What’s Going On?

I’ll spare you all the “hey hey heys” and just say that what’s been going on is “a lot.” Besides the various personal stuff that I’ve already covered, my mom has been in and out of the hospital three times over the last month-and-a-half. The last time they resectioned a part of her colon, and we’re waiting to hear back on the prognosis, not about whether it was cancer (it was) but just how bad it was and what that means for the future. So that’s kept me away from here more than I’d like, and I’ve fallen behind a lot on the other stuff that’s been going on with me and my writing, so prepare for a bit of a dump of that stuff to try to get you all back up to date.

I already talked a bit about the fact that my story “Persistence of Vision,” which originally appeared in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse, will be reprinted in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Volume Seven. That’s obviously a big deal for me, but it’s by no means the only bit of publishing news I’ve gotten recently. So far in 2015 I’ve had stories in Scott R. Jones’ RESONATOR: New Lovecraftian Tales From Beyond, which is out now from Martian Migraine Press, as well as Sean Demory’s Slow Boat to Fast City and Ross Lockhart’s Giallo Fantastique, both of which officially street in May, but which are making their way out into the world as we speak. In fact, I just finished reading the latter volume, and I can say without bias that it is something special indeed. Possibly the best anthology yet by one of the best editors working today, it’s a surreal and heady cocktail of “strange stories at the intersection of crime, terror, and the supernatural.” Lockhart’s Word Horde press is on fire right now, having also just released Molly Tanzer’s debut novel Vermilion, which is currently sitting at the top of my to-read pile and getting glowing praise from outlets as prestigious as NPR.

I’ve also got stories forthcoming in Cthulhu Fhtagn! (also from Word Horde), Steve Berman’s Daughters of Frankenstein, and Gothic Lovecraft, edited by Lynne Jamnek and S.T. Joshi, as well as a few others I can’t mention just yet. On top of that, my nonfiction recently appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine and October Dreams 2 from Cemetery Dance, and I was asked by the folks at Valancourt Books to write an introduction to their reissue of Antique Dust by Robert Westall, one of my favorite writers. (It’s my second intro for them, after doing Benighted a couple of years ago.) And my first bit of writing for the Iron Kingdoms RPG–a Scoundrels & Sell-Swords piece bringing back a familiar face from my licensed novella Mutagenesis–just showed up in No Quarter #58.

Back to the subject of Word Horde for a moment, they’ll also be releasing my second collection, Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts, in October. Most stuff about it is under wraps for now, but I can tell you that it’s inspired by my love of horror cinema, and that the manuscript is complete and it’s out now to some pretty exciting people for possible blurbs and an introduction. More info about it should be forthcoming very soon!

In convention news, various factors have restricted my con budget quite a bit this year, but it turns out that I’ll be hanging around the World Horror Convention in Atlanta in a few weeks after all. I’ll probably mostly be barconning, but I’ll be around, and if you’re going to be in the area, definitely track me down and say hello! I may also be at ConQuest here in Kansas City later in May, but that hasn’t solidified yet. Again, I’ll likely be around, for sure, so if you’re going, feel free to drop me a line!

So yeah, I’ve been keeping busy, and there’s probably more news on the way sooner rather than later. Stay tuned!