Those who have followed my short stories are familiar with Augustus Valley, my fictional southern-WV town, once a thriving hub of the mining industry, “now a blip on a long detour you’ll never take, the coal having run out there, as is its way” (as I describe it in the prologue to my unpublished novel, Schafer). Wind up the mountain along steep, narrow backroads and you’ll find High Point, where the Yellow Carousel secretly turns, where Mr V reclines in his fire-lit library, where some have reported seeing a black horse with glowing embers for eyes galloping through the night.
Readers of my new story, “The Christmas Cabinet” (appearing in the Summer 2026 issue of Assemble Artifacts Short Story Magazine) are introduced to a new mysterious, small mountain town: Port Crayon, West Virginia.
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