Well, here we are, boils and ghouls, drop-kicking 2023 right in the chin and leaving 2022 behind like a clingy lover. As this newsletter finds you, I hope your 2022 wasn’t bad, didn’t leave you too bloody and bruised. Mine? Well, in all seriousness 2022 may have been the best year of my life. My wife and I had a little boy, our first child in December of 2021, and in 2022 I had the pleasure of watching our son (codename: Meatball) grow into the wonderful child I always hoped to have. For being so young he’s already incredibly smart, knowing how to turn on his favorite shows on the Roku. Seriously. Not even joking about that. It’s crazy. He’s got a wild amount of hair and had already had around five cuts. To say I’m a little jealous is an understatement.
People say the first few years of your child’s life goes by in a blink. They’re absolutely correct. He only just turned one a few weeks ago and he’s already nearly walking, which is crazy because it seemed like yesterday I was watching him roll around the floor, unable to figure out how to crawl. I remember practically begging him to smile and now that’s all he does, which always warms my heart. He truly is the sweetest little boy we could have ever asked for.
Which makes it so damn hard that I live so far from my parents. While I currently live in Pennsylvania, all of my family lives back home in Southern Indiana. I don’t get to see them or my friends all that often, but it just so happened that this was the year for us to spend Christmas in Indiana. We headed out last Wednesday and stayed at a hotel in Cambridge, OH, which serves as a near halfway point in the eleven hour trip. We could probably drive a little further toward Columbus, but there’s a Tim Horton’s in Cambridge, and God knows I love their Timbit doughnut holes. We drove the rest of the way the next day and were able to get into Evansville a few hours before the snow storm hit. Katie and I had been dying for a date night and we had been planning for weeks to go to Gerst Haus, a German restaurant we both really like. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the restaurant, nearly every one in town was closed for the storm. We were both a little pissed, seeing as how the sky was still clear and the snow had yet to even start. So we ended up going to an Italian spot on the other side of town called Sauced, where I had probably the best chicken parmesan I’ve had in a very long time. I’ve been to that place a few times before we moved, but damn it was even better than I remembered. If you’re ever in the area, please go visit their establishment. Beautiful place with incredible Italian food.
It wasn’t even ten minutes after we go there that the sky went black and the snow came down. Hard.
To say it was cold the next day would be putting it mildly. I’ve visited Canada in November and Buffalo in February…and this bomb cyclone that swept across the country brought the coldest weather I’ve ever felt in my thirty-five years on Earth. When we woke up the next morning, it was -6F with a -22F wind chill. Just unreal. Thankfully the temperature rose over the next few days and the ice and snow lessened. We left on Monday morning, expecting clear skies like the Weather Channel had told us, only to discover it had been snowing for hours and it gifted us a few more inches of white hell for the ride home. What normally could be driven in around eleven hours came closer to thirteen when all was said and done.
Not fun at all.
I’m very much looking forward to New Year’s Eve (I’m typing this on Saturday afternoon). Katie and I normally have the NYE party at our house for all the local writers and non-writer friends, but that’s just not possible with the baby. So we’re having the shindig at the author Stephen Kozeniewski’s home with mostly the same crowd. Should be a lot of fun.
As great as 2022 was for my personal life, my writing life was…nowhere to be found. Raising a child pretty much disintegrates your free time completely. It was a difficult year to get words out, only actually writing just one book earlier this year and putting out two. Those two are as follows:
Try Again
After an exhausting day at work and a run-in with an obnoxious loudmouth at the gym, all Robin Bellamy wants is to go home and unwind with her father. But when she reaches their house, she discovers something is very wrong. Several armed men appear to be waiting inside, and they’re threatening her father’s life. However, there’s a bigger problem:
The house itself won’t let her in.
After trying numerous times, Robin realizes there may only be one right way into her own home. Can she uncover the correct route in and through the house before the trespassers even know she’s there? Or will she be doomed to repeat the tedious process over and over and over again…
Trade Paperback, E-Book, & Audiobook: Amazon
Trade Paperback (signed copy): wesleysouthardhorror.com
Trade Paperback (book bundle with signed copy and goodies): wesleysouthardhorror.com
Trade Hardcover (book bundle with signed copy and goodies): wesleysouthardhorror.com
Trade Paperback (multi book bundle with signed copy of TA and my other novella Slaves To Gravity): wesleysouthardhorror.com
THEY MOSTLY COME AT NIGHT
A high class restaurant where the food brings out the worst in its patrons…
A man whose mind won’t stay inside his own body…
A mother and daughter’s trip to a zoo full of dead animals…
An Italian immigrant’s idea of the American Dream ripped from his grasp…
A mysterious woman’s unquenchable hunger for negative energy…
Darkness looms ahead in these eleven short stories from the Splatterpunk Award and Imadjinn Award-Winning author Wesley Southard.
