Category Archives: Blog

Works in progress (December 2020 update)

I’m going to start providing brief updates for the books I’m currently writing. Why? Because it’s a nice distraction from actually working on the books. Another reason why, you ask? I don’t know. I want to keep this blog updated more frequently and this seems like an easy way to do that. A third reason why? Holy shit. What are you, a cop? Okay, I guess maybe if I put this stuff out in the wild, it’ll work as more incentive to actually finish them, otherwise it’s going to start feeling awfully depressing when each project doesn’t significantly jump ahead after so long.

Okay, so with that said, here are the books I’m currently working on, and their current word counts:

  • Casanova Curbstomp – 56,000 words
  • Maggots Screaming! – 25,000 words
  • Expect Radioactivity – 21,000 words
  • Hushpuppy – 14,000 words
  • Secret Cemetery Dance Coffee Table Book – still in the research phase

To provide further insight on these projects (which I don’t intend on doing with every update), Casanova Curbstomp is my attempt at a sleazy crime novel. Something that maybe Hard Case Crime might publish (guess where I intend on submitting it). I anticipate maybe another 20,000 to go on this one. I’m been working on it for a couple years now, off and on. Sometimes I think it’s the worst book I’ve ever written, but then I remember I feel that way about everything I write at a certain point.

Maggots Screaming! is my ode to body horror. It’s gross and delightful and just…completely repulsive. And before you ask, the exclamation mark on the title is not a typo. I think maybe I’m at the halfway mark on this book, or almost to the halfway mark.

Expect Radioactivity is my Big Novel. I fear it might exceed 200,000 words by the time it’s finished. I don’t want to say anything about it other than it takes place in the 1950s.

Hushpuppy is kind of a bildungsroman about my early teenage years growing up in a hotel next to a casino. Every time I work on it I get very sad. I think it’s probably end up being one of my best books. I have no idea how long it’ll be or when I’ll finish.

And, obviously, I can’t say anything about the secret Cemetery Dance coffee table book, other than it’s a coffee table book, and it’ll be released through Cemetery Dance. Oh, and also, I’m collaborating on it with Matthew Revert.

I’m also working on various scripts, short stories, and articles, but those aren’t as fun to tease.

I’ll do a bigger post later, but I recently quit my day job to write full-time. It is my goal to have all of these novels (except for maybe Expect Radioactivity) finished by December 2021. Without the hotel job in my life, I feel like this is more than possible. I’m doing things to limit other distractions, which I’ll save for another blog post. I have probably talked enough here. If you’ve read everything I’ve written and find yourself hungry for more Booth books, these are what you can look forward to someday in the future. If you’ve never read anything I’ve written and only found this website by googling something porn-related, I apologize but there is nothing sexy on this website, and you’ve come to the wrong place. Unless your fetish is WIP updates, then holy shit, prepare to ejaculate, buddy.

People I wish were in THE AMERICANS

Adam Driver, Jimmi Simpson, CCH Pounder, Michael Shannon, Maya Rudolph, Pam Grier, John Goodman, Samm Levine, Alison Brie (as “Zoya the Destroya” from GLOW), Michael K. Williams, Ruth Negga, Christina Hendricks, Benicio del Toro, Pat Healy, Michael Cera (trust me on this), Harvey Keitel (as “The Wolf” from Pulp Fiction), Ray Romano, Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, other people named Jesse/Jessie, Tom Waits, Margo Martindale (I know she’s already in it, but she’s not in every episode, and that’s a big problem for me), Jeremy Davies, Rosario Dawson, Danny McBride, Elliot Page, Michael Rapaport, Jada Pinkett Smith, Donal Logue, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson (in the same episode), Paul F. Tompkins (as a soviet spy who loves improv comedy), Paul Dano, River Phoenix (would have probably been difficult to do), Daniel “Danny” DeVito, Danny “Daniel Day” Lewis, Julia Garner, Alfred Molina, John Turturro, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elisabeth Moss, Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, David Cross, and Nicolas Cage (as “Charlie Kaufman” from Adaptation).

“SATAN HIS OWN SELF” – a short film I wrote and directed

Last year, toward the end of 2019, I spent two glorious nights making a short film with some of my best pals: Andrew Hilbert, Miguel Villa, and Trey Hudson. We filmed on location at Radio Coffee and Beer after normal business hours. To make the movie, we used an Audio-Technica AT875R Line/Gradient Shotgun Condenser Microphone ($183), a DJI Osmo Mobile 2 Gimbal ($138), and the FilmicPro app ($15) on my iPhone Xs. Minus the cost of my phone, which I already had, our budget totaled out to $336. The Gimbal was defective, actually, and kept giving me trouble, so I ended up returning it for a full refund after we wrapped shooting, so the budget was even lower than that.

Here’s a photo of me Andrew took while he was sprawled across a duct tape pentagram, mostly naked:

After Andrew and I finished editing the short film several months later (life got in the way), we submitted it to several fests, and then…the world ended. Some fests continued virtually, some cancelled altogether. Either way, none of the places we submitted to decided to use the film, which is why we decided to say fuck it and release it ourselves via YouTube. Here’s the very fun poster Lori Michelle made for the festival submissions:

At this point, there’s really no reason to keep it a secret or anything. I desperately miss hanging out with the people who helped me make this short film, and rewatching it again lately was a nice way to spend 15 minutes. We had been in the process of mapping out a new short film to make just before COVID hit, so hopefully sometime next year when things start to calm down, we can get back on the short film train, because goddammit this was a total blast.

So here ya go. Here’s “Satan His Own Self” for your enjoyment. If you like it, please give it a thumbs-up thing on YouTube, maybe subscribe to my channel, and–hell–why not give it a share on your own social media accounts? Tag me on Twitter @GiveMeYourTeeth.

