About this ebook
When weary traveler, Ginette, arrives from France with a blank notebook meant to capture the world around her, she finds more than meets the eye. The unwitting diner patrons and a tenacious cat pull her out of despair, forcing her to see the real diner before her.
Cosmic forces are at play, and in order to escape the dangers inside the diner, Ginette must confront her past and fill the pages with the truth of what she can see of the Dark Reflections.
Blue Plate Special is the first in a shared world series that will bring to life the madness and mystery behind the Dark Reflections illustrated collection by artist Jeff Lee Johnson. Join our authors as they wander into this seemingly normal place and into a world that clatters, slinks, and drips. Looks aren't everything, and nothing is as it seems. Come for breakfast, stay for the pie. You might never want to leave.
Take a meander from places labeled normal to a world that clatters, slinks, and drips. Looks aren't everything, and nothing is as it seems.
Discover more
About the author
Marie Bilodeau is an Ottawa-based author, TTRPG game writer, and storyteller. Her speculative fiction has won several awards and has been translated into French (Les Éditions Alire) and Chinese (SF World). Her short stories have also appeared in various anthologies and magazines like Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Amazing Stories. In a past life not-so-long ago, she was Deputy Publisher for The Ed Greenwood Group (TEGG).
Marie is also a storyteller and has told stories across Canada in theatres, tea shops, at festivals and under disco balls. She’s won story slams with personal stories, has participated in epic tellings at the National Arts Centre, and has adapted classical material.
Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears stilettos, red lipstick, and poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of many diverse works, including Beautiful Sorrows, the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy, Detritus in Love, and the BONE ANGEL trilogy. She recently won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for her story Little Dead Red. Mercedes lives and creates in Las Vegas with her family and menagerie of battle-scarred, rescued animal familiars.
CHRISTINE TAYLOR-BUTLER has authored more than ninety five books for children, including her speculative series The Lost Tribes (Charlesbridge Publishing). A graduate of MIT, she is known for writing compelling nonfiction for young readers across all age ranges including three titles in Chelsea Clinton’s Save The …(Animals) series (Philomel/Penguin Random House). In addition, she’s written a number of articles including, “When Failure Is Not An Option” an essay on the need for diversity in STEM literature (The Horn Book November/December 2021). A fierce advocate for literacy, Christine has spoken on panels at the American Library Association, The National Council of Teachers of English, The International Literacy Association was well as World Science Fiction Convention, and the Nebula Awards. She also participates in a number of annual regional events such as DragonCon in Atlanta and Boskone in Boston. In addition, Christine has served as a judge for the Society of Midland Authors children’s nonfiction award, the Walter Dean Myers children’s literature award and PEN America’s Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. Christine is past president of the Missouri Writers Guild, Emeritus Board member of Kindling Words and Toastmaster for World Fantasy. She is currently a member of the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society and a Director At Large of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). In 2023, Christine was named an MLK Visiting Scholar at MIT. That appointment was renewed for a second year.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Christine now lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
I write dark fantasy, horror, YA, and science fiction primarily. Flash fiction is my playground! I also teach high school history and government. You try to live in the world of teenagers for half your life and see if you don’t develop some pretty interesting worlds. My husband, Matt, two kids, Rio and Matthew, and my five cats and a dog have my heart. The rest of you have to deal with my guts.
I grew up in rural Minnesota far enough from town and friends to have nothing else to do but read and draw. Luckily, my mom had a house filled with books by authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kenneth Robeson, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clark. It was pure fortune that she could draw and paint as well, and provided me with an endless supply of materials, tools and patient instruction.
Following that childhood, I dedicated both time and money at Moorhead State College and The University of Minnesota to learning quite a bit more about art, and even earned “Undergraduate Painter of the Year” at the U of M in my sophomore year, which came with a box of acrylic paints and a plaque. The idea of making a living doing art, however, did not comport with the reality that I had come to know, so I left school to travel the world, do odd jobs, wait tables, and ultimately, build houses.
Fast forward 20 years, to the time when one's carpenter career has taken it's toll on one's knees and elbows. I simultaneously discovered the world of digital illustration and the world wide web, put two and two together, and decided to pick up art with a vengeance. I began plying my craft in 2004, first in commercial illustration and then the delightful storytelling of the sci fi and fantasy genres, and finally found my feet in horror (sweetened with some loving dark humor) and the series I have neen working on for the past few years, "Dark Reflections."
I now split my energies between personal projects I have long wanted to pursue and Art Directing for the wonderful folks at Fantasy Flight Games, which is a job unlike any other I have ever held, owing to the marvelous talents I work with and direct for.
Z.D. Gladstone is a budding novelist who apparently decides she needs to write about herself in the third person in the bio section of her blog. Having spent most of her life in the Pacific Northwest, she whet her imagination on rainy afternoons--and her appetite on the warm, bustling kitchens of her family members. She is a story-teller, a nerd, a reader, and a Scorpio.
Sandra Rosner is a novelist, lore writer, developmental editor, and podcast host living in the Seattle area.
Matt Betts is an author and former radio personality. His work includes such science fiction novels as the critically recognized adventure Odd Men Out and its sequel Red Gear Nine, the urban fantasy Indelible Ink, the giant monster vs. giant robot book The Shadow Beneath the Waves, and the cryptid horror tale White Anvil: Sasquatch Onslaught. He is also an accomplished speculative poet, and lives in Columbus with his wife and children.
Spawned in the wilds of Wisconsin and tempered in the shadowed depths of the financial industry, Blake can best be found in the darkness of night testing the longevity of pens and keyboards.
Deanna Sjolander is a multi-dimensional creative force--a watercolor artist, sci-fi author, and Rook Creek Press editor. She's survived running countless writing workshops and conventions, which basically qualifies her for anything.
