February Newsletter

Welcome back, all!

I’ve been working hard on the novella this month. Currently, I’m at a little over 9k words, and I have a pretty good idea of how the next couple of chapters will go. The goal is still 30k words, but I honestly have no idea how long this thing will end up being. Especially since I’ll probably rewrite most of it before it’s ready for anybody else to read.

I also found out that the story I submitted to the Storyletter last month has been accepted! I’ve never actually had anything published in print before, so I’m beyond excited. The story will be published here on Halcyon Horror either later this year or early next year, but I need to wait until six months after the anthology is published. Until then, I’ll just keep working on the novella and maybe doing some flash and microfiction here in the meantime. As always, I very much appreciate your patience. I’ll do my best to make this novella worth the wait.

What I’m reading:

Iran: a Modern History, by Abbas Amanat

I was expecting this book to be somewhat dry and academic, but it’s actually fairly engaging. It starts with the founding of the Safavid empire in 1501 and ends with the late 20th century. I’ve learned a lot about Iranian history from this book so far. The only downside is that I’ve been listening to the audiobook, so I have no idea how some of these names and places are spelled.

The Stand, by Stephen King

Believe it or not, this is actually my first time reading this book. I’m a few hundred pages in, and so far I think it’s one of King’s better novels. But wow, the story sure hits differently when you’ve actually experienced a global pandemic.

Take Me There: a Speculative Anthology of Travel, by various authors, but edited by Winston Malone

I was lucky enough to get the lovely box set of this book last year, but only recently got a chance to sit down and start reading it. One of the things I really like about this anthology is how different the stories are from each other. They’re tied together by the common theme of travel, but that theme is interpreted in vastly different ways. I’m glad I have a hard copy of this one, because it’s definitely a keeper.