“Satan His Own Self” Written & Directed by Max Booth III

Edited by Andrew Hilbert & Max Booth III

Boom Operator – Miguel Villa

“The Bartender” – Andrew Hilbert

“Satan’s BFF” – Trey Hudson

“War on the Colorado” performed by Jack and the Hacks

Excerpt – TOUCH THE NIGHT

My new novel, Touch the Night, comes out on June 16th, which is…very soon. Cemetery Dance is publishing the eBook and limited edition signed hardcover, while I’ll be releasing the paperback edition myself. Here are the two covers for the book, both designed by Dyer Wilk (the paperback edition cover also featuring a collaboration with Matthew Revert):

Cemetery Dance Cover
Paperback Cover

Before I get to the excerpt promised in this blog entry’s title, here’s how you can order the book:

Limited Edition Signed HC | Signed Paperback | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Bookshop.org

Okay!

Now let’s read the first chapter, shall we?


SATURDAY

OCTOBER 22, 2005

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Josh hears his friend but he doesn’t respond. He can’t. Alonzo’s mom moaning in the next room has him fully mesmerized. He’s helpless to the sound and he wouldn’t want it any other way, except maybe to be the one in the room with her. To be the required sacrifice for her forbidden ritual.

It doesn’t matter that it’s past midnight, that Josh’s parents would kill him if they found out he snuck outside, that they’d never let him stay at Alonzo’s again. His dad would beat his ass and ask him if he was stupid, ask if he’d paid attention at all to the stories they read about other black kids his age wandering the night, minding their own business. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t doing nothing bad.

“Josh?” Alonzo says, raising his voice. “I know you’re awake, man.”

Elsewhere in the house, Alonzo’s mom continues to moan. Bedsprings rattle in perpetual motion. It’s the loudest noise in the world, and Josh is in love. He wants to fall asleep to the sound of Alonzo’s mom like it’s his own lullaby. He wants to live in this sound for the rest of his life.

So he remains corpse-still, silently begging Alonzo to give up the idea and go to sleep. If Josh doesn’t say anything, then that means he didn’t hear the question, and if he didn’t hear the question then he isn’t chicken, he’s just tired.

They lie in Alonzo’s room—Josh on the floor, Alonzo on his own bed—listening to the strange, wonderful, scary sounds from the other room. The blue screen on the television set atop the corner dresser showers them in its radiance. The credits of the last movie they watched stopped rolling at least ten minutes ago. Josh had read every name involved, every role required to give a movie its magic, memorizing every character, but he’s already forgotten the majority of them save for the main stars. He looks at other, different stars now—pentagrams sloppily Sharpied across Alonzo’s ceiling. “Isn’t your mom gonna get pissed?” he’d asked a few months back, balancing the swivel desk chair with both hands as Alonzo stood on the cushion, gnawing on his tongue and drawing like the possessed. Alonzo had laughed then, didn’t answer, just continued worshipping devils with his marker. Studying the pentagrams now, they don’t come across scary or threatening like Alonzo intended. If anything, they’re relaxing. Like those airplane mobiles parents hang over cribs. A little too easy to get lost in their hypnotism and collapse into slumber.

Movement behind him. The sound of a body fidgeting under the covers. The sound of Alonzo crawling to the end of his bed and peeking his head over the edge. He stares down at Josh and it’s too late to feign sleep, he’s been caught with his eyes open, his head in the pentagrams. Alonzo’s puppy-dog stare is so on-point it’s ridiculous. The sound of his mom in the other room only adds to the pitifulness.

“Did you hear me?”

“I was asleep.”

“No you weren’t. You were trying to remember the names of who played all of those goddamn cenobites.”

“Well.” Josh swallows, paranoid the look on his face will reveal how much he’s enjoying the sound of Alonzo’s mom having a good time, doing all the things him and Alonzo talk about doing with girls from school. “I was almost asleep.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Alonzo jerks his head to the window. “Let’s go have some fun.”

Josh’s instinctual response is to ask, “Isn’t it kind of late?” but he can already hear Alonzo’s reply: “What are you—eight?” And he can’t suggest just going back to sleep, not now, not with Alonzo’s mom and the man she brought home from the bar only getting louder as the night progresses. There is no falling asleep to this sound. It will only bring years of therapy for Alonzo, and years of confusing and exciting fantasies for Josh. But still. Josh tries to imagine how he’d react if they were at his house. Would it be different because Josh’s parents are still married—still in love?

But are they really? When Josh is home, lying in bed, what sound does he hear more often from his parents’ bedroom—the sound of sex and fun that he hears now in his friend’s house, or the sound of two people who hate each other to the very core? How often has Josh woken up to his dad throwing something against a wall, or to his mom screaming loud enough to make her voice raw and worn out the following day?

Maybe there are worse noises in the world than your mom having sex.

But he doesn’t tell any of this to Alonzo. It’s not the kind of shit he needs to hear right now. What he needs is a distraction. What he needs are big fucking headphones.

Josh sits up, sliding the sleeping bag down. “Why don’t we play a video game or listen to some music?”

Alonzo sighs and collapses the rest of his weight into the mattress. “That fucking bitch is driving me crazy.”

Josh tries to imagine calling his own mom a bitch. The thought makes his stomach hurt. “Where . . . where do you want to go?”

“What does it matter? Why can’t we just enjoy the night, breathe in that delicious moon air? Come on, bring your camera. Never know what’s waiting out there for us.”

Josh pauses, licks his dry lips and tries to conjure an explanation that won’t reveal his cowardice. He can’t say he’s afraid. This isn’t the first time they’ve snuck outside while the rest of the world is supposed to be asleep, and he still hasn’t learned to not be afraid, but he has learned not to fight it. He’s seen enough horror movies to know life is about being unsettled.

So he says, “Okay, let’s go.”

***

They slip out of the window and flee the back yard like seasoned convicts. Their feet slide in gravel as they run through the back alley. Josh’s initial fear of abandoning the house momentarily numbs as the thrill of sudden freedom washes over him. Then, every dog in the neighborhood loses its shit at the boys’ presence, and the reality of what they’re doing sinks back in.

Over and over he asks himself what’s the worst that can really happen, and the possibilities stretch endlessly. Most seem unlikely, and some impossible outside the realm of movie magic, but that doesn’t make them any less inevitable. It’s only a matter of time before every bad thing that can happen happens.

Fiction is only fiction until it isn’t.

Josh warns someone’s gonna hear them if they’re not careful and Alonzo laughs and cups his hands around his mouth. “Everybody wake the fuck up! It’s time to have some motherfucking fun!”

