Reading

OUT NOW! Shrieks and Shivers from the Horror Zine!

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Shrieks and Shivers!

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I am very excited to see that Shrieks and Shivers from the Horror Zine’s paperback edition is out 3 days early! The Kindle edition will be out on the 6th, as well.

“The Horror Zine is the true home of today’s visceral, organic horror, and the stories in SHRIEKS AND SHIVERS reflect the courage and imagination with which Jeani Rector has sustained this genre for the past six years. Be prepared to encounter the grue in gruesome, not only brought to you by some very experienced butchers but by some fearless and inspired new dabblers in blood, entrails and other things too horrifying to mention.” – Graham Masterton

How’s that for a blurb? I am still in shock that one of my stories is included in the utterly fantastic line-up of authors in this anthology (Bentley Little, William F. Nolan, Tom Piccirilli, Elizabeth Massie, Tim Waggoner and Lisa Morton to only name a few!), and I hope you’ll pick up a copy and check it out.

There is also a limited edition hardback available through the Post Mortem Press website.

The release of this book marks the beginning of what I hope will be a great 2015.

 

Creepy Freebies 2014 – Black Pageant

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Creepy Freebies are upon us, and I’m celebrating by releasing a mini-collection! “Black Pageant: stories” is out today! Available on Smashwords and Amazon. 

Get it FREE until Nov. 1st 2014 on Smashwords with coupon code: KM25T

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I’ve bundled six of my stories into a mini-collection called “Black Pageant”, and from today until November 1st you can download the .mobi or .epub for FREE with the coupon code KM25T on Smashwords.

Table of Contents:

Compassion, During and After the Fall
Autumn in the Woods
The Black Pageant
The Sound of Rain
Resetting Alexandra
The Things That Came Up

That absolutely amazing cover was designed by my talented wife, Nathalie Cone.

The book is available for Kindle on Amazon as well. The free coupon only applies on Smashwords though!

I hope you enjoy the collection, and be sure to check out all the other Creepy Freebie stories, books and giveaways! Take a look around the other author sites listed below.

Creepy Freebies - Narrow

We Bought a House

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house

At the end of April my wife and I had an offer accepted on our first home, and we closed at the end of June. We’ve been in the new house for a little over a month now and it already feels like home, even if it doesn’t entirely look like it yet. After years of apartment living, it was a quick realization that getting an entire house furnished and finished looking is going to take a long, long time. It will be worth that wait though, I’m sure. One of my “must haves” during the search was a room of my own with a door, and this house provided it. I, at last, have a real writing office. It’s almost entirely done, and I only need some new bookshelves and a frame for a print I plan on hanging on the wall. I love having a place away from everything else in the house to focus and write.

The house buying process put a pretty large dent into my writing and submitting routine. Thankfully, now that the house is ours and we’re settling in, I am back to writing daily and submitting regularly. I’m nearly done with a new story that I’m especially happy with, and looking forward to polishing it up and sending it out.

No new acceptances to report, though two of my stories have been out for a while. One for 50+ days and another for 85+ days. I like both stories, and even if they don’t find homes where they are currently subbed, I’m confident I can find a place for them to live in time.

I’ve gotten a lot of reading done so far this year too. Some books I’ve especially enjoyed are: N0S4A2 by Joe Hill, Among Others by Jo Walton, and Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale. Only after writing that last sentence did it dawn on me that each of those authors is named Joe or Jo. I also really loved Douglas F. Warrick’s collection of short stories, Plow the Bones, and Helen Marshall’s Hair Side, Flesh Side. Both are wonderful collections of dark fiction.

The Girl on the Glider and Other Stories

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GirlGlider
I recently read Brian Keene’s The Girl on the Glider after seeing the title pop up over and over on my Twitter feed. Each tweet was raving about it, and eventually I had to check it out. The GoodReads description is:

The Girl on the Glider is Brian Keene’s take on the traditional, old-fashioned ghost story. This might be Keene’s most personal — and powerful — work to date. This book is a must-have for every Keene fan, along with fans of classic horror tales told with a new twist.

I read this in a single sitting, alone at my house while my wife was working late, and by the time I was finished I was depressed, quite frightened, and incredibly inspired. This story left me with that same terror I felt in my bones while reading The Haunting Of Hill House for the first time. Brian experiences many paranoid, haunting things during the course of the story, juxtaposed against the stress and struggle of living the lonely life of a full-time writer. It’s not a very long read, and I highly recommend it. He touches on many of the struggles he’s had in his writing life, which he also discusses in a recent blog post. Check it out on his website.

Some stories I’ve read recently that I loved:

Shimmer #16 came out last week. This entire issue was wonderful. In terms of January story collections, this is a must have.

I loved January 8th’s Daily Science Fiction story, The Remnant by Cassie Beasley. I generally enjoy most of the stories that show up in my inbox from DSF, but this one really stood out to me this month. I read it the day it was released, and I can’t get the ending out of my head.

The Cancer Catechism by Jay Lake  – Jay Lake’s story in this anthology is breathtakingly personal and terrifying. It left me in tears and stands out as one of the greatest short stories I’ve read in recent memory. Read more about Jay Lake, his work, and his battle with cancer at his blog. http://www.jlake.com

Chew by Tamsyn Muir over at Nightmare Magazine. Great, dark story–though the entire issue is fantastic.

Looking forward to the first of the month, when many of these publications and others release their next issues. Always a great week.

What am I up to?

Hoping to finish a new novelette by next week. It’s a reworking of a story I’ve been trying to write for a while now, and I think I’ve finally settled on how to tell it.

The Ravens are in the Super Bowl, which is very exciting.

I’ve been catching up on a lot of Doctor Who, as well as gorging myself on episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Bought plane tickets for my annual trip to Boston for PAX East with my brother. It’s one of my favorite highlights of the year, though my feet generally hate me by Sunday afternoon.

Other than that, a lot of reading and writing.