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!

THE SECRET OF VENTRILOQUISM offers up nine nightmarish tales that touch upon body horror, philosophical terror, the mystery of puppets, and an accumulation of dread that at times threatens to become all consuming. Each tale is connected in what feels more like a shared nightmare than geographical shared-world, overlapping and referencing places and names and incidents, accentuating the sensation that the reader is being yanked down into a chasm of the author’s design. The whole effect is one of a sleeper unable to wake from encroaching nightmares. What an astonishingly exciting debut.

The limited edition hardback with gorgeous Dave Felton art is sold out, but the trade paperback can be pre-ordered from Dunhams Manor Press, and the volume should also be available via Amazon by the end of the month.

Contains:

Introduction by Matt Cardin

The Mindfulness of Horror Practice

Murmurs of a Voice Foreknown

The Indoor Swamp

Origami Dreams

20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism

Infusorium

Organ Void

The Secret of Ventriloquism

Escape to Thin Mountain

I can’t possibly cover every title I read in 2016, even if I narrowed it down to my favorites. But what I can do is emphasize the books that I was not only captivated by, but those that deserve a much wider audience than someone as unknown as I am capable of gathering. But I have to do my small part…

Kristine Ong Muslim’s Age of Blight is a wonderful collection, full of brief, strange and poetic vignettes. The slim volume is separated by four sections: Animals, Children, Instead of Human, and the Age of Blight.

Animals, as the name implies, focuses on non-human creatures. With references to Harry Harlow’s infamous experiments (“The Wire Mother”), and the first creature to orbit Earth (“The Ghost of Laika Encounters a Satellite”), these give an idea of the atmosphere Muslim creates. And while these stories happen to be the two I found to be the most poignant, they all left a profound impression.

Children explores the world of childhood cruelty, fears and superstition. “The Playground” and “Dominic and Dominic” stayed with me fervently, though again, they all linger in various degrees.

Instead of Human includes a harrowing depiction of disease and entropy, “There’s No Relief as Wondrous as Seeing Yourself Intact,” highlighting Muslim’s uniquely skill in amalgamating philosophical concepts, science fiction, and emotional turmoil. This is merely one example I chose to convey how compelling the whole thing is, but I’ll move to the next.

The Age of Blight’s stories conclude by depicting an End of the World scenario by asteroid impact. I could ramble on and on, but I’ll conclude by saying that “The First Ocean” alone is such a powerful depiction of cosmic terror I’m not sure I can come up with anything comparable.

Every story here offers its own apocalyptic and grim view of humanity’s brutality, while remaining emotionally profound and haunting the reader long after finishing the book. Each tale works as its own, concise, potent thing, but the cumulative effect of the collection builds like a catalytic reaction. A brilliant collection.