A Necessary Explosion is an act Dan Burns performs daily to expel the stories pressing on his mind. Only by getting words down onto the page can he make room for all that comes next. Exploring the themes of life, love, family, writing, music, travel, history, and humanity's future, this collection artfully conveys the words of a craftsman in relatable, accessible poems.In "Afterimage," a man struggles with his diminishing memory but takes comfort in knowing that he...

When a struggling author with a secret government past is hired by a wealthy philanthropist to investigate a cold murder case, he has no choice but to expose the dark and buried secrets of a powerful political family in Chicago.Sebastian Drake is a novelist working out of a dilapidated apartment in the city who’s trying to come up with his next story idea. But he’s stuck.Drake receives an unexpected visit from a man interested in hiring him for a p...

In No Turning Back, author Dan Burns shares an eclectic mix of stories that expand the boundaries of genre and imagination. Told with realistic and thought-provoking prose, each of the stories shine light on characters who, as a result of a particular experience, realize that they can't go back—in time or to the way life used to be. Moving forward is the only option, and what comes next is anyone’s guess.Published by Chicago Arts Press, this beautifully crafted hardcover e...

Chicago architect Peter O'Hara had a plan, a blueprint, for how he wanted to build his life. He had goals and ambitions and his path was clear. He had a loving wife and son, career success, and his final career goal was close within reach. The opportunity to become a partner in his firm was there for the taking. He almost had it all.But life and fate do not consider such plans. An unbelievable and unplanned event sets off a domino effect of repercussions that turn Peter's life upsi...

“We’re all flawed and confronted daily with sometimes slight but often apparently insurmountable challenges. But if we dig deep, what we unearth from the depths of our souls, if we’re lucky, can allow us to overcome and carry on to live another day with an untortured heart.”This is the sentiment Dan Burns explores in his exciting new collection. Five stories and a novella highlight Burns’s range as a storyteller and his ability to see life and all its emotions through a un...

The Emperor is enraged. Primarch Magnus the Red of the Thousand Sons Legion has made a terrible mistake that endangers the very safety of Terra. With no other choice, the Emperor charges Leman Russ, Primarch of the Space Wolves, with the apprehension of his brother from the Thousand Sons' home world of Prospero. This planet of sorcerers will not be easy to overcome, but Russ and his Space Wolves are not easily deterred. With wrath in his heart, Russ is determined to bring Magnus to justice...

As an aspiring or seasoned writer, do you feel like you aren't making headway, stumbling on what to write next, or wondering if you're even on the right path? Are you unable to find the motivation to charge up your computer and put your fingers on the keyboard after that last rejection?Between the pages of What I Wish I'd Known: For Writers, 100 highly accomplished authors share their time, energy, and knowledge to pay it forward and inspire other writers, experienced or a...

An anthology celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Predator franchise, If It Bleeds includes seventeen brand new, never-before-seen stories—exclusive to this collection—featuring the Predators throughout space and time. Based entirely on the original films, novels, and comics, Predator: If It Bleeds (a quote from the original movie) reveals the Predators stalking prey in twelfth-century Japan, ninth-century Viking Norway, World War I, Vietnam, the Civil War, Hurric...

A suspicious death has the hallmarks of witchcraft in this locked room mystery by a master of the genre.When Edward Stevens, an editor at Herald and Son's publishing house, learns of the mysterious events that befell his neighbor's rich uncle, he shrugs off their seemingly supernatural circumstances. He's a logical man and doesn't give much credence to claims of a ghostly figure visiting the man before his death, or the witch's ladder discovered under his pillow af...

Saving Ben is the story of one family coping with autism told from the viewpoint of a father struggling to understand his sons strange behavior and rescue him from a downward spiral. Bens father Dan Burns puts the reader in the passengers seat as he struggles with medical service providers the school system extended family and his own limitations in his efforts to pull Ben out of his darkening world. Ben now 21 years old is a work in progress. The full force and fury of the autism storm ha...

A USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOREight years ago, auto worker Eddie Armstrong was gunned down in a Detroit parking lot. The case went cold. The cops moved on. His widow never did.Now she wants answers, and she's hired private investigator John Rockne to find them.Rockne expects a routine investigation into an old murder. What he finds instead is a photograph hidden in a rusted Buick, a beautiful woman who died of an overdose, and a trail that leads fro...

Alex McKnight swore to serve and protect Detroit as a police officer, but a trip to Motown these days is a trip to a past he’d just as soon forget. The city will forever remind him of his partner’s death and of the bullet still lodged in his own chest.Then he gets a call from his old sergeant. A young man Alex helped put away—in the one big case that marked the high point of his career—will be getting out of prison. When the sergeant invites Alex downstate to have a drink for old t...