Josh’s heart races faster than his feet as he shoves his friend. Alonzo stumbles and grabs a neighbor’s fence post just before falling on his face. He climbs back up and glares at Josh. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing. Let’s just go before one of these rednecks thinks we’re trespassing and shoots us.”

Alonzo smirks. “Let ’em try. I fuckin’ dare ’em.”

Josh considers reminding him they aren’t in a Cronenberg movie, that bullets aren’t gonna melt into his flesh like butter, painless and smooth. Instead Josh continues forward, pretending like he couldn’t give less of a shit if Alonzo follows. When they reach the end of the alley, they pause, crouched like the petty thugs their middle school principal so often accuses them of being. Alonzo peeks over the corner of a fence and scans the suburban street in both directions, left to right, then down and up in case there’s any helicopters surveilling their activities.

“Where are we going?” Josh asks, and Alonzo shrugs.

“Nowhere. Everywhere. Who cares?”

“I was just wondering.”

“You scared we gonna get in trouble?”

He shakes his head, a little too desperate. “No.”

The night isn’t dark, not dark like Josh had imagined it being back in Alonzo’s bedroom. The moon hangs over the center of town, as round and bright as an eyeball devoid of its pupil. He debates pulling out his little camcorder but doubts it’ll pick up anything besides shadows. They avoid the glow of streetlights and instead sneak through front yards hidden in darkness and boobytrapped with sprinkler systems. He tries pressing one hand against his hoodie pocket holding the camcorder, adding a second layer of defense against the water.

“I didn’t bring a second set of clothes.” Josh grimaces at the way his feet squish in his shoes.

“Who says we’re ever going back home?” Alonzo laughs, no attempt to conceal his voice. “Shit, who says we even need clothes?”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t like walking around naked.”

“What, you worried somebody might make fun of that tiny little pecker of yours?”

Josh tries to laugh, but it comes out as a weak little hiccup. He spits on the street and hopes it looks cool. “What do you want to do on Halloween?”

“I don’t know. Same shit we did last year, I guess. Blow some shit up. Get candy. Steal my mom’s vodka.”

“This is probably our last year, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re getting too old. We won’t be able to get candy next year.”

“Says who?”

“I don’t know.” He licks his lips, grimacing at the taste of dry skin. The night has a bad feel to it. The air’s heavy, suffocating. He opens his mouth wide and gulps oxygen like a fish abandoned on dry land. “That’s just how it works, I guess.”

“Well fuck how it works,” Alonzo says, voice rising in anger. “I’m gonna keep getting candy until the day I die. Even if I’m some cranky-ass old man. I’ll get my little walker and wobble all up and down the neighborhood ringing doorbells.” He hunches over and mimics an elderly gentleman. “Uh, hello, yes, sonny-boy, triiiick . . . or . . . tre—oh gosh, my back! My back! Someone call an am-bu-laaaance!”

They both bust up laughing and crash into each other. Josh trips into someone’s yard and slides on wet grass, but it’s no big deal, could have been worse if he landed on his frontside and crushed his camcorder. His clothes are already wet at this point so what does it matter. They’re having fun. Alonzo is Josh’s friend and Josh is Alonzo’s friend and together they are having a good time. What time it is doesn’t matter. Not really. If anything, the danger adds to the excitement, as much as he hates to admit it.

Alonzo helps him up and they keep walking.

“You gonna watch the game tomorrow?” Josh asks.

“What game?”

“C’mon, like you don’t know.”

Alonzo shrugs, sincere. “Baseball?”

“It’s the World Series, bro.”

He laughs. “You know I don’t give a shit about that. And you know I know you don’t give a shit about that, either.”

“It’s all my dad’s been talking about.”

“Man, fuck your dad.”

“Hey.”

He claps Josh on the back. “I’m sorry, but that guy’s an asshole.”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “Maybe.”

Josh spots a realtor sign in a lawn ahead and kicks it. It shoots up from the earth like a rocket and lands in the driveway, creating a loud twang aluminum echo.

Alonzo claps and tells him, “Now that’s the shit, baby,” and picks up the sign and Frisbees it toward the house. It bounces off the exterior and the darkness swallows it.

Josh retrieves a rock and throws it blindly. For a moment, it’s as if a tear in the sky opens up and gulps the little rock down into the surreal dimensions of its stomach. But then somewhere one street over glass explodes and they both shout, “Oh shit!” as they forget about sticking to front yards and book it down the middle of the road. They don’t dare look over their shoulders, knowing that not only is the Percy P.D. hot on their trail, but so is the military and national guard.

They cross Main Street without checking for passing traffic. A honk blasts to their right and tires skid on pavement. Alonzo flips them the bird and shouts, “Fuck you, car!” Josh considers joining in, but decides both of his arms are required to maintain Alonzo’s pace. He is not the fastest kid in town—hell, minus Wheelchair Kid in his Social Studies class, he’s probably the slowest—but he tries his best not to make it obvious. Nobody wants to wait for the fat kid.

Wheezing, Josh follows Alonzo through a deserted strip mall. All the shops are closed, the structure a series of black mirrors. Josh can’t take his eyes off of them, convinced there’s something standing on the opposite sides of the windows, watching them as they flee from government henchmen. Maybe they’re licking their lips, the sight of two boys making their stomachs growl. If this were a horror movie, Alonzo and Josh would escape the police by breaking into one of these. They’d lay low behind a mannequin display and explore their new playground, stealing whatever fit in their pockets. But the longer they lingered, the stranger the noises they’d hear, until eventually the mannequins opened their mouths and sank their teeth into the boys’ throats.

But this isn’t a horror movie, and they don’t know fuck-all about breaking and entering, so instead they pass the strip mall and head toward the gas station, the one they always steal chips and pops from after school.

Josh taps Alonzo on the shoulder. “Do you really think it’s okay that we go in here?”

Alonzo shrugs. “I don’t see why not.”

“Yeah you do.”

Alonzo isn’t an idiot. Twelve-year-old boys can’t just walk around past curfew. Not in a suburban town like this when nobody is awake. And you especially can’t walk around at night when you’re a black kid. You’re automatically a suspect. Anything goes wrong, there’s no such thing as an investigation. Your ass is getting thrown in the back of a cop car. Hell, nothing even needs to go wrong. The fact that you exist and choose to flaunt it is enough of a crime. Sure, Josh is only twelve, but that doesn’t make him ignorant of reality. Maybe the white kids in town can go on with their lives surrounded by cotton candy and bubble wrap.

