Flashes From the Verse

Last Date Night in the Valley

He’d wanted to take her to a fancy restaurant in Corpus Christi, but with her last class of the day letting out at 7:30 p.m., she’d balked at the six hour round-trip just to eat raw shrimp from a champagne glass.

Photo by Aly Ramirez / Unsplash

About the Author

Daniel Verastiqui is a science fiction author based in Austin, Texas. He is currently writing The Vinestead Anthology, a series of standalone novels set in a shared universe where virtual reality, synthetic humans, and one very powerful corporation keep making everything worse. His latest book, House of Nepenthe, released in June 2026.

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Friday Footnotes - 6.26.26

Welcome to Friday Footnotes, a new series intended to fill the void when I've spent too much time writing fiction and too little time writing a new thoughtful blog post for you.

House of Nepenthe - Alternate Opening

The bar around him was an amalgam of familiar set pieces: the long bar with multi-colored bottles on the wall behind it, the pool tables in the distance with their clacking balls, and a small dance floor with only a handful of people gyrating to a song he couldn’t hear.

Writers, Find Your People

Writing is a lonely profession, but there are times when you need someone else to help answer the difficult questions like "how many movie quotes are too many?"

How to Turn an Existing Short Story into a Novel

Pamela Koehne-Drube over at Novlr wrote a great framework for expanding a short story into a novel. It's like she was reading my diary.