My second child August is the reason I started submitting my stories to publishers. I have him to blame for all the time and effort spent on what is essentially a futile act with sporadic blips of success which are really trivial in the grand scheme of publishing.

August turns 7 in a couple of days (June 28^th), and his birth in 2010 is why I started this whole messy exercise. I also turned 40 that year, and that churned up some angst over having never pursued a writing career. I knew I was too old and had no insight into the literary world—didn’t mingle with or even know any authors; no desire to go onto podcasts and talk about my work; no interest in attending conventions much less schmoozing with other writers and publishers at said conventions. Never heard of Clarion or workshops until recently. I don’t talk about my personal life. My career. My education. My interests beyond the obvious. I just write and submit.

Rinse. Repeat.

That’s all I can do.

I wrote, and actually started e-mailing stories in Spring of 2011. A few found a home. My first two stories were received at professional and semi-professional rates, though they didn’t inspire any agent to contact me or a barrage of fan mail. So I kept writing. Submitting,

Rinse. Repeat.

My collection Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales was released in July of 2015. It’s nearly two-years old—ancient history in the small press world. But I’m proud of what little attention it received, as well as its ability to intrigue new readers. Still no agent or barrage of fan mail, but every couple of months I receive an e-mail or PM asking me details about characters in various tales, whether this story was a reference to that idea, how that story impacted this reader’s life, and how this story eerily mirrored that reader’s life. I’ve been told the stories were scary, unforgetttable, challenging. Indispensable.

2017 saw (or will see) more of my stories in the wild than any other year: “Engines of the Ocean” in Shadows & Tall Trees v. 7; the Dim Shores chapbook “Palladium at Night”; “SPARAGMOS” in Looming Low; “The Bruised Veil” in Phantasm/Chimera; “The Anthroparian Integration Technique” in Walk on the Weird Side; and “The World is Waiting for the Sunrise” in Would But Time Await: An Anthology of New England Folk Horror. There may be a few more this year, but some stories are stuck in limbo. It has been a good year as far as publishing goes (terrible in all other aspects, but that’s another essay).

Six years in on this writing adventure and I’ve not made much of an impact, but I’ve picked up a lot of cynicism and diminished expectations along the way. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I do think my writing is difficult, and not always as entertaining or escapist as many horror readers want their fiction to be. Yeah, that sounds pretentious, but I’ll stand by it.

That’s all I can do.

No, the big names in the small indie fiction world aren’t whispering my name with reverence—hell, I’d be amazed if the Laird Barrons, or the likes of Gemma Files, or Paul Tremblay have even heard of me, much less read anything of mine. But that was never the goal here, if goal there ever was. I just try to write each story a bit better than the previous one and hope publishers will like it so fresh eyes can experience my work. I’ve been extremely fortunate, for the immensely talented authors and gracious readers who’ve offered feedback on my stories have done so with so much passion, intelligence, and enthusiasm I’m forever grateful.

So happy birthday August. I love you more than life itself.

That’s all I can do.

Very happy to say that my story “The Anthroparian Integration Technique” will appear in Joe Pulver’s Walk on the Weird Side anthology. Nick Gucker has provided a fantastic cover, and this is a list of the authors known to be involved at this point, though more may follow:

Nadia Bulkin, S.P. Miskowski, Kristi DeMeester, Matthew M. Bartlett, Ann K. Schwader,Mike Griffin, Craig L. Gidney, Farah R Smith, Peter Rawlik, Ashley Dioses, Nathan Carson, Jon Padgett, Rebecca J. Allred, Starry Wizdom, Rhys Hughes, John Claude Smith, Michael Wehunt, AnnaTambour, Christopher Slatsky, Scott Thomas, Tom Lynch, Cody Goodfellow, Robert Levy, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Philip Fracassi, and Maura McHugh.

I’ve two new stories on the way that I haven’t hawked on my site enough, so here goes:

The first is my chapbook novelette Paladium at Night from Sam Cowan’s Dim Shores. It’s up for preorder, and should be out in the world in a couple of weeks. If weird NASA, Jack Parsons, varied perceptions of time, and dogs are your thing, you may enjoy this one. If not, you’ll have a gorgeous Dave Felton cover and interior art to appreciate. Sam Cowan and Dave Felton are two of the kindest, most talented folks I’ve had the good fortune to work with, and I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate them both.