Keep the lights on. It’s a long time before sunrise.
Includes a brand new introduction from Brian Keene.
Trade Paperback & E-Book: Amazon
Trade Paperback (signed copy): wesleysouthardhorror.com
Trade Paperback (book bundle with signed copy and goodies): wesleysouthardhorror.com
Trade Paperback (multi book bundle with signed copy of TMCAN and my other short story collection Resisting Madness): wesleysouthardhorror.com
I’m immensely proud of both of these books and I hope you check them out.
As for the future… Well… There are a few things in the works. First off, at some point this later this month or early next, I will be re-releasing a new edition of my first published novel THE BETRAYED. I originally published it back in 2017, but it more or less fell away very quickly and never got the eyes on it I wanted. Not to mention it badly needed a new cover and a whole new round of edits (and thank God for my pre-readers because they caught a ton of mistakes in the original manuscript). I can’t show you the cover quite yet, but believe me, it’s fucking killer. Anton Rosovsky completed the art a while back, but it still needs the title font and layout, which author Scott Cole will be once again putting together very soon. Right now I still have one more pre-reader going over the manuscript, so once that’s completed it will be in Scott’s very capable hands. Much like all of my recent publications through South of Heaven Press, there will be an e-book, trade paperback, and a trade hardcover. And as soon as the cover layout is completed, you guys will be the first to see it. Promise!
But what about new books, Wes?!?
I’ll give you those updates next week.
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For the next several newsletters, I’ll be breaking down my thoughts on the seminal horror anthology series Tales from the Crypt, which aired from 1989 to 1996 on HBO. I was gifted the DVD box set for Christmas and am currently watching a few episodes a day. Growing up, I was obsessed with this show and, between that and Monster Vision, I credit it with turning me into a horror fan. Many of these episodes I haven’t seen in over twenty years, and most I have never seen outside of being on cable (we didn’t have cable, so I had to watch reruns on Fox).
The Man Who Was Death (S1, E1)
A long-time prison executioner loses his job and decides to freelance until he gets caught and finds himself right in the same chair he killed so many in. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen this episode, so this one was a new one for me. I found it kind of a strange story to be the pilot of a new show, but it wasn’t bad. William Sadler starred at as the forth-wall-breaking protagonist. It’s always good to see him in anything.
And All Through the House (S1, E2)
An axe-wielding psycho in a Santa suit escapes an institution in search of female prey comes along a woman who just murdered her boyfriend. When you think of Tales from the Crypt, you think of this episode. It’s iconic, specifically with Larry Drake and his wild teeth playing killer Santa. Also love that they brought in the great Marshall Bell to speak three lines, put a fire poker through his skull, and then had him play a corpse for the next thirty minutes. Love this episode.
Dig That Cat…He’s Real Gone (S1, E3)
A bum is given the nine lives of a cat by a mad scientist, which he then uses to amuse folks and make money with at a traveling circus. This episode starred a young Joe Pantoliano. It was okay. I think the most interesting part was the traps and killing devices they created to off him in front of their carnival crowds.
Only Sin Deep (S1, E4)
A New York hooker with dreams of going straight sells her beauty to a pawn shop owner for cash and soon finds her beauty fading and her face deteriorating. I didn’t love this episode, but it was nice to see a gorgeous young Leah Thompson in the starring role. This episode was more a morality tale, which could have fit as a Creepshow bit.
Currently Reading: Larva Me Tender by Robert Ford (loving it)
Currently Watching: Whatever my child is watching at the moment, Tales From The Crypt
Currently Listening to: Abyss by Unleash the Archers. If you’ve never heard of this band, please go check them out. They’re an unbelievably talented, female-fronted power metal act from Vancouver, Canada. I don’t normally care for power metal, but they are incredible.
As some of you know, I have a new webstore which serves mostly as my new website. www.wesleysouthardhorror.com is now your one-stop shop for all my published works if you’re looking for signed books and book bundles, as well as a place to see where I’ll be signing books and making appearances in 2023. All book bundles come with stickers, bookmarks, and some come with limited edition magnets (while supplies last) and koozies.
For being a subscriber to this newsletter, I’m offering 15% off everything at the store with the code “NEWYEARS” at checkout. This code will be in-effect through Saturday January 7th. All of my currently in-print books are in-stock, including trade hardcovers of my novella TRY AGAIN and my Imadjinn Award-Winning novel CRUEL SUMMER. I hope you take advantage and save a few bucks in the process.
***Note*** If you are outside the US and would like books, please email me at wesleysouthard@gmail.com and we’ll work on getting them to your home country. My webstore unfortunately isn’t currently set up for international shipping.
And that’s it for this week. Thanks again for signing up. Have a great new years and I’ll see you next Sunday!