But Alonzo just laughs and pulls open one of the doors. Alonzo understands all of this just as well, but the difference with Alonzo is, instead of being filled with fear, he’s instead consumed by rage.

Last month, the cops killed two people on a bridge in New Orleans, and it’s all Josh and Alonzo have been able to talk about. Obsessed isn’t the right word. Terrified’s a little closer, but still not quite. Hurricane Katrina’s destroyed the city and everybody is desperate to survive. Meanwhile, the cops there just seem eager to kill kill kill. This happened on the Danziger Bridge. Only a goddamn month ago. He’s seen photos of the bridge. Videos. It’s huge. On top of the two who were murdered, four others were shot and injured. All six black, all six unarmed. Of fucking course. As if that’s a surprise. As if that’s a shock. They’d watched the news story online at least a dozen times in Alonzo’s basement, yet the repeated viewings did nothing to desensitize the acidic burn Josh feels in his stomach whenever he thinks about it. One of the deceased, a fortysomething-year-old man, was revealed to have possessed the brain of a toddler. And the other one who died? Shit, he’d only been seventeen. Probably still in high school. Older than Josh and Alonzo, but not by much, not really, not when he thought about it. The other day, Mr. Grayson in his Social Studies class brought up the encounter, and had this to say about it: “If you’re going to live like a thug, you need to accept the consequences.” Josh is only twelve and even he knows this shit is fucked up. Ask any white kid in his class and they’ll claim the police are their friends, that they’re out to protect them. Ask Josh and he doesn’t know how to respond. Maybe they do protect, but they sure as hell seem awfully choosey about it.

If you’re going to live like a thug, you need to accept the consequences.

“Fuck that cracker cocksucker,” Alonzo had said later that day, after class. “Bitch doesn’t know shit about shit.”

“Yeah,” he’d agreed, but that hasn’t stopped him from obsessing over his words.

Josh usually doesn’t have a problem with shoplifting, but you have to be smart about it. Do it in the middle of the day, when the store’s busy with customers. Not at 1:00 A.M. when any customer activity is immediately suspicious.

A bell chirps as the door opens. The gas station clerk, some twentysomething-year-old, glares at Josh as he nervously waves and whispers, “Hi.”

The clerk doesn’t respond. He’s the same guy who’s typically working the shift after school. When does he get to go home? Maybe he never leaves—maybe he’s not even alive. If this were a horror movie, the gas station clerk would probably end up being a ghost. Maybe some desperate criminal held the place up and, not wanting to leave behind any witnesses, stole the security tape and inserted a bullet inside the clerk’s skull. Or maybe he didn’t give a good goddamn about witnesses, maybe he simply enjoyed the fame—the tabloid worshipping and Nancy-Grace hysteria, and he shot down the clerk for no other reason than it felt good, like cracking your knuckles or shaking your dick a few extra times after taking a leak. Now the clerk’s trapped here in this gas station, his spirit destined to remain imprisoned until justice’s served, until his murderer’s brought down like a rabid dog. If this were a horror movie, the spirit of the clerk would haunt Josh’s every waking moment, attach itself to his aura and negotiate Josh’s sanity with his willingness to carry out sweet vengeance.

“Can I help you?” the clerk asks, not a ghost after all.

Josh gulps and hurries down the chip aisle. Alonzo stands at the end, inspecting the back of a Doritos bag.

“Are you counting the calories?” Josh asks, trying to make it sound like a joke but only succeeding in reminding himself of the night two years ago his father stumbled into his bedroom, drunk, and tossed a stack of calorie charts on his bed. “Read up,” he’d said, “or you’re never gonna meet a girl who wants to fuck you.”

Josh nudges Alonzo. “He’s looking at us.”

Alonzo tilts his head, acknowledging the clerk with a forced smile.

“We can’t do anything.”

Alonzo laughs. “We can do anything we fuckin’ want.” He hands him the chips and continues past the junk food and into the drink aisle. Josh stands between Alonzo staring at the frosted glass doors and the clerk staring at the both of them, just waiting for one of them to slip.

Alonzo hums. “What do you want? I’m thinking about a cream soda.”

“Okay.”

Alonzo takes out two glass bottles of Jones Soda from the freezer and hands them both to Josh, who has to squeeze the bag of chips in his armpit to avoid dropping the pops.

Alonzo sidesteps three doors to the left, past the juices and beer, past the Hungry Mans and Lean Cuisines, and stops at the dairy section. The eggs.

“Boom.”

Alonzo places the items on the counter, still wearing that same stupid-ass grin. The clerk scans the barcodes, not sharing the same enthusiasm.

“Is that it?”

Alonzo leans on the counter, inspecting the wall of cigarettes behind him. “You know what, I think we’ll also take a pack of Kools.” He straightens his stance and elbows Josh in the ribs. “Some Kool cigs for some cool cats—ain’t that right, Joshy?”

The clerk doesn’t seem as amused. “I don’t suppose you little shits have any ID on you, huh?”

“Hell, mister, we ain’t even got cash.”

“Then what’s the plan here? Rob me?” Now it’s the clerk’s turn to laugh. “Because that’d be great. Seriously. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for a chance to test the shotgun we keep back here.”

“Bullshit.”

Josh slowly steps back, figuring nobody will notice him slip out the door if he moves only an inch at a time. Alonzo shoots his hand out without looking away from the clerk and grabs Josh’s arm.

“Do you really want to test me?” the clerk says, arms crossed over his chest.

Alonzo nods. “Well, yeah, kinda. But no. We’re here to propose a trade.”

The clerk raises his brow. “Oh, and what is it you have to trade?”

Josh is wondering the same thing. This is all a surprise to him. Which means Alonzo kept it a secret for a reason. Which means, whatever it is, Josh ain’t gonna like it.

Alonzo reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded photograph, then places it on the counter. The clerk unfolds it and examines its contents for a moment before looking back at Alonzo, disgusted. “What the hell is this?”

