A snippet from Dawn DeBraal, and 'Aftermath' contributor

Tell me about your story in Aftermath - but don't give any spoilers! 

My story “Conditioned,” deals with the fear that social distancing has instilled during the pandemic. Suddenly they are saying you don’t need a mask anymore. This story is how my main character, Dorothy, deals with her anxiety after the pandemic is over.

What inspired you to write this?

This is pretty much how I feel. After months and months of avoiding people you can’t stop thinking about protecting yourself, it will be hard to unlearn thinking about germs on door handles, or people coming too close to you, invading your space.


Why did you think it important to contribute to this collection?

I loved the timeliness of this book, and I wanted to put a voice to what I was feeling.

How have you coped with the pandemic?  

I have hidden myself away for months only going grocery shopping or to doctor appointments. I have become a hermit.  If it wasn’t for writing I don’t know how I would survive this ordeal.

 
Can you tell us about your other publications?

I’ve written over 400 published short stories, drabbles, and poems in less than three years I have been writing and submitting. My first co-novel “what the hell happened to joan?” a thriller novel written with a friend of mine under the pen name of Garrison McKnight. It came out in July 2021.

I plan on putting some collections of my short stories together, but I am waiting until the last of them are published in some ezines. I wrote a series of stories blending the Beatitudes from the Bible to tell stories from the 1950s that give hope and healing through the eyes of the young characters.

 I also used the lines of the Lord’s Prayer to tell fourteen horror stories. The frailty of man is so very scary to me. I am enjoying both of the series and the differences between them. One is comforting and the other, terrifying. I love writing in different genres. I have participated in one hundred different anthologies, including some from Cafelit UK. Gill has given many authors the opportunity to shine.

 

 

 

A continuing response by writers to the Covid19 pandemic in 2020 and during the ongoing aftershocks in 2021, this collection is of work by writers we have published before and whom we trust, and their trusted colleagues. When disasters strike writers respond and react in words. They share with us their hopes and fears. They describe and rationalise.