Rachel Canon

High-tech political thriller set in the aftermath of the assassination of the first female U.S. president.

Elected by a landslide, Melanie Lombard had been president for just three days when an assassin's bullet took her life. A year later, her best friend, computer software executive Nora Whitney, struggles to protect the late president's legacy from a persistent biographer and ends up being drawn into a political underground with deadly dimensions.

British edition of The Anniversary

When handsome, big-hearted Jesse McKay flies off a cliff on the back of a motorcycle that can't quite make the curve, he leaves behind a beloved wife, a budding business, a host of stray people and animals, and a big secret. Wyn McKay is left to untangle the mess, with the help of a dysfunctional freeloader, a 14-year-old runaway, an eccentric mountain man and a three-legged cat.

A work in progress, this novel centers around moral dilemmas, pervading disorder, loss, greed, and our responsibilities to one another.

Writing this story was a lot of fun. The anthology was edited by my good friend Greg Bardsley and his colleagues Kieran Shea and Jedidiah Ayres. It's chock full of imaginative and delicious noir.

From Chris Rhatigan's review: "This is a cracking collection of stories by reliable crime fiction authors all with a unique take on The Veep. I particularly liked Rachel Canon's "Neighborhood Watch." A down-on-his-luck Cheney makes a voyage to a dystopian suburb, meeting up with some badass soccer moms. I hadn't read any of Canon's work before but I will definitely be on the lookout in the future."

Can't ask for a better review than that. Maybe I should switch genres.

County Road appeared in Turning Up The Leaves -- A Sesquicentennial Miscellany of Coe College Alumni Writing, edited by Terry Heller. The story is about a woman who revisits her home town, only to end up paralyzed on a remote country road.

Message to myself: You can go home again, but maybe you shouldn't.

Unwinding was the winner of UnEarth magazine's short story contest and is my completion of a story begun by Harlan Ellison, who wrote the first few paragraphs. It was published in Unearth's Second Anniversary Issue, along with stories from the likes of Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, Hal Clement and Michael Moorcock. Can't beat that for lofty SF company.

Barbephobia appeared in a small poetry chapbook titled BBQed Poetry, edited by Keith Dodson for P.O. Press in Long Beach, CA. The little magazine was full of witty and insightful takes on the ancient tradition of backyard barbecue.