“A proud and meaningless association”

It’s been a few weeks, but as you probably already know, February has been keeping us busy around here. Fortunately, we’ve had no more organ-related disasters for a few days, Grace has been recovering quickly and should go back to work next week, and I’ve gotten a bit of good news to help offset the bad. For starters, I’ll be a guest at the second annual Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird, which will be held at the freaking Winchester Mystery House on March 24! There’s an IndieGoGo live right now where you can get tickets, pick up cool books, and what-have-you!

Astute readers will recall that I was a guest at last year’s Symposium, as well, and it was a hell of a good time. This one promises to be even better, and I have it on good authority that I’m already the person earmarked to go missing on the tour of the Winchester Mystery House, so everything is coming up Milhouse.

That’s the good news. Here’s the better news: Ellen Datlow selected my story “The Granfalloon” for volume ten of her Best Horror of the Year anthology series! This marks my second time appearing one of Ellen’s Best Horror anthos, and I could not be prouder! (“Persistence of Vision” appeared in volume seven back in 2015.)

I’m particularly happy that “The Granfalloon” was selected, as it’s a story that I tinkered with for literally years before finally finding the right set of pieces to make it work. The story previously appeared in Darker Companions, a Ramsey Campbell tribute anthology from PS Publishing, edited by Scott David Aniolowski and Joe Pulver. I’m extremely grateful to Scott and Joe for giving my story a home in the first place, and to Ellen for selecting it for the Best Horror of the Year. You can bet that you’ll hear more about that as it gets closer to publication. For now, I’ll leave you with a peek at the cover, with art by Chenthooran Nambiarooran: