Thriller · Horror · Speculative Theology · Family Saga
Retired USAF
The Ship Trilogy · Book 1
Otto Boteman suffers a massive heart attack and wakes up in a strange, jeweled city filled with beautiful people, a mesmer sky defying all physics, and what looks suspiciously like his first car. He has a disturbing encounter with a murdered childhood friend and an angel-like bureaucrat assures Otto that this is Heaven but God is not here so don't bother looking. No God? Can't be Heaven, then, despite the best cheese danishes Otto has ever eaten and a nice condo replete with HBO and tailored suits. Maybe he's not even dead, just comatose. But then he meets Claudia, a 5th Century beauty running an Irish pub, who tells him about a group of misfits building a rocket in the far desert. Their mission? Find God. So begins Otto's journey across a fabulous world peopled with the likes of Doc Holliday, Prester John, and a Mongol horde led by an accountant from West Kankakee, Illinois. Drawing the wrath of a frenzied, suit-wearing army of angels (or demons, can't tell) Otto discovers that launching the ship just might end the eternal struggle between good and evil.
Frank Vaughn Trilogy
A disturbing Odyssey across America. It's summer, 1965, school's out and Butch's birthday is in a few weeks. Perfect; three months of freeze tag, hide and seek and riding his bike way past dark. Well, maybe not completely perfect - Frank Vaughn, a classmate, is beaten to death by his crazy mother for leaving a report card at school. On top of that, Dad is touchier than ever and Mom sadder, so best to hide out next door with his best friend Tommy reading X-Men and hoping for that birthday GI Joe. But in one night, Butch's summer explodes and he's now riding across a turbulent and changing Dixie in a white Rambler station wagon, at the mercy of a manic depressive and wildly violent Dad. Like a crewman on Ulysses' ship, Butch encounters a one-eyed evil grandfather, a 12-year-old Siren, the lotus-eaters of Alabama? and Frank Vaughn. If Butch ever sees his beloved sister, Cindy, again, it'll be a miracle. If he's alive at the end of the summer, it'll be a bigger one. A dark version of "The Wonder Years," Frank Vaughn Killed by his Mom is "The Great Santini" written by Homer, careening through a coarse world of racism, adultery, abandonment, and even the occasional sliver of hope.
Ten tales of the mundane, of a universe askew, where things are slightly off: 1. The Last M…
A devastating biological attack turns the northeast into a quarantined ruin... The Twin Towers are still smoldering when those odd little anthrax letters show up, killing a few people here and there. Some nutcase, everyone thinks, but everyone’s wrong – it’s a setup, a precursor to a massive biological attack that leaves the Northeast a quarantined wasteland. Campus policeman John Rashkil, trapped inside the Zone, chooses to keep doing his job, adding judge and executioner to his resume. He builds a jury-rigged life from what he can salvage and attempts to help his teenage son avoid the bear-traps set throughout this new Byzantine America. But a growing sense of futility shatters his confidence, and he is unprepared when a rabble army seeks to break quarantine and pour into the uninfected lands. Based on an Irish legend of the same name, Partholon is a brutal look at how the just and the civilized respond to anarchy. It will delight lovers of action and military science fiction, like John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War or Robert Ferrigno’s Prayers for the Assassin.
And Other Tales of Horror
Real vampires. Tasteful dismemberments. And delightful shivers, from ten old-fashioned horror stories: a. The Moonlight in Genevieve's Eyes: unrequited love. Tragic. Just tragic. b. Choice: second chances are rare. Especially when you work for a vampire. c. The Flowers in Mr. Williams' Garden: neighborhood watch, ghost style. d. Cistern: zombies are horrible, until they hire you. e. The Elvish Woman: lovers who steal your soul. Literally. f. The Trumpet Inside the Warehouse: no one can hear you scream. g. King of the Bears: be victorious, or be dinner. h. Angel Eyes: man's best friend, when you forget your cross and garlic. i. The Absence of Land: sell the farm, pay the consequences. j. Face to Face: Mother's day. So, grab a crucifix, a shotgun, and come on in. But, leave a clearly marked trail. It's dark in here.
