Jan Kozlowski is a freelance writer and web consultant, who lives in Connecticut with her husband of 24 years, a neurotic German shepherd mix named Louie, and 8 rescue cats. She chatted to me about her new book, why e-books are the new pulp fiction, and why you should write what you love.

This is one of the short stories I wrote last month for my horror compilation. It is dedicated to Jim Connick, who has a fear of going round a corner quickly and being impaled on a pointy thing, which he blames on the film Dog Soldiers.
I’m running for the last bus, slipping and sliding on wet concrete in old cons wi nae grips, hurdling knocked ower bins and homeless folk and piles of vomit, breathing hard as my tired lungs gasp in cold night air.
One of the stories I wrote for October’s horror book. I found a T-Shirt I hadn’t worn in ages and couldn’t remember whether it was mine or not, and because I am a banal sort of person at times I tweeted about it, prompting the suggestion a creepy story was to be had.
“This isn’t my T-shirt,” Vicky informs me.
“Mmm?” I say, turning away from her and snuggling down into the nest of blankets.
I should have known she wouldn’t let me get away with it that easily.
“The neckline is wrong,” she says. Her voice seems unnecessarily loud in the quiet dark of the morning, like she’s shouting, although she probably isn’t. “It’s my size, but none of my stuff has a scooped neckline like this.”
I sit up with a sigh, bleary eyed, reaching for my glasses. It’s an early winter morning, and the only light comes from a side lamp with a strange blue bulb, but even with that I can tell there’s nothing the matter with Vicky’s shirt.
“See?” she pulls at it insistently.
“Maybe it’s one of Katie’s?”

This one’s for Babs – a short story in the form of a series of letters between a wee girl and her granny. It’s also dedicated to the several people who pointed out that the epistolary novel lends itself to horror…
Thought I’d get in early this month with my entry for Glempy’s Pictonaut Challenge, and remind you there are ten whole days to come up with a 1000-ish word story based on this lovely picture. I wrote mine across two, so I don’t want to hear any excuses!

I’m still working on short stories based on your comments, so don’t think I’ve forgotten you if you’ve suggested something and it hasn’t turned up! I might schedule them as posts crossing into November, because having made the decision to NaNoWriMo this year I won’t have as much time to dedicate to the blog.
In the meantime, today I’m posting a story about the lovely weather we’re having, in Edinburgh at least. The title, ‘parapluie’ (pa-ra-ploo-ee) is the French for umbrella.