they can make money by staging “Nickel Fights,” charging neighborhood kids a nickel to fight them.

The siblings, especially the youngest, Marie, are pretty spectacularly foul-mouthed. One of the brothers even comments on it.

“Little sister, you cuss like a muleskinner,” Peter, (the oldest brother) tells Marie.

“She gets that from the Old Man,” Saul said.

I gave him the finger.

It was interesting timing, the guy at the book event, because author Linda Sienkiewicz’ latest newsletter showed up in my inbox this morning. “The Power of One Well-Placed “F*ck”: restraining profanity for character, tone, and impact in fiction” was the title.

Sienkiewicz argues, with merit, that a few – or even one – well-placed curse word can be more effective than a constant barrage of curses.

Also interesting timing because yesterday saw the publication of my short story “The Damn Train” by the nice folks at Roi Faineant Press (link at the bottom of this damn post). In it, the two characters, LeeLee and 10-year-old Birdie, discuss Birdie’s tendency to curse. Birdie has some elaborate rules about cursing, passed down from her mother, as you’ll see if you read my story.

By the end of the story, LeeLee has cursed, brought on by the stress of the moment.

Why do I curse, in real life and in my fiction?

I’m not entirely sure. I think I always have. Maybe my tendency to curse is brought on even more by 40 years of writing for a newspaper, which didn’t print cursewords most of my career. And I knew that and didn’t try to use them. (The most notable exception in the newspaper was when a feature writer filled in for our courts reporter in covering a murder trial. The inexperienced reporter noted in her article that one of the participants in the trial dropped the F bomb. She did more than note it: She reported it, without censoring the trial testimony or herself.

The editors didn’t catch the use of “fuck” and it got into the paper. This was an afternoon paper and the problem was caught right after the paper came out. The press run was stopped, the word was excised and papers were destroyed – with the exception of some collector’s items. And the editor who let the word past later swore she’d been on vacation that day.

I didn’t learn cursing from my parents. I don’t think I remember my dad cursing much and the only curse I can remember my mom uttering was a well-timed “Dadgummit.”

So I cant chalk it up to the way I was raised. Maybe peer pressure? “C’mon, goddammit, Keith, everybody is doing it.”

I guess we’ll never know.

Here’s a link to my story “The Damn Train.”

https://www.roifaineantpress.com/post/the-damn-train-by-keith-roysdon

The year of anthologies for me – three of ’em, anyway

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Two of the nicest folks you’d ever want to write for, Shelley Kubitz and Lawrence Allan, today released the cover image for DAYDREAM BELIEVER, an anthology of crime fiction inspired by the music of The Monkees. I’ve got a story in the anthology and I’ll tell you more about it on or before, as they say in legal documents, the book’s publication on September 29. (Or slightly after, depending on how my September goes.)

The table of contents for this anthology is a dream team of crime writers, and I’ll get into that at a later date also.

I’d hoped to have a story in four crime fiction anthologies in 2026, but that was not to be, for reasons too sad to get into here or almost anywhere.

So in 2026, a year in which I definitely de-emphasized short stories to work on novels, I’ve got stories in FIGHTING WORDS, BAD INTENTIONS and DAYDREAM BELIEVER and I couldn’t be happier about that.

The experience of writing short stories in any small bit of spare time I wasn’t working on getting my crime novel SEVEN ANGELS ready for publication by our Constellate Publishing – link at the end of this post – and working on my next three novels, I was inspired me to write an upcoming article for CrimeReads interviewing seven – count ’em! – seven crime writers about what they preferred to write, short stories or novels, and where they love to see their short stories published.

I’ll write more about that and talk about those seven wonderful authors closer to the time the CrimeReads story comes out.

Here’s that link to Constellate Publishing, by the way. We’re still looking for manuscripts of all kinds to consider for publication. We’re offering various editing and marketing services as well.

Constellate Publishing

My little foul-mouthed scrappers will return in my novel GHOST SHOW

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I’ve noted in this space before that most of my books and short stories occupy the same universe that mostly varies from the town of Seven Angels, Tennessee, to the small city of Middletown, Indiana. The former is the focus of my newest novel, SEVEN ANGELS, and the latter is the setting of my 2025 novel THAT OCTOBER.

I’ve plotted references to those locales in most of my fiction, including my upcoming novel GHOST SHOW, which is set in Middletown in 1948 (THAT OCTOBER was set in Middletown in 1984).

And there’s been a few times I’ve had characters cross over from stories to novels. I’ve previously mentioned here Butcher Crabtree, who pops up in SEVEN ANGELS and a few stories.

But in GHOST SHOW, when it shows up this winter, you’ll see some characters I introduced in “A Fighting Life,” a short story in the 2025/2026 anthology FIGHTING WORDS, edited by Scott Bradburn and published by Leonardo Audio.

Four of the Anderson siblings, who are the focus of GHOST SHOW, are in “A Fighting Life,” which is also set in Middletown in 1948.