The Ship Trilogy · Book 2
The epic journey begun in The Ship to Look for God continues: While the battle rages around the launch gantry, Otto Boteman hustles aboard as the ship lifts off. Now a useless stowaway or dead weight (depending on the view), Otto must constantly prove his worth or get shown the airlock door. But a stunning encounter at the Pearly Gates changes the entire purpose of the ship, and Otto, along with the rest of the crew, must band together to survive a universe far more terrifying than any of them imagined.
The Ship Trilogy · Book 3
The Ship is gone. So is the crew. Only Otto Boteman remains, living in a beautiful valley on a planet of two suns and two moons, every dog of his childhood in attendance, every need provided. Otto whiles the days away in peace and silence. It seems like Heaven... except God is not here. No one is. His doubts growing, Otto discovers a relic in the wreckage of the Ship, setting in motion a series of cataclysms that drive Otto across an ever-changing world where he confronts old enemies, half-forgotten myths, and the very nature of existence.
and other small bites stories
Dive into a literary feast where the finest storytellers converge. The 2024 Small Bites Short Story Winners have woven their magic where each story unfolds in a unique blend of suspense and revelation, and the mundane meets the extraordinary. Where each turn of the page takes you deeper into the lives of characters who exist on the fringes of society, in the shadows of the ordinary, and at the crossroads of life-changing decisions. This collection of gripping narratives invites you to explore the human condition through a series of stories that range from the dark and brooding atmosphere of a seedy bar to the hopeful journey of medical students on the cusp of their careers. Each story is a thread in the larger narrative fabric, woven together to create a compelling portrait of humanity in all its flawed beauty. Prepare to be moved, challenged, and ultimately changed by the powerful storytelling within these pages. These stories are more than mere bites—they’re literary morsels that leave an indelible mark. Prepare to be transported, thrilled, and utterly captivated by this anthology of award-winning brilliance. Rich with references to literature, history, and the complexities of human psychology, this anthology offers a multi-layered reading experience that will leave you pondering long after the last page is turned.
A last stand. A last chance. Five years after the events of Partholon, a juggernaut Red Army bears down on what's left of the poorly led, underequipped, and abandoned US 1st Combined Arms Division, nicknamed the Ghosts. Victory is assured; America will fall. But Sergeant Collier Rashkil and his lover, the beautiful and ruthless Major Rosa Arce, are Ghosts. And Ghosts don't die. Trapped in the swamplands of south Jersey, the Ghosts maintain a thin line of defense, their survival dependent on the intelligence Rosa and Collier provide. But a reconnaissance mission goes very, very wrong, and Rosa discovers there is a traitor in their midst, one willing to sacrifice all their lives for a flawed Utopian vision. Based on an Irish legend, Tu'an is a hair-raising story of brutal combat, of betrayal, survival, and a love that no enemy, no war, not even death, can end.
Frank Vaughn trilogy · Book 2
Frank Vaughn Trilogy
Sometimes the past is better left buried "I bought the house," Butch says over the phone. Art Deats does not have to ask which one. His brother has been fixated on their childhood home deep in the swamps of lower Alabama ever since they fled the place in terror forty years ago. Has Butch lost his mind? The house is haunted. Let it rot! And then the fatal request: "I want you to come down here and help me fix it up."Butch, do not do this. Do not wake the dead.Against his better judgment, Art leaves his safe and predictable New Jersey life to help his brother restore the place. While he struggles to make the house livable again, Art's long suppressed memories are triggered as he discovers terrible secrets about his family. And that something more than ghosts haunts the place.Southern Gothic is the sequel to Frank Vaughn Killed by his Mom.
Twenty years after the events of Tu'an, Collier Rashkil runs an intelligence network out of an underground church in the northern Shenandoah Valley. A hundred miles or so south, Henry Price runs a smuggling ring. Neither is aware the other survived the horrific last stand of the Ghosts. Life is hard: Collier is proscribed; Henry is one step ahead of arrest and execution, yet both have a measure of contentment. But then an old enemy confronts Collier as a new enemy attacks Henry, and a war already lost threatens to reignite and finish them, their families, and what's left of the country.
