A Roll of the Dice: A Short Story Anthology

Welcome to the Roll of the Dice short story anthology by the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Writers of Spokane. Let me tell you a little bit about how this book came about.

We all sat there, looking at a four dice; A footprint, a beetle, a lightning bolt, and a tower; chuckling about how we would make a story which included them. That’s how this anthology began.

Let me explain.

I’m happy to say that our little writers’ group has been together for about a year now. We’ve had a good time unintentionally irritating our fellow coffee shop patrons with our banter. We’ve been critiquing each other’s writing and giving support, encouragement, and accountability, as well as having fun! It’s been an amazing time and many friendships have been made. This spring, one of our members had the idea that we should publish an anthology of short stories. We decided it would be a great way to give us all some experience with self-publishing.

Many writers' groups have done this, but we wanted ours to be different. That’s where my dice came in. A few months ago, on a whim, I bought some story dice. Story dice are big clunky dice that come in a set of nine, and have simple pictures that illustrate things to include in a story. Instant inspiration! That fateful afternoon we rolled the dice and agreed to each write a story including these four things; a footprint, a beetle, a tower, and a lightning bolt.

I encouraged the group to be as creative and free as they wanted to be when interpreting these symbols. The result is a diverse group of stories from our little group that I’m sure will entertain.