February Newsletter

January was a very productive month! As some of you may know, I finished the first drafts for both short stories I’ve been working on. The Medieval story needs extensive rewriting, so it might be a little while before it’s ready. However, the Blackwater piece should be done in the next week or two.

My plan was to start on the serial once I finished the other drafts, but I got sidetracked by the new Macabre Monday Wicked Writing Contest. I’m working on the first draft of a new classical music themed short story for that, but I promise I’ll get back to the serial once that’s done (Please feel free to hold me to said promise).

What I’m reading (new section):

• The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies, by John Langan.

  • The stories in this anthology were hit and miss for me, but there were a few outstanding entries. ‘Technicolor’ was just brilliant from start to finish, but ‘City of the Dog’ and ‘Mother of Stone’ were excellent as well. I also loved the part at the end where he talked about the inspiration for each story. It would be great if more authors did this.

• 1177 B.C.: the year civilization collapsed, by Eric H. Cline

  • I’m not quite done with this one, but it’s actually really engaging for a nonfiction book about ancient history. The author combines archaeology and primary sources (ie, clay tablets) to paint a vivid picture of the Bronze Age societies of the Mediterranean and Near East.

• The Dark Descent (anthology)

  • This massive volume of horror short stories has taken me the better part of a year to read through, and I’m still not done yet. There’s a nice mixture of well known stories and ones I’ve never read before. Some of my favorites so far have been ‘The Summer People’ by Shirley Jackson, ‘Sticks’ by Karl Edward Wagner, and ‘Bright Segment’ by Theodore Sturgeon. I’m pretty sure the anthology is out of print, but it’s worth looking for a used copy.

• A Town Called Evening, by Substack’s own M.E. Beckley.

  • This story is still in the process of being serialized, but I’ve really been enjoying it so far. You don’t often see a gothic story with a western (US) setting, but it actually works really well.