Frank Vaughn Trilogy
Sometimes the past is better left buried “I bought the house,” Butch says over the phone. Art Deats does not have to ask which one. His brother has been fixated on their childhood home deep in the swamps of lower Alabama ever since they fled the place in terror forty years ago. Has Butch lost his mind? The house is haunted. Let it rot! And then the fatal request: “I want you to come down here and help me fix it up.” Butch, do not do this. Do not wake the dead.Against his better judgment, Art leaves his safe and predictable New Jersey life to help his brother restore the place. While he struggles to make the house livable again, Art's long suppressed memories are triggered as he discovers terrible secrets about his family. And that something more than ghosts haunts the place.Southern Gothic is the sequel to Frank Vaughn Killed by his Mom.
Frank Vaughn Trilogy · Book 3
What is Butch thinking? He joined the Air Force to escape New Jersey and now, look, one day out of basic training and he's tooling around the Pine Barrens in his Mom's car searching for his best friend, Don. It's like he never left. And he's still in big trouble: Pee Sea, the most notorious drug dealer in the state wants his head on a pike; his stepfather wants the car back and Butch gone; and his old girlfriend, April, wants to personally remove any body parts Pee Sea doesn't. If Butch could just find Don, then they could spend one last crazy night running the shore and the lakes and the mysterious, otherworldly swamplands before Butch has to report in. If he could just find him… Looking for Don is a Bruce Springsteen album, a wild ride through 1970's south Jersey as Butch runs into bike gangs, Pineys, the Jersey Devil… and even an old ghost from his childhood. Looking for Don is the third novel of the Frank Vaughn trilogy.
It's 1969. Man is on the moon. America is in Vietnam.And the Cryman stirs in the Alabama swamps, sniffs the air, and stalks the scent of troubled souls.Thirteen-year-old Aaron is the first to see the Cryman, and the first to suffer its wrath. He must choose between the Thorny Path of lust and vengeance, or the Dark Path of eternal loneliness. Either way, his life is forfeit, and he is desperate to save his beloved sister, who is drifting away from him with each passing hour, his annoying little brother, his distant and indifferent mother, even his violent and unpredictable dad. The increasing spiral of violence and horror threatens to engulf them all, as well as Aaron's friends, neighbors, and his brand-new girlfriend.No one gets out of this unscathed. Only a few get out alive.
Those Saturday night horror shows, hosted by the likes of Svengooli, Doctor Shock, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, left us peering under blankets as we watched the Wolfman, Frankenstein, and Dracula stalk the moors and castles of fogbound countrysides. They were our first monsters, the ones who informed and shaped the Freddies, the Jasons, and the Chucky's of today. Here then, are ten stories inspired by the classic movies that once scared us to death: 1. Aspects of a Traditional Vampire and the Need to Dispatch Same: the lore will save you.2. Come Live with Us Forever: the lore will not save you.3. Attitude Adjustment: the miracles of modern medicine 4. A Rose by Any Other Name: doesn't matter what you call them, they'll still kill you.5. Banshee: when it's time, it's time6. By the Light of the Silvery Moon: not always romantic7. There's Something Wrong with Wilfred: parts is parts8. Transparency: try not to be seen. 9. If I Had Known You Then: wait, just wait 10. Excalibur: some quests should be avoided
August 11, 2026
Good to meet you, D. Krauss. Before we dig into craft, I want to know the human first. Describe your writing life today. Where do you write, when do you write, and what's around you when you do?
I have a desk up on the second floor of my house covered with piled up books and reference material and unpaid bills and old checkbooks and discarded electronics and, oh yes, my writing laptop.
Let's set the scene a little before we dig in. If we replayed your last hour of writing, what would I actually see you doing?
Bouncing between X and Amazon music and Youtube and, occasionally, the WIP.
Settled in. Let me ask something more costly. What's the cost of a long writing career that nobody warned you about?
Well, I don't think 'career' actually applies to my situation, but if I had to name a cost, it would be how expensive this is.
Visit D's website to learn more.
