Night School New Novel Available 23 January 2025 - Chapter 1

Plus Pepper's Ghost ScreenCraft Cinematic Prose Competition and shout-outs to Alison Bull and Yemi's newsletters

Sep 27, 2024

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Night School New Novel Available 23 January 2025

“What you hear is what you know, but what you don’t know is what you need to hear.”

When college radio DJ Scotty Piper receives mysterious messages connected to his love of music and encyclopedic knowledge about a legendary rock band and their enigmatic guitarist, he leaves behind his colleagues and everything familiar and raises the odds he may never return home or to the job that keeps him grounded and gives him meaning. Scotty pursues answers and untangles riddles, diving into an oceanside city’s natural and supernatural history, an underground world of allies among enemies and enemies among allies, and groups and individuals haunted by transcendence. Like a detective, he unearths the truth about things that are seen but temporal and those that are unseen and eternal. Scotty’s journey among media and tech, money and corporations, the secular and sacred, and illusions and reality reveals an inescapable longing to be part of something larger.

ISBN (print): 9798986092713

ISBN (e-book): 9798986092720

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Pepper’s Ghost ScreenCraft Cinematic Prose

For this year’s competition, I entered the second edition of Pepper’s Ghost. Your book purchases and paid Substack subscriptions helped cover the submission fee—thank you. My novel October and a short story “Cash In The Past” have been quarter-finalists, and this is another great opportunity for a larger audience to discover my work.

Hollywood has a history of transforming stories into film and television, and ScreenCraft connects writers to industry professionals. The Cinematic Prose’s judges look for novels, novellas, and short stories that can be adapted for the screen. Past winners sold their work to studios and worked as writers for Universal, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and CBS; winners also signed with literary managers and agents.

Alison Bull and Yemi’s Newsletters

Erica Drayton included Alison Bull in Top in Fiction, among the best fiction on Substack. And Yemi’s Newsletter shares interesting news in “easy-to-understand but witty language.” He also includes interesting finds such as deals; artist and startup funding/grants and other opportunities; and a music section. His newsletter is his way of sharing knowledge in a fun way with as many people as he can. Give it a read: https://yemi.news.

And now for this month’s story…

Night School Chapter 1

My phone’s content disappears when I get ready for work. Alarm, settings, images of Pounces, and a review from the The Vibe I saved of the Heidi Ho & Sons concert at The Jenny, which made me want to add them to one of my shows. Also gone is my CountingSheep app. Instead of cute pixel sheep holding my sleep data and wiggling their pixel-cotton butts after I wake, my phone has been stripped into a black screen.

Letters type.

“There’s not much there now.”

<R U>

<U R>

<There?>

I check the windows behind my bed. Not broken. Latches work.

I check Pounces. He’s OK, purring, and knocked off my water bottle from last night. I check under my bed and closet. Pounces scampers ahead of me for the kitchen. I top off a bottle with fresh water while keeping an eye on my phone.

“Not likely.”

I fill my coffee pot with my filtered water. Also into the coffee pot go scoops of Rocket Fuel I bought from Our Lady of the Arches Coffee Roasters. I toss two cinnamon-frosted pastries into the toaster, microwave little smokies, and opening pepper and maple syrup, scramble eggs after the coffee bubbles its black magic.

Using my name now? Maybe my CountingSheep info got breached. This is super breaking down on me at the worst time. Is a hacker going after all the phones in Los Arcos or only mine? What’s next? My account at Old Mission National as empty as my phone? Maybe Mr. Tech Pirate is an irritated listener of mine and caved up in a pizza-box-and-beer-can-littered dorm room at ULA. After I got into it with someone over the effects pedals in Being Mighty’s “Dig Me Up and Down,” Abacus told me, “No more of you going out in public.” Seeing Dr. Hale helped. She recommended the app and the water-filtration system from Tansa. I’m super fortunate to have her in the same building where I work. “You’re not merely a patient,” she said. “You’re a partner in all this.” Without Dr. Hale, I’d be worse off, getting lost inside myself or chasing whatever around me.

William Auten Stories and Newsletter