“You know what it is.”

“Why . . . why would I want this?”

“What, you don’t like girls?”

“Kid, you got no idea how much ass I get.” The clerk moves to return the photograph, then stops, holds it closer, really looking at it now. “Hey, wait. I recognize this chick.”

“She comes in here all the time.”

“That’s right. Holy shit, yeah. She buys condoms and beer like every Friday.” He glares at Alonzo, curious. “What are you doing with this?”

Alonzo cracks his neck. “Maybe I fucked her the other day.”

The clerk laughs. “Kid, I doubt you’ve even hit puberty yet. She’s probably like your mom or some shit.”

Alonzo lowers his head and doesn’t respond.

“Jesus Christ. She is, isn’t she?”

The clerk inspects the photograph one last time before snickering and tossing it across the counter. It slides off and lands on a patch of dirt-stained linoleum next to Josh’s feet. He looks down at Alonzo’s mom situated on her hands and knees at the edge of her bed, stripped to her dark, tattooed flesh as she peers over her shoulder, seductive eyes glued on whoever was holding the camera. One sagging breast peeks out from around her large bottom. At first glance, that’s all you can look at, then slowly your vision starts to travel down her crack and you discover something new, something weird and alien, and eventually it dawns on you this is what everybody’s always talking about. A pussy. And not just a girl’s pussy but a woman’s pussy and not just any woman’s pussy but your best friend’s mom’s pussy. Josh doesn’t need to look at the photo to know every single detail printed on it. He’s gone over the image enough times in his head to no longer require visuals. He and Alonzo had discovered the image a couple months ago on his mom’s computer while downloading stupid photoshopped .jpgs from eBaum’s World. An image they were never meant to see, something that’d been saved in a hidden folder. For the longest time neither of them spoke—then Alonzo eventually pressed—punched—the power button and told Josh to go home, to get lost, that he didn’t have time to sit around all goddamn day watching stupid-ass videos, he had a life to live, so maybe Josh better go find his own. The next day Alonzo decided to talk to him again, but for a brief spell Josh had feared the worst. Although they’d never discussed the incident again, it had never left Josh’s mind.

Now here it is again.

A million questions plague his mind but they go unanswered as Alonzo knocks over a Zippo display. “What, my mom’s not good enough for you?”

“All right, get the fuck out of here before you get hurt.”

Alonzo turns around and Josh sighs, relieved, thinking this nightmare is over, then chokes up as Alonzo retrieves the photo and waves it back at the clerk. “I’m not going anywhere until you agree to the trade.”

“What are you even talking about? I ain’t looking at your ugly-ass gorilla of a mother. That’s fucking gross. You shouldn’t even have that, you goddamn pervert.”

Alonzo drops his arm down to his waist, clutching the photograph tight enough to crinkle it. “What did you just say?”

The clerk exhales loudly as he brings out his cell phone. “Kid, I wouldn’t stick my dick in that STD cesspool if she were the last nigger on the planet.”

Alonzo scrambles over the counter, sending the drinks and eggs flying to the floor as he swats the phone from the clerk’s hands.

“Are you fucking ser—”

Alonzo bashes an awkward fist into his nose and the clerk shoots both hands to his face, moaning, “Oh, you motherfucker,” and backing up against the wall of cigarettes, “you goddamn nigger piece of—”

Alonzo tackles the clerk and cigarettes rain down upon them. Then they’re both out of sight, their presence evidenced by the sound of grunting and fighting. Josh struggles to move, caught in a freeze-frame of indecision, like a scratched DVD. Alonzo won’t be able to take the clerk alone for much longer. A sucker punch will not grant you the upper hand forever.

He hurries around the counter and finds Alonzo sitting on the clerk’s chest, shoving the photograph of his mom into his mouth.

“Eat it! Fucking eat it! She ain’t good enough for you? Fuck you, you ain’t good enough for her.”

The clerk gags as the balled-up photo proceeds past his resistant tongue and down his throat.

“Alonzo,” Josh says, tapping his friend’s shoulder. “Stop. Please.”

And he stops.

Trembling and breathing hard, he takes his hands off the clerk’s bloated face and the clerk spits out the soggy ball of paper. Alonzo looks up at Josh, eyes screaming, like he just awoke from a nightmare. “What am I doing?”

Josh holds out his palm. “Let’s get out of here.”

Alonzo stretches his arm out and just as their fingertips connect, the clerk moans and shoves Alonzo to the floor. Josh catches his friend and falls back on his ass. The clerk frantically climbs to his feet and if this were a horror movie, this would be the part where the clerk mutates into some supernatural carnivore, except this ain’t a horror movie, it’s real life, and the clerk just scrambles away from them in search of something underneath the counter.

The shotgun.

“Shit, he’s gonna shoot us,” Josh says, pointing and backing up against the wall. Cigarette cartons bounce off his head but it doesn’t matter, nothing is going to matter once the clerk finds what he’s after.

Josh pushes Alonzo and inertia pushes Alonzo into the clerk. He grunts and trips forward and bashes his head against the register. His body goes limp and collapses to the floor, leaving behind a sticky chunk of hair and gore on the edge of the cash drawer.

They stand over the motionless body, the sound of their own hearts beating loud enough to satisfy a rock concert.

“What have we done?” Josh whispers, thinking please be okay and knowing that he isn’t, not now, not ever—not just the clerk but also Josh and Alonzo. Their lives are ruined, there’s no walking away from something like this and living a full, healthy life, not after stealing someone else’s, and that’s exactly what they’ve done—stolen a life. They’re thieves. Murderers. Monsters.

Alonzo steps over the clerk’s body—planting one foot on his spine—and attempts to pull open the register, but it doesn’t budge, might as well be glued shut, just another prop displayed on the set of this poorly budgeted horror movie.

“Try hitting one of the buttons.” Josh hardly recognizes his own voice.

Alonzo gets it open and Josh collects a bag from the counter and holds it open while Alonzo empties the cash into it, moving on autopilot, minds frozen in carbonate and bodies operating under the guidance of malignant puppeteers.