They’re pretty different characters in some ways, and very much the same characters in other ways. In “A Fighting Life,” siblings Marie, Saul and Peter get into vacant-lot-punchfests when the three, all of them teens or pre-teens, discover they can make money by letting other neighborhood kids fight them for nickels. They’re foul-mouthed little bastards, as Courtney Fabrizio, the marvelous narrator of my story for Leonardo Audio, alludes to. (You should read the story, but you really should get the audio version of the anthology, particularly for the amazing work of Courtney.).

In the story, Marie, Saul and Peter take on all comers – and get rescued by their big sister Rachel as they’re about to be busted by the cops – and it’s a story that is, by turns, fun and dire.

In GHOST SHOW, Marie, Saul and Peter are still the youngest members of the Anderson family and Rachel sometimes rescues and sometimes needs rescuing. GHOST SHOW is a story that’s very, very loosely based on my mother and her siblings when they were young, and the four are based on one of my aunts, two of my uncles and my mom. There wasn’t as much mayhem in real life as I injected into either the short story or the novel.

I’d encourage you to buy FIGHTING WORDS not just for my story “A Fighting Life” but also for the really crisp and tough writing by the other writers in the anthology. And it might tide you over until GHOST SHOW arrives.

The link to buy FIGHTING WORDS:

Two years since my first story published in an anthology, MOTEL

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It’s been two years since the first time one of my short stories was published in an anthology. The Cowboy Jamboree Press MOTEL anthology, edited by Barbara Byar, came out in March 2024. I’d had short stories published before, starting in 2023, and of course my non-fiction had been published since 1977 and in true crime books since 2016. But having a short story in an anthology was a very cool development.

I still really like the story, “Independence,” about an unnamed cowboy passing through a small Tennessee town who gets caught up in a conflict between some small business owners and the corrupt sheriff. If you read my upcoming second novel, SEVEN ANGELS, you might realize that town is Seven Angels. I never cite the town by name in “Independence” but the sheriff in the short story is named and he’s the same corrupt sheriff as in SEVEN ANGELS.

It was a kick to have the story published in an anthology and a few followed. It’s always a kick, although I suspect the anthologies you have to purchase have smaller readership than the stories published online. Still a kick, though.

This year, in 2026, I’ll have short stories in three anthologies I know of, including my story “A Fighting Life,” about foul-mouthed kids in 1948 who figure out they can make money by scrapping with neighborhood kids, which is in the just-published-in-paperback FIGHTING WORDS. My story “This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day,” about a kid spending the day with his older brothers in 1970, will appear this fall in DAYDREAM BELIEVER, an anthology of crime stories based on Monkees songs.

And a while back, I had a crime story accepted for an anthology that hasn’t been announced yet.

For me, three stories in anthologies in one year is a lot, so I doubt there will be others. But I’ll submit some stories and we’ll see.

Here’s a link to the paperback of FIGHTING WORDS is you want to read my short story and the work of some really amazing authors:

It’s an e-book kind of day!

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It’s Labor Day and the beginning of fall – don’t argue – and the beginning of Spooky Season – that cannot be argued with – and it’s e-book day here on the ranch.

Just a quick note that THAT OCTOBER, my 1984-set high school crime novel, is available for quick and easy download beginning today on Kindle.

Here’s the link:

Also today, FIGHTING WORDS: BRUISERS, BRAWLERS AND & BAD INTENTIONS is out on Kindle.

The anthology, put together by writer and editor Scott Blackburn, features stories about fighting, fracases, brawlers, pugs and the sweet science, especially when it’s not so sweet.

My story, “A Fighting Life,” begins in 1948 and follows three young siblings – Marie, Peter and Saul – as they discover there’s money to be made, a nickel at a time, taking on other neighborhood kids in bare-knuckle challenges in vacant lots and abandoned buildings.

But besides my story, there are nine other great stories from some of the hottest authors today, including:

Saint Bullethead by Nick Kolakowski, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

Where the River Breaks by L.S. Goozdich, narrated by Victor Clarke

Pure Wrath by A.M. Adair, narrated by Linda Jones

Fight Club by David Moloney, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine by J.B. Stevens, narrated by Michael Orenstein

Call Me Mina by Laura Brashear, narrated by Stacy Gonzalez

A Fighting Life by Keith Roysdon, narrated by Courtney Fabrizio

The Grit by Meredith R. Lyons, narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman

Bourbon BrawI by Ashley Erwin, narrated by Matt Godfrey

The Cleaner by Jason Allison, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

And what’s that “narrated by” element there? That’s because in addition to the e-book, which is available now, there’s an audiobook edition coming right away.

I got to work a little bit with Courtney Fabrizio, who narrated my story, and she is fabulous.

The e-book was upon its debut the Number One new release in martial arts books and it’s a firecracker.

Here’s a link: