Beyond The Darkness 24
Fall Madness
Greetings, boils and ghouls! Tis the spookiest time of the year! The kiddies are dressing up, the horror movies are burning across your TV’s, and somewhere…some little old lady is about to give out little tubes of toothpaste instead of candy.
Did that make you shiver with fright?
Yes, sir, another Halloween is upon us. I’ll fully admit, even as a dark fiction author and a person who devours horror all year long…I kind of lost my Halloween spirit. For years, I was kind of blase about the holiday. To me it just seemed like another day for someone who enjoyed spooky things all the time already.
Honestly, I think it started around late high school. A couple of buddies of mine and myself dressed up and went trick-or-treating down the street from one of their houses. I had my face painted up like a member from the band Motograter (props if you remember Ivan Moody’s first band) and I was carrying around a wooden stick with a small metal hook on top. I can't remember what one of the other guys was, but one of them was dressed as a ninja and had an actual metal sword with him. He wasn't swinging it around, endangering anyone. It was kept at his side, firmly sheathed in it's holster. Anyways, we were not even a quarter of a mile away when a local cop stopped us and began to berate us all. He called another cop to come to also berate us. He took our “weapons” and my friend’s cigarettes and forced us into the back of the car and drove us four houses back down to the ninja’s residence. All to scare us.
Suffice to say, it kind of ruined Halloween for me for YEARS.
These days, I have a two-, almost three-year-old and he's just discovering the 31st of October. He's getting into dressing up and loves to listen to Koz Bop Halloween on the Amazon Dot. He's big into SpongeBob now, so that's who he's chosen to dress as. I think his new-found interest in the holiday as re-sparked my love for it. Granted, it's not quite the same as it used to be. Door to door knocking has more or less been replaced by walking a giant circle in a parking lot behind cars with open trunks full of candy, but the spirit remains.
This past Tuesday saw the release of my brand new book THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH: COLLECTED LONG FICTION! The collection contains my previously published novellas CLOSING COSTS and the Award-winning ONE FOR THE ROAD, as well as the brand new 42k word short novel THREESOME. I’m extremely proud of this new work. It's a great representation of where I’m at in my career and where I plan to continue to explore creatively. The reviews have been really excellent so far, so it's a great feeling it's effecting people the way it was intended.
The book is available in paperback and Kindle through Amazon.
Signed copies are available at my webstore, as a well as most of my other books.
I was swapping old pictures the other day in text with author Kristopher Triana and I came across the one of me from somewhere around 2006. I believe I was still on college. And damn I miss that Mastodon hoodie and all that hair.
Upcoming events:
This Saturday I'll be at the Cecil County Public Library in North East, Maryland for their Reading in the Dark event. I'll be joined by Stephen Kozeniewski, Amanda Headlee, Todd Keisling, and several others. All authors will have books for sale, and you're welcome to bring any from home to get signed. The event goes from 10AM to 1PM. This is my last event for the year, so come and support indie horror!
485 Mauldin Avenue North East, MD 21901
I’m also super excited to announce I'll be taking part at The Dark Drafts Festival at Bube's Brewery on January 25th-26th (right before my birthday!) in Mount Joy, PA! There will be TONS of amazing indie horror authors on hand, as well as great food and drinks, and a mountain of events such as a Goth Masquerade and Murder Mystery dinners. It's going to be an absolute blast! Thank you Kendra Allen and Tiffany Koplin for the opportunity!
Tickets and info are here.
TV recommendation:
If you enjoy Korean cinema as much as I do, I suggest checking out the new series on Netflix called THE FROG. It's a murder mystery suspense thriller and it was absolutely incredible.
And that's it. I’ll talk to you all soon! Happy Halloween!