“Some beer, too,” Alonzo says and Josh nods because why not? Why not take the whole goddamn store? Alonzo steps off the dead clerk and the dead clerk groans and starts sitting up and maybe he’s not dead after all, maybe Satan’s giving him a second chance to seek vengeance against the two cold-hearted kids who murdered him for no reason, no fucking reason at all.

“What . . . what happened?” the clerk asks, a deep gash on the side of his head, thick chunks of blood and gore dripping from his confused face.

But Josh and Alonzo are already fleeing the gas station, running as fast as their legs will allow, running, running, running, but no matter how fast or how long they run, Josh knows it will never be enough.

Limited Edition Signed HC | Signed Paperback | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Bookshop.org

WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING, a bathroom novella, is out today

Last year, or maybe the year before (time no longer makes any sense to me), a tornado warning blew up our phones here in our little town in Central Texas. The four of us gathered up our dogs and took shelter in our bathroom and waited out the storm. Several hours passed as we played card games. At one point, Lori called me an idiot for fleeing to the kitchen to brew a new pot of coffee. She was not incorrect. But still. I needed more coffee if I was going to survive the night.

Eventually the storm passed. The only damage we took was a knocked-over fence, which we propped up and nailed together. It still needs to be replaced, but look at me, do I look like somebody who has fence-replacement money? Ha!

Anyway, while in the bathroom with my family, I couldn’t stop wondering what would happen if something trapped us in there. How would we react to being imprisoned within our own bathroom? And what would we do if nobody came to save us?

I also really wanted to see if I could write an entire book set in a bathroom.

The result of this thought process was a brand-new novella titled We Need to Do Something. It is 36,000 words long and quite possibly might be the darkest thing I’ve ever written. It did not make me feel good to write and I don’t imagine it will make you feel good to read. But I do think it’s a good story. I think the writing is strong. I think the characters are interesting, if not always likable. There is some humor present but perhaps not as much as readers expect in my fiction.

The novella is pretty fucked up, okay? The more distance I put between it, the more I realize that it’s pretty nuts this thing even exists, but it does, and now it’s available for everybody to read.

I didn’t plan on self-releasing it, but with everything going on in the world right now, times are tight and bills need to be paid, so why not self-release it? Who cares? Maybe it’ll help keep the lights on a few extra months or restock the fridge. So why not just randomly release this thing in the middle of a pandemic? There are no longer any rules here, baby!

Here is the jacket art, designed by the always-talented Lori Michelle:

Here’s how you can purchase it:

Webstore (signed) | Indiebound | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Thanks for checking it out. If you dig it, maybe leave a review on Amazon/Goodreads when you’re finished? I would appreciate it immensely.

“A Bitchy Little Marshmallow Prick” — The Rejected Interview

It’s come to my attention that some weirdo on Facebook has a grudge against me for the way I answered his interview questions last year. Yes, I know, many weirdos on Facebook have grudges against me. This specific case, however, is very amusing and baffling to me.

I am not going to name this person, as I don’t want anybody going after him online or anything like that, but I would like a chance to explain the situation considering the things he has already posted about me.

Okay, so to break down the timeline, on January 31, 2019, I received the following private message from Facebook Weirdo:

To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgotten we discussed doing an interview. I still don’t quite remember the circumstances but I guess he mentioned doing one via a comment on one of my statuses and I agreed. The top message you see in the screenshot is the very first private message he sent me.

Notice it took him almost 11 months to follow up with the actual interview questions. Which is hilarious, but whatever, it’s fine. When he messaged me about it again in November 2019 it took me a minute to even understand what he was talking about (the book I was trying to promote at the time came out in February, after all). I gave him my email address and he emailed me the questions, which I then answered that very night while working the night shift at my hotel job.

I sent him my answers and he never responded or posted the interview. After a couple weeks I went back and looked over my responses and realized I had answered his questions while going through a terrible depression episode. One of the answers in particular (to the “what is your longterm goal?” question) was kind of a bummer to read again, so I assumed that’s why he never ran the interview, although—and I cannot stress this enough—it is probably the most honest I’ve ever answered an interview question!

Most of the other interview questions, however, I gave a mix of serious and non-serious answers. I admit that I often get annoyed during interviews when asked questions that could be answered within five seconds of googling. For instance, at one point he asked what topics I talk about on my Castle Rock Radio podcast, which…I mean, come on, is that really the question you want to ask? So yeah. If I suspect little energy was spent on your question, then I am going to recycle an equal amount of energy answering them.

I also want to point out it took him almost 11 months to come up with the question, “Who is Max Booth III?”…which is hilarious.

I hadn’t thought about this interview in many months, probably since December, until a friend of mine directed me to a status on his Facebook page (I did not have access to it, but that’s why screenshots exist, baby):

Dude’s been stewing over my answers since November and finally posts about it in April. Not once has he said anything to me about it or addressed it in any way until this random Facebook rant. Again, I cannot stress enough how funny I find all of this. That someone would hold such hatred for me over answers I wrote for an interview that would provide free content to his dumb blog. Madness!

I will share one specific comment (well, the response to the comment) that made me laugh until I shot my asshole out of my nose:

“he’d get the Madman”

????

Cool. Very tough.

Anyway. Since the interview was never posted, despite being finished in November, and considering he’s so upset about the answers I gave him all these months later, I guess it’s totally cool if I proceed to publish the interview on my own site, right? That way everybody can see for themselves what a big fucking jerk I am for being so mean to such a poor helpless blogger. I just hope I don’t “get the Madman” now. That would be terrifying.

Okay, here’s the interview:

Tell us about your latest release, Carnivorous Lunar Activities. What’s it about and what inspired you to write it?

If I’m being honest, the book was mostly just an excuse for product placement. I was paid quite handsomely by McDonald’s and Pabst Blue Ribbon to create a novel featuring both of their products. Quite simply, I needed the money, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. As for the actual plot of the novel, I mean, it’s all very generic stuff I copy/pasted from various Wikipedia articles, which I then went through and restructured a sentence here and there; plus, of course, the aforementioned McDonald’s and Pabst Blue Ribbon material.

Other than being an author, you are also a publisher at Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing. Tell us a little about PMMP. What’s it about? What made you start it? What sort of authors do you look for? Where do you hope to go with it?

