Fast Away the Old Year Passes

I said last time that you might not hear from me until it was 2022 and, well, we’re pretty close. But I just needed to pop in and say a few things about what’s been going on around here since my last post, perhaps most notably to point out the culmination of that last surprise I mentioned back then.

My latest story went live at Pseudopod on Christmas Eve. Unlike most of the others that I’ve had performed there over the years, this one is an original that has never before been published anyplace else. It’s the result of my attempt to write something like a traditional “ghost story for Christmas,” one that takes place – or, at least, culminates – on Christmas Eve.

Except that this is me, and so it isn’t really a ghost story, in the proper sense, and is more of a monster story, about a weird bug that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. As always, Pseudopod has done a dynamite job of producing the audio, and Alasdair, as always, manages to tease out the themes of the story so elegantly in his intro and outro that I don’t really have anything to add. So, if you missed it, check out “The Humbug” at Pseudopod now.

If you don’t do audio fiction, no worries. You can also read it on their site and it’ll be in my next collection, which is due out from Word Horde in 2022. Aside from that, I haven’t gotten up to much since I last posted here, save for holiday stuff and the usual work. However, as the candle of 2021 gutters and burns its last, the days of Best of the Year lists have begun.

Due to the weirdness of the Plague Times, I once again won’t have the usual installments at various places, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t hear about some of my favorite things of the past year at Signal Horizon and Unwinnable. In fact, one has already appeared, as I wrote about Jonathan Raab’s The Secret Goatman Spookshow, which was my favorite read of 2021, among a bunch of other contributors over at Unwinnable.

To see the rest (including my favorite new movie that I saw in 2021 – I’ll give you three guesses), just keep an eye on my social media and until then, I’ll see you in the future!