Okay, time to just admit it: I dropped the ball on this whole Countdown to Halloween thing this year. It’s only four more days ’til Halloween, and I’ve managed to post all of three times this month. October has been a weirdly busy and stressful month, for a variety of reasons that aren’t very interesting to go into here, but rather than wallow in my own crapulence shortcomings, I’ll instead settle for dropping some news items on you before the month is out:

• While the limited-run print edition of Gardinel’s Real Estate sold out within the first couple of weeks, artist M.S. Corley and I have released a digital version on Gumroad. You can pay as little as $2, or as much as you’d like, if you’re feeling generous. While it may not be as cool as getting the print edition, hopefully it’s the next best thing for those of you who missed out.
• The Nickronomicon–a vile tome of Lovecraftian tales from author Nick Mamatas and publisher Innsmouth Free Press, for which I wrote the introduction–is currently available for pre-order on the cheap, and the pre-order sale has been extended through Halloween, so if you want to grab a copy, now’s the time.
• Also available for pre-order is Letters to Lovecraft from Stone Skin Press, edited by my good friend Jesse Bullington, and featuring my story “Lovecrafting,” which is probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever written.
• While I’m on the subject of stories, I can officially announce that I sold my story “The Red Church” to Ross Lockhart over at Word Horde for his forthcoming anthology Giallo Fantastique, which I can assure you is going to be every bit as awesome as that title suggests.
• For many of the same reasons that I haven’t managed to post more frequently this month, I actually haven’t seen many seasonally-appropriate movies in theatres, in spite of a wealth of great programming from local powerhouses the Alamo Drafthouse KC and the Screenland Armour. However, I did go out to an advance screening of Ouija and wrote up a review for Downright Creepy.
• Lest I am making my October sound too drab, however, today’s mail brought me an early birthday present in the form of the Subterranean Press slipcased hardcover editions of Clive Barker’s The Books of Blood. No contest, there has never been another original single author collection that had a bigger impact on my formation as a writer, and I’ve been waiting for a full, six-volume hardcover set of The Books of Blood what feels like my entire life. And of course, it couldn’t come at a better time of year, though it may be November before I get to do much more than admire them on my shelf.

A bunch of other stuff has been going on to keep me hopping during this spookiest of all seasons, and around everything else I’ve managed to watch a few movies and take some long walks and one long drive amid the changing foliage, so all is not lost. I’ll try to fit another post in before November 1, but in case I don’t, I’ll see you all on the other side of All Hallow’s, at the beginning of ghost story weather…