I started PMMP because I hate myself, and I continue it for the same reason. These days I’m looking less for authors and more for readers—specifically, readers who are willing to pay actual money for a book. As I told a recent customer at Wizard World Comic Con, we publish books so scary they’ll make you come in your pants. Actually, I guess I can’t really refer to that guy as a customer, since he never did buy anything. He kind of left immediately after I told him that.

Give us some insight into your magazine, Dark Moon Digest.

It’s funny, but the name of our magazine is actually a typo. We intended to brand ourselves as Dork Moon Magazine and publish geeky science essays, but after we paid $400 for a banner with the word “Dark” on it, we decided it would be cheaper to just rebrand as a quarterly horror magazine. Turns out, we were wrong. This was way more expensive and now we are very, very poor. Please help us by purchasing our latest issue.

I understand you also run a podcast titled Castle Rock Radio. Where did the idea for this come from and what topics do you discuss on the show?

Well, I mean, that answer is pretty self-explanatory, right? We talk about Dean Koontz books and only Dean Koontz books. The idea came from Dean Koontz, who asked us to produce the show on his own dime. I still can’t believe he even approached us about this, but heck, sometimes the universe throws you a favor, right?

Who is Max Booth III?

Well, he’s not Dean Koontz, I’ll tell you that much.

Being an individual who is involved with so many different creative endeavors, what is your long-term goal in the author/publishing community? When it’s all said and done for you, what do you want people to remember you for? What do you want to look back on and be able to say, “I’m damn glad I did that”?

My goal is to die young. I don’t want to be remembered. I don’t want anybody to notice I’m dead. One day I’ll be working on a project nobody will care about, then the next I will be erased from the universe. I am involved in so many creative outlets because it is the only thing I know how to do. I am not equipped to do anything else because nobody taught me any practical skills as a kid and now I am too tired to teach myself. Every day I wake up and think, maybe this is the day I stop functioning and finally succumb to dust. The concept of success is a delusion. I’ve spent years trying to achieve certain goals, only for the excitement and satisfaction to completely drain away a day after accomplishing them. There is no such thing as “making it”. Some people can just pay their bills easier than others, and that’s about it.

Time for the generic question: Where did your love for writing begin and who inspires you most?

I used to scribble obscene messages on bathroom stalls, and eventually people started paying me for it. Barton Fink from the movie, Barton Fink, inspires me most. Actually, maybe John Goodman’s character is a better choice. In all truth, I’d rather be the head in the box. There’s a head in a box in that movie, right?

Word is that you just signed your next novel with Cemetery Dance. What can you tell us about that?

It is called Touch the Night and, basically, it’s about the universal truth that all cops are bastards.

If you could collaborate with one other author, who would it be and what would you want that collaboration to look like?

I wouldn’t mind collaborating with someone who has rich parents. Maybe then people would actually read my books.

What does the future hold for Max Booth III?

Dean Koontz recently hired me to write a sequel to On Writing, so I guess I better start getting to work on that before I have to return my advance.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors and/or indie publishers?

Immerse yourself into a community of similar creative types.

Anything you’d like to plug?

I have a Patreon and, if you like books so scary they’ll make you come in your pants, you should support it: https://www.patreon.com/pmmpublishing

Also, hey, since I’m updating this interview several months later, you should also go buy my brand-new novella, We Need to Do Something. Otherwise you’ll get the Madman.

CARNIVOROUS LUNAR ACTIVITIES Receives Splatterpunk Nomination for “Best Novel”

Sunday morning, Brian Keene revealed the official Splatterpunk Awards nominations over on his blog, which included my novel Carnivorous Lunar Activities under the “Best Novel” category.

Check out all of the nominations here.

From Keene’s post: “A panel of judges composed of professionals, critics and scholars in the field will now begin the process of reading each nominated work, and selecting a winner for each category. Winners will be announced at KillerCon, taking place in Austin, Texas this August 7th through the 9th.”

KillerCon is one of my favorite conventions and I try to attend it every year. Obviously this year in particular will be a little different, as I’ve never been nominated for an award before. It feels nice. I like the feeling. I feel insane with power. I feel like setting a bank on fire. I feel like eating carbs. I feel like applying hand sanitizer to a paper cut. Hell yeah. That’s the good stuff, baby. Mmm.

I will be wearing one of the following three shirts during the awards banquet at KillerCon. If you have an opinion about which one you prefer, feel free to let me know in the comments below.

You can buy Carnivorous Lunar Activities from your local indie bookshop here.

TOUCH THE NIGHT – My new novel, coming soon from Cemetery Dance

I realized I’ve failed to make any kind of announcement on my blog about the new novel, despite babbling about it nonstop via social media. Most of you suspect blogging is dead. You might be right, which explains why I want to quit all social media and focus only on blogging. I feel like a lot of us are embarrassed about blogging because the word “blogging” sounds extremely childish. You would never tell your parents you have a blog. They would disown you. Or maybe that’s exactly why you would tell them.

Regardless, my sixth novel, Touch the Night, is coming out in June through Cemetery Dance. CD will be publishing the book as a limited edition signed hardcover and also an ebook. Check out the cover art below, from my good friend Dyer Wilk:

I will most likely be self-publishing the paperback edition around August, unless some other publisher swoops in with bags of cash at the last minute wanting to take the rights off my hands, but at this point I do not see that happening. But that’s cool. I am perfectly okay with self-publishing my own work. Those familiar with my history will recall the numerous times various small presses have screwed me over (*cough* Darkfuse *cough*). I do not consider Cemetery Dance a bad publisher by any stretch, but they only asked for the HC and ebook rights, and that’s totally cool with me. Self-releasing the paperback edition will give me wider freedom in always having extra copies on hand at conventions. Sometimes that can be tricky with some of my books published by other presses. Sometimes I have to send multiple emails begging for an invoice because a convention is approaching and I receive crickets and then I do not have any copies ready in time. Self-publishing will prevent such embarrassing encounters from recurring.

I am extremely excited to be working with Cemetery Dance on Touch the Night. When I first started getting published back in 2012, CD was always referred to as a “white whale” in publishing, and honestly it is still considered one. They’ve published some of the greatest writers in the horror genre and for them to be releasing Touch the Night, well…it’s a goddamn dream come true.

