At the end of every year, writers on Twitter post threads listing everything they published in the last twelve months. I think it’s a neat idea, a way to reflect on any accomplishments you may have made, and also point folks in the right direction of anything they might have missed (haha, imagine the ego I would need to have to actually believe this). However, I can also see the harm here, that someone’s accomplishments might make someone else feel like a failure. Let me just add a quick disclaimer: Despite having a few things published here and there, I still actively ache for nonexistence. There is nothing in this world that will make me not feel like a failure in the longterm. And, you know what, maybe that’s okay.
Anyway here are some things from 2019.
BOOKS
Carnivorous Lunar Activities came out in February from Fangoria. What’s memorable about this novel is, on the drive up to Dallas for the official book launch, I was involved in a massive car accident that completely destroyed my vehicle. I refused hospital treatment and still attended the event. It’s probably not the last time I will give a public reading with a concussion. Let’s hope it’s not, anyway. Buy it from an indie bookstore.
I also sold my next novel, Touch the Night, to a dream publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications. I haven’t posted on the blog about it yet because my greatest skill in this life is procrastination, but yup, sold that motherfucker to CD back in…June? July? Sometime in the summer. It’s coming out “early summer 2020” in a limited edition hardback and eBook. I kept the paperback rights, so I’ll probably self-publish that particular edition around August through my Perpetual Motion Machine label. There are still copies of the limited edition hardcover available if you want to pre-order it.
SHORT STORIES
“Munchausen” – The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias – May 2019
“A Nervous Sleep” – Horror for RAICES – December 2019
“He Blew His Load” – Forbidden Futures #6 – December 2019
Actually not very many short story publications in 2019, in comparison to previous years. Honestly, I haven’t been writing many lately. I did sell two other stories for anthologies that were meant to be released this year; however, both of those projects were eventually cancelled.
Fiction wise, in 2019, I’ve mostly been fucking around with a crime novel I now fear is doomed, and a novella set entirely in a bathroom (which I might be done with? not sure yet. but maybe?). I also started shopping around a story collection, but so far no bites.
ANTHOLOGIES
2019 was the year I lost my fucking mind and co-edited Tales from the Crust: An Anthology of Pizza Horror with David James Keaton, which I published through my Perpetual Motion Machine label. You can buy it here if that’s something you’re interested in for some reason.
PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE
Speaking of PMMP, I edited and published several other titles in 2019, which are all worth your time more than anything I actually wrote, and those include The Eight Eyes That Watch You Die by W. P. Johnson and Born in Blood by George Daniel Lea–plus, let’s not forget four new issues of our horror quarterly, Dark Moon Digest. Lots more to come in 2020, but this isn’t a post about 2020. It’s a retrospective, goddammit!
NON-FICTION
I’m actually getting tired with this post already, so I’m going to cheat and link to my author profiles on the three usual online venues that publish my non-fiction: LitReactor, CrimeReads, and the San Antonio Current. I also had a piece about the history of stop motion published by Fangoria via Birth.Movies.Death.
I am probably forgetting something. That’s okay. My coffee cup needs to be refilled and PMMP books need to be proofed and the latest issue of Dark Moon Digest needs to be edited and articles need to be written and the slush pile needs to be conquered and podcasts need to be recorded and a top secret non-fiction book needs to be researched and I have to blow my goddamn nose.