“The Bruised Veil” will appear this August in Scott Dwyer‘s anthology Phantasm/Chimera. My story asks, “What does cultural anthropology, Kuchisake-onna, Bronzeville, Manzanar, and the Black Dahlia murder have in common?” I’m humbled to be with such company, and Scott Dwyer is such a passionate and intelligent aficionado of weird horror, I’m elated to have been accepted into his book.

The TOC is as follows:

I’m behind on my story announcements, so I’ll start to catch up by saying I’m absolutely delighted that my short story, “The Anthroparian Integration Technique,” will appear in the incomparable Joe Pulver’s WALK ON THE WEIRD SIDE, a charity anthology to benefit the NecronomiCon Providence convention. I don’t believe the TOC is finalized yet, but I know it will include stories from Jon Padgett,  John Claude Smith, Michael Wehunt, Nadia Bulkin, S.P. Miskowski, Mike Griffin, Kristi DeMeester, Matthew M. Bartlett, Philip Fracassi, Ann K. Schwader,  Craig L. Gidney, Farah Rose Smith, Peter Rawlik, Ashley Dioses, Nathan Carson, Rebecca J. Allred, Rhys Hughes, Anna Tambour, Cody Goodfellow, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy,  and Maura McHugh. Exalted company indeed!

And I hear that the cover art will be by the incredibly talented Nick Gucker…

Scott Dwyer’s excellent The Plutonian blog has an interview with one of my major influences, Adam Golaski. I cannot emphasize how much Worse Than Myself motivated me to start submitting my own work to publishers for consideration. Well worth a read.

Pleased to announce that my story “SPARAGMOS” will appear in Sam Cowan and Justin Steele’s LOOMING LOW. It’s Dim Shores’ first anthology, and I’m absolutely humbled to be included in such a line-up.

Nadia Bulkin — “Live Through This”
Michael Cisco — “Rock n’ Roll Death Squad”
Kristi DeMeester — “The Small Deaths of Skin and Plastic”
Brian Evenson — “The Second Door”
Kurt Fawver — “The Convexity of Our Youth”
Gemma Files — “Distant Dark Places”
Richard Gavin — “Banishments”
Craig Laurance Gidney — “Mirror Bias”
Michael Griffin — “The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun”
Lisa Hannett — “Outside, a Drifter”
Livia Llewellyn — “The Gin House”
Anya Martin — “Boisea trivittata”
Daniel Mills — “The Christiansen Deaths”
S.P. Miskowski — “Alligator Point”
Sunny Moraine — “We Grope Together, and Avoid Speech”
Scott Nicolay — “When the Blue Sky Breaks”
Betty Rocksteady — “Dusk Urchin”
Christopher Slatsky — “SPARAGMOS”
Lucy Snyder — “That Which Does Not Kill You”
Simon Strantzas — “Doused by Night”
Jeffrey Thomas — “Stranger in the House”
Damien Angelica Walters — “This Unquiet Space”
Brooke Warra — “Heirloom”
Kaaron Warren — “We Are All Bone Inside”
Michael Wehunt — “In Canada”
A.C. Wise — “The Stories We Tell About Ghosts”

In 1900, Talent Oregon, renowned medium Helen Powell is called upon to perform a seancé before a small gathering. But none of the participants involved imagined that communicating with the dead would herald the demise of the World. “From a People of Strange Language” is my first one-act play, and more importantly, my first Aron Wiesenfeld cover (“Snow as a Girl”).

Soon to be released:

Very pleased that Sam Cowan of Dim Shores will be publishing my novelette “Palladium at Night” in a limited edition chapbook come this summer. Truth be told, I’m rather overwhelmed at the prospect of working with a publisher who has released such stellar chapbooks from several authors I highly respect. My story is a weird horror science-fiction piece inspired in part by the works of Bob Leman and everyone’s favorite mad scientist Jack Parsons. Final edits and fine-tuning are imminent, and the grueling decision for the cover art is in progress…

(art by Nick Wanserski)

It has been a  wretched year politically, and not so hot when it comes to health, career, and the writing front. I didn’t get much out there, though I seem to be averaging about four stories a year–a pittance compared to what I see others doing. But those publications I made it into were of such quality I’m very pleased to have been a part of them. Quantity over quality. At least that’s what I keep telling myself!

I was typing up a list of names to thank, but it became too extensive and I fear I’d leave someone out. So suffice it to say those I have in mind are probably aware I have them in mind, and if not, life is that much more interesting with ambiguity. So a big thank you to those who made 2016 better than it had any right to be!