"Hobgoblin" is a short, but not very sweet, story that explores just how a creature such as a hobgoblin might come to exist. I had some fun thinking about the power of names and of miscommunication between folks of very different backgrounds for this one. It most recently appears in Whigmaleeries & Wives' Tales from Jayhenge Publishing, published in September 2020. Whigmaleeries & Wives' Tales is a collection of over 400 pages on new fairy tale takes - or retellings of lost knowledge, if you'd like. 😉 You can purchase it here at Amazon, in ebook or paperback formats.

That anthology is "Hobgoblin's" second printing - it was a runner-up for the Fall 2017 WOW! Women on Writing Flash Fiction contest, and it was published by WOW! Women on Writing in February 2018.

You can read Hobgoblin in full at this link. Here are the first few lines to entice:

Hobgoblin, they name me. The word’s consonance fills me with venom. If squeezed together on the page, the letters would ooze disgust: hob. . . gob . . . lin. It’s a corruption of my time-honored service and an insult to my squat and sturdy frame. To call me that and wonder why I torment them? I feel the evidence is plain.

Also, I was interviewed on the Muffin Blog about writing Hobgoblin. Check that out here.

And some photographic inspiration...