August 30

Last week was crazy busy. I’m edging ever-closer to being able to share my big news, which, yes, is movie-related. Meanwhile, I had a couple of other movie-related meetings, both of which went much better than I’d expected, since I’d expected them to end with a casual, “Okay, well, nice talking to you! We’ll keep in touch….maybe.”

And, we’re moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee! My wife and I had been floating various ideas over the past couple years. Stay in Atlanta but move to the outskirts? Move back to Florida? Try North Carolina? On Saturday we drove to Chattanooga and spent the day (along with our tour guide, author Jessica Ann York) driving around the city looking at neighborhoods. Barring some word of weird curve ball, like a deranged billionaire offering me $5,000,000 to move to Traverse City to ghostwrite his memoir about the many women he has loved, we’re moving to Chattanooga at the end of the year. Beware, Chattanooga!!!

Non-Mass Exodus

I kind of figured that including the gross-out story in yesterday’s newsletter would cost me some subscribers, but I only lost two , and only one reported it for inappropriate content. Not bad!!!

Latest Newsletter!

I just sent out the latest issue of my newsletter, where I talk about KillerCon and unwisely share one of my old entries in the Gross-Out Contest. There’s also a poem. If you’re not a subscriber, you can check out the issue right here:

https://mailchi.mp/974e3156d5b5/killercon-gross-out-and-poetry

KillerCon Continues

Day One of KillerCon was gobs o’ fun. Today I have a reading and Q&A, plus I’m on a panel about collaboration and I’m a judge of the gross-out contest. It’s virtual, and if you’ve suddenly decided that you desperately want to attend…it’s not too late!

August 20

It’s almost KillerCon time! Today I’m moderating a panel on Imposter Syndrome and participating in a discussion on marketing. It’s virtual and only $10 for all three days. Check out the KillerCon website for more details.

Cheap ODDS!

For the next few days, the Kindle edition of The Odds is only 99 cents! Get it HERE!

Q: Does that special price apply to the entire world?

A: No, it’s US/UK only. Of course, the UK edition is the equivalent amount in pounds.

Q: WTF, dude? Why do you hate Canadians?

A: It’s not my fault! I don’t know why Kindle Countdown Deals are US/UK only! Nobody tells me anything! I think it’s stupid! People in Australia deserve to read The Odds at this low, low price, too, but it’s out of my control!

Q: You still suck.

A: Sorry.

August 18

Turned in a project yesterday. Well, the first part of a project. There will be levels of approval, and then I’ll move on to the next part.

Nope, I’m not allowed to say what it is. I’ve been teasing this news on social media for the past few months, and there does seem to be a time in sight–perhaps within weeks–when I can blab everything, but for now I have to stick with being annoyingly vague.

Q: Can you at least tell us if it’s movie-related?

A: Yes.

Q: So are you saying that, yes, you can at least tell us, or are you saying that it’s movie-related?

A: Yes.

Got my preliminary schedule for Multiverse. I’d thought that after Fandemic got postponed to March 2022, the dominoes might start to fall, but as of right now Multiverse is a fully-masked in-person event where you have to show proof of vaccination to get in the door.

I’m happy with all of the panels they put me on. This is because they gave guests a list of every single panel that was going to happen, and you went through the list and marked which ones you wanted to be on. This saved me yet another appearance on the “Young Adult Horror” panel, which I was constantly on for several years even though I don’t write YA horror, I write YA comedies. (Well, wrote, but that’s a different blog entry…)

Talkin’ FOUND

The movie Found absolutely blew me away when I saw it a few years ago at the Freak Show Film Festival. When it was time for me to make a return appearance on The Necronomi.Com podcast (I’d previously been on the show to discuss Return of the Living Dead) I knew exactly what movie I wanted to talk about!

And they said, no, sorry, Found isn’t currently available on any streaming service, and our listeners like to watch the movie before they listen to the podcast.

And I said, oh, okay, that makes total sense, but then I did some research and saw that Found would be on Shudder soon! So we decided to wait.

Then it took a few weeks to coordinate our schedules.

But it finally happened! James Sabata and I discuss Found…and spoil the absolute living crap out of it, so make sure you watch the movie before you listen.

Check it out via the podcast acquisition platform of your choice, or right HERE.

August 14

Right after I shared my schedule yesterday, I got an e-mail that turned me into a damned liar. Fandemic Dead has been pushed back to March 2022. I’ve updated the “Appearances” page of the site.

The collector’s edition of Deathless, the sequel to Pressure, is going to ship next month. It’s almost sold out from Earthling Publications, so act quickly if you want a copy!

Okay, you probably don’t need to act quickly. What happens with a book like this is that there’s a big rush of orders when it’s first announced. In the case of Deathless, it almost sold out, but not quite. So you think, “Well, if it’s ALMOST sold out, it’ll sell out any minute now!” But instead there’s a long dry spell, because the kind of people who buy these hardcover collector’s editions tend to pounce as soon as pre-orders go live.

As soon as the publisher announces that the books are ready to ship, the rest of the copies will quickly sell and that’ll be the end of it.

Therefore, at this particular moment in time, if you haven’t ordered it there’s no compelling reason for you to do so.

Not that I’m trying to dissuade you from going to http://earthlingpub.com/js_deathless.html.

KillerCon & Other Appearances

Next weekend, August 20-22, is KillerCon! It’s virtual again this year, but last year’s virtual event was a hell of a lot of fun, and it being online means it’s only $10 and you don’t have to get a hotel.

I’m a Guest of Honor, so I’ll be around a lot. My schedule includes:

Opening Ceremonies

“I Don’t Belong Here” – I’m moderating a panel on Imposter Syndrome.

“Selling Your Ass” – Author Matt Shaw and I will teach you everything there is to know about marketing, or we’ll just flounder around for an hour, pretending we know what we’re talking about. TBD.

Reading and Q&A!

“Unnatural Unions” – A panel on collaboration.

Closing Ceremonies

Check out the official website HERE.

Meanwhile, the rest of my 2021 schedule looks like this:

Wine & Words. August 29, 2:00 – 4:00 PM. Dahlonega, Georgia. I’ll be at Accent Cellars with author Peter Salomon and artist Lynne Hansen. Wine! Words! (Also art.) 

Fandemic Dead. September 17-19. Atlanta, Georgia. Lots and lots of guests from The Walking Dead. And also me.

Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival October 9th. Haverhill, Massachusetts. Dozens of horror authors packed into a library! It’s craaaaazy!

Multiverse. October 15-17. Atlanta, Georgia. Hear me talk about horror-related stuff, or, y’know, whatever they put me on. 

Haunted Majestic. October 30. Huntington, West Virginia. I’ll be joining the members of the brand new West Virginia chapter of the Horror Writers Association at a signing at a haunted house…one that floats on a barge in the Ohio River!!!

Atlanta Writers Conference November 6-7. Atlanta, Georgia. On the 7th, I’ll be doing a two part talk on “Surviving The Writing Life.”