Spring News Announcements!

Okay, okay… I should probably announce these things regularly, as they happen, but I’m going to dump all these little wins in one announcement:

I am thrilled to announce that IN EXCESS OF DARK has been picked up by DarkLit Press for publication early 2024! I was inspired to write this book after a camping trip last summer when some grotesque and completely bonkers images came to my head. Those tiny little daydreams spiraled into insanity and became this wild little beast of a novella. I was stoked to read the first chapter at Authorcon in Williamsburg last weekend, and I almost forgot how intense it starts right out of the gate… until the audience’s reaction.

Authorcon was a blast. I met so many wonderful people and got to chat with old friends. I’m still recovering from socialization overload and catching up on work, but I can’t recommend this con enough for the networking alone. I’m fortunate to live only an hour away, so it makes it easier for me to attend each year.

Speaking of next year, I will also have a novel releasing later in 2024, which I can’t say much about yet, but will have news soon! This one is a story about teen relationship abuse, told through the lens of a vampire tale. More details about the title and publisher to come. This story was inspired by true-life experiences (minus the vampires)—I bled all over the keyboard for this one.

This week, I’m wrapping up a novella which will be part of a collaboration with two other authors. It’s all hush-hush right now…

So many secrets to keep!!

Last week, Cemetery Gates Media released an anthology of mini-collections by Sara Tantlinger, Jessi Ann York, Corey Farrenkopf, and myself! Seasons of Severance has four of my short stories in it. One is a lesser-known reprint, and the other three are brand new! My mini-collection within has a story set in each season of the year and includes a springtime grief-stricken ghost story, a summertime cryptid cave dweller, an autumn culty arachnophobic tale, and a winter dive into the mind of a killer. These collected works play with themes of the passage of time: seasons, aging, a setting at different points in history, stages of life and death… It was an honor working with these authors.

I’ve recently signed a contract for a short story that will come later this year (announcement soon), AND I’m working on my first epistolary story for the Dead Letters anthology which will be edited by Jacob Steven Mohr and released through Crystal Lake Publishing. Submissions are currently open!

It’s been a wild year so far. I submitted my first piece of artwork to an open call and it was selected to be the cover! Watch for The Deeps from Spindle House Press.

Laurel Hightower’s Every Woman Knows This released earlier this month through my micropress Death Knell Press. It’s a kickass, feminist (but not man-hating) collection of dark fiction. It’s also the first single-author work that I published (that wasn’t my own), and I did the cover art and interior illustations.

In addition, I’ve been working behind the scenes with a group of Virginia authors—a collaboration of talent to put together an anthology of Virginia-based horror that will come out autumn 2023. Details with the final TOC to be announced through Death Knell Press later this month.

My TBR pile is topped with ARCs from authors who’ve asked me to review or blurb… and I found out yesterday that a blurb I gave for Michael Tyree’s The Pale Horse was used on the cover! What an honor! I’m currently reading Hungers As Old As This Land by Zachary Rosenberg, released through Brigids Gate Press, and it’s a phenomenal western horror! Who knew I could get into westerns?! Next on the TBR is Tiffany Michelle Brown’s collection, How Lovely To Be a Woman! Stoked to dive into this one.

There… I’ve updated my blog. I’ll try to do better about making announcements as they happen. But for now, I gotta get back to it:  Writing, creating, publishing, reading, and all the things.

Keep sticking your pokers into the fires and stir up some sparks! Who knows what’ll catch.