About Jay
I'm really pretty simple. I like playing hockey, so a couple of times a week I get out to the rink and skate. I like tacos, so I try to shove as many in my mouth as I can whenever possible. And I like telling stories.
So I write.
I write to escape the real world, to redefine strangeness, to value human strengths, and explore human weaknesses. I fancy myself a horror writer. But the truth is the stories I tell usually take on a life of their own. Readers have called them “Surreal,” “Sentimental,” “Creepy,” and “Full of honest characters.”
I really like that last comment. As a trained social worker, I’m very aware of people, their problems, and their relationships. I try to reflect that experience in all of my stories, ensuring that the characters are relatable, even while trapped in an unrelatable world.
So, please scroll through, take a peek at some stories, and I hope you find something you can relate to.
Enjoy!
Silas
Complete, seeking representation/publication
Silas is the story of Police Officer Bryan Dreyfus. Convinced that a serial killer from thirty years ago has returned. Hacking and stacking families in Los Angeles. Bryan’s colleagues, the chief, even his wife are certain that he is wrong. Off his game. The memory of killing an innocent man impacting his decisions and theories. His increasingly impossible theories.
The killer taunts Bryan and his team. Leaving clues to mock their incompetence. And as Bryan’s theories grow wilder, those around him worry that he is now just trying to exorcise his own demon.
Bryan can’t argue. Because this time he believes the demon to be real.
The Great American Coward
Published by Golden Storyline Books, October 2021
Available at Golden Storyline and Amazon
The Great American Coward is a reality bending science fiction mystery from author Jay Bechtol.
A coffee shop in the middle of the city disappears overnight. And Myron Flynn, as far as he can tell, is the only one who notices. Unless, he worries, this is the way it’s always been. Myron is a loner, uncomfortable with relationships, fearful of others, and avoidant of confrontation. When he learns that the coffee shop is only the tip of the iceberg, and that more buildings, and potentially thousands of people are doomed to disappear, he is trapped between shifting realities and his own cowardice.
With the unexpected help of a feisty receptionist, Myron endeavors to find the courage to stop the two strange men bent on destroying his city, overcome his internal uncertainties, and, perhaps most frightening of all, develop a close relationship with another person.
The rules from the world he knew no longer apply, so Myron must depend on his own memories and the help of another to resolve the truth behind his own reality.
Quimmering Springs
Planned completion, Summer 2022
The little town high in the Sierra is dying. A slow death coming to a place born in the gold rush. Long time resident Jack Kincaid is the only person remaining and is determined not to let that happen. He's loyal to The Springs, where he was born and raised, and ready to protect it against a world that is moving on.
But there are forces working against him. Forces from the secret history of the town hidden beneath the bubbling waters of the hot springs.
Bad Reads, Inc.
Planned completion, Summer 2022
Carlton Wiley can read people. A skill he has parlayed into an mildly successful party trick while in college. But his heroin use, pending graduation, and apathy about the future have led him to the point where life as a "psychic" is about to be over.
That is until a video of one of his bad reads turns him into an overnight sensation, generating more attention than any of his other psychic reads. He finds himself being drawn deeper into his addiction while the results of his bad reads begin to come true.
Short Stories and Flash
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