I’ve talked about Touch the Night on the blog before, I am sure; although, back then, it was most likely referenced under alternate titles (Cirrhosis and Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them and The Evocation of Mother were the three big titles I’ve used for the book at one point or another). I’m still fond of those titles, but I do think Touch the Night best represents this specific book. It is my longest novel, at 400 pages and 113,000 words. I do not recommend writing a long novel, because–like any book–you will have to reread it numerous times. And even after it’s been accepted and edited, you will probably get stuck reading it two or three more times again. I just finished what I think is my final read-through of the interior proof, and while I did find it exhausted, I was also reminded that it’s actually a pretty kickass book. Sometimes when you reread something you’ve written, you’re hit with a deep sense of shame (the same kind of shame one feels when admitting to having a blog, probably). I’ve certainly experienced this shame. However, none of that was present while rereading Touch the Night. If anything, it reignited my excitement to share it with readers.

After finishing my latest proof, I tweeted about sending my revisions back to the publisher, like any blogger does, and a website called Morbidly Beautiful wrote up an insanely detailed news article about the tweet. I do not know why my tweet warranted this, but I remain very grateful and humbled that someone would want to spend so much time putting together an article about myself and my work. Plus, I’ve never been involved in a BREAKING NEWS report before. I will never stop laughing about this. Read the awesome article over at Morbidly Beautiful. They are now my new favorite place on the internet.

There are some cool, exciting things happening behind-the-scenes with this book, involving Hollywood, but obviously nothing even remotely set in stone yet. There is a very good chance nothing actually happens. But I have a good feeling. I think shit’s going to get wild. At least, I sure hope so. Fingers crossed, right?

Here’s the official book synopsis:

MOTHER! MOTHER! RISE FROM THE GROUND!

Stranger Things and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre unite to form a blood-soaked matrimony of violence and corruption.

Something sinister’s hiding in the small town of Percy, Indiana, and twelve-year-old Joshua Washington and Alonzo Jones are about to find themselves up close and personal with it. After a harmless night of petty property damage leads to the unthinkable, the red and blue lights of a cop car are the last things these boys want to see. Especially a cop car driven by something not quite human.

Enter Mary Washington and Ottessa Jones. Their sons have been best friends for years, and now Josh and Alonzo have been abducted in the dead of night. Worst of all, the local sheriff refuses to believe they’re missing, leaving it up to Mary and Ottessa to take the law into their own hands before a family of ungodly lunatics can complete a ritual decades in the making.

Together they will embark on a surreal and violent journey into a land of corrupt law enforcement, small-town secrets, gravitational oddities, and ancient black magic.

Through Cemetery Dance, the signed hardcover edition is limited to 750 copies. I have no idea how many copies have been pre-ordered at this point. I do know it would be fucking cool to sellout before the release date in June. Especially since I miiiiight be working on a sequel, and it would certainly help convince the publisher to take a chance on it if they know the first book sold out so quickly.

Anyway, yeah, that’s it, I’m done talking. Go pre-order Touch the Night. It’s going to scare the shit out of you.

The Inevitability of the Noose

When I get bummed, I like to watch interviews with David Foster Wallace. It doesn’t make me feel better. Earlier tonight I watched an interview with him back in 1997 when he was on Charlie Rose’s show and I kept thinking, A decade from now you are going to kill yourself. I kept wondering if somehow he knew that, even then, if he could predict that this would all end with a noose.

I have never read David Foster Wallace’s fiction, so I can’t claim to be fan of his written work, but I do like what he has to say sometimes. I enjoy listening to him talk about David Lynch. I enjoy the face he makes after he answers a question and it’s so clear he found what he said sorta pretentious. Like every other white male, I do own Infinite Jest. I will maybe one day read it, but probably not. I’ll read Pynchon first. His writing seems more interesting. However, I can’t watch interviews with Pynchon, because it’s difficult to talk with a brown paper bag over your face.

Early on in my shift at the hotel I tweeted something about how the planet was on fire and the sun was going to explode and our leaders wanted to murder us all, so it was bullshit to wait for anyone’s permission to work on creative projects, that we should do the thing we want to do because our time is finite and we shouldn’t allow it to go to waste so easily. For a brief five minutes, I was so goddamn pumped up with motivation, then…five hours later, I’m still at the hotel, and I’ve gotten exactly nothing done. Instead of being productive on editing or writing projects, I chose to watch interviews with dead people, I chose to go through old email chains that started with optimism and ended in what should have been predictable misery. I listened to a podcast about political grifters.

I spent almost an hour, in between helping hotel guests, researching local therapists, then decided (based on their website listings) that they were all ultra religious and would be a waste of my time.

I’ve never been to a therapist and sometimes, late at night when no one is around, I start thinking maybe it’s a good idea. But I also live in Texas, where everybody’s solution to the blues is “God”. That doesn’t sit well with me. I am not a religious person. I am not a believer. I do not want to be. I am okay without god in my life.

For a brief hour I thought I needed a therapist but now I think maybe I just need to stay the fuck off social media, and if I still feel compelled to make my stupid thoughts public, this blog is the right way to go.

I deleted Facebook from my phone but I kept Messenger and Twitter and I do not know how to rid them from my existence and I do not know if I can. Maybe therapists are good because you can complain about bullshit like what I’ve talked about in this blog and there’s no risk of embarrassing yourself by exposing your privilege. It is so hard to articulate my thoughts and fears and anxieties without feeling like the living embodiment of First World Problems. But also, I barely have time to update a blog, how the fuck do you find time for therapy?

So I don’t know. If therapy is the answer then it will be an answer I ignore.

I guess it’s just hilarious how quickly someone can go from “Oozing Motivation” to “Existential Crisis”.

The one thing on my side is I still find everything very, very funny–even the truly terrible things–and I suppose once that is gone, then I really have a reason to worry.

But until then I’m gonna keep watching these interviews with David Foster Wallace and wonder: When did you know? A decade before? A year before? Five minutes before? Did you know the moment you were born? Or was it a split-second decision that you would have not done if literally anything distracted you for another couple minutes?

And, shit, who knows, maybe I’ll fucking read Infinite Jest after all.

A Year in Publishing (2019)

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.