Talking The Martial Art of Writing on the Indy Author Podcast

Feb 2, 2022

I had the singular pleasure recently to chat with Matty Dalrymple of The Indy Author Podcast. Specifically, we really dug deeply into the correlations between the art of writing and martial arts. It was a great conversation and you can read, listen or watch it!

If you go to this URL you’ll find the full transcript as well as all the links and the YouTube video: https://www.theindyauthor.com/118—the-martial-art-of-writing.html
And here’s a direct link to YouTube: https://youtu.be/fAQCB6mYmgk

THE FALL: Tales From The Gulp 2 pre-orders now live!

Jan 28, 2022

I’m very excited to announce that THE FALL is now available for pre-order at all the usual places. You can click on the button below to find your favourite store and there’s also an option there to order a signed paperback directly from me. The publication date is April 12th, so go ahead and send your future self a gift! Click the button for all the links you need.

Read Excerpt
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The Gulp makes the Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot

Jan 22, 2022

What an absolute trip to wake up this morning and see this. The 2021 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot was just announced and THE GULP is on there for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. That’s fantastic! Now this most definitely isn’t the same as being nominated – the prelim ballot is now going to be voted on by Active and Lifetime Members of the HWA to determine a shortlist, and that list will be the official award nominees. But it’s such a joy to see my book get this far. Of course, I desperately hope to make the shortlist, but just look at the company I’m sharing on this preliminary ballot. Truly amazing. We’ll see what the future  holds!

The full Preliminary Ballot is listed below. Massive congrats to everyone who’s made it this far. Horror is certainly healthy right now.

EDIT: The official Bram Stoker Awards® website has been updated with the Preliminary Ballot now. You can see it here.

The 2021 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Castro, V. – The Queen of the Cicadas (Flame Tree Press)

Demchuk, David – Red X (Strange Light)

Hendrix, Grady – The Final Girl Support Group (Berkley)

Jones, Stephen Graham – My Heart Is a Chainsaw (Gallery/Saga Press)

Knight, EV – Children of Demeter (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

McLeod Chapman, Clay – Whisper Down the Lane (Quirk Books)

Pelayo, Cynthia – Children of Chicago (Agora Books)

Starling, Caitlin – The Death of Jane Lawrence (St. Martin’s Press)

Stred, Steve – Incarnate (Black Void Publishing)

Wendig, Chuck – The Book of Accidents (Del Rey)

 

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Desiree, Amanda – Smithy (Inkshares)

Fox, VK – Indie Saint (Aethon Books)

Jones, C.B. – TheRules of the Road (Ionosphere Press)

Martinez, S. Alessandro – Helminth (Omnium Gatherum)

McQueen, LaTanya – When the Reckoning Comes (Harper Perennial)

Miles, Terry – Rabbits (Del Rey)

Moreno, Gus – This Thing Between Us (MCD x FSG Originals)

Piper, Hailey – Queen of Teeth (Strangehouse Books)

Quigley, Lisa – The Forest (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)

Willson, Nicole – Tidepool (The Parliament House)

 

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Ahmed, Saladin (author) and Kivelä, Sami (artist) – Abbott 1973 (BOOM! Studios)

Garcia, Kami (author); Suayan, Mico (artist); Badower, Jason (artist); and Mayhew, Mike (artist) – Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity (DC Comics)

Leong, Sloane (author) and Bowles, Anna (artist) – Graveneye (TKO Studios)

Manzetti, Alessandro (author) and Cardoselli, Stefano (artist) – The Inhabitant of the Lake (Independent Legions Publishing)

McCurdy, Bowen (author/artist) and Musto, Kaitlyn (author) – Specter Inspectors (BOOM! Box)

Morrison, Grant (author); Child, Alex (author); and Franquiz, Naomi (artist) – Proctor Valley Road (BOOM! Studios)

Moyer, Rich (author/artist) – Ham Helsing Vampire Hunter (Crown Books for Young Readers)

Panosian, Dan (author) and Ignazzi, Marianna (artist) – An Unkindness of Ravens (BOOM! Studios)

Scott, Cavan (author) and Howell, Corin (artist) – Shadow Service: Dark Arts (Vault Comics)

Szym, Adam (author/artist) – A Cordial Invitation (Self-published)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Ames, Alison – To Break a Covenant (Page Street Kids)

Blake, Kendare – All These Bodies (Quill Tree Books)

Boyle, R.L. – The Book of the Baku (Titan Books)

Craig, Erin A. – Small Favors (Delacorte Press)

Gould, Courtney – The Dead and the Dark (Wednesday Books)

Lewis, Jessica – Bad Witch Burning (Delacorte Press)

Marshall, Kate Alice – Our Last Echoes (Viking Books for Young Readers)

Polydoros, Aden – The City Beautiful (Inkyard Press)

Sutherland, Krystal – House of Hollow (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Waters, Erica – The River Has Teeth (HarperTeen)

 

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Asman, Brian – Man, Fuck This House (Mutated Media)

Castro, V. – Goddess of Filth (Creature Publishing, LLC)

Deady, Tom – Of Men and Monsters (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Jeffery, Ross – Only The Stains Remain (Cemetery Gates Media)

Khaw, Cassandra – Nothing But Blackened Teeth (Tor Nightfire)

LaRocca, Eric – Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (Weirdpunk Books)

Marrs, Chris and O’Neill, Gene – “Entangled Soul” (Entangled Soul and Other Stories) (Omnium Gatherum)

Piper, Hailey – “Recitation of the First Feeding” (Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy) (The Seventh Terrace)

Strand, Jeff – “Twentieth Anniversary Screening” (Slice and Dice) (Independently published)

Tingle, Chuck – Straight (Self-published)



Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Gwilym, Douglas – “Year Six” (LampLight Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 1) (Apokrupha)

Gyzander, Carol – “The Yellow Crown” (Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign) (Hippocampus Press)

Joseph, R.J. – “I Just Want to Be Free” (Paranormal Contact: A Quiet Horror Confessional) (Cemetery Gates Media)

Joseph, R.J. – “Soulmates” (Dark Dispatch Issue #2: Deadly Love) (Dark Dispatch)

Murray, Lee – “Permanent Damage” (Attack From the ‘80s) (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

O’Quinn, Cindy – “A Gathering at the Mountain” (The Bad Book) (Bleeding Edge Books)

Oreto, Frank J. – “The Care and Feeding of Household Gods” (Beyond the Veil) (Flame Tree Press)

Taborska, Anna -“Two Shakes Of A Dead Lamb’s Tail”(Terror Tales of the Scottish Lowlands) (Telos Publishing)

Ward, Kyla Lee – “A Whisper in the Death Pit” (Weirdbook #44) (Wildside Press)

Yates, Pauline – “The Best Medicine” (Midnight Echo Issue 16) (AHWA)

 

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Bailey, Michael – Psychotropic Dragon (Written Backwards)

Baxter, Alan – The Gulp (13th Dragon Books)

Files, Gemma – In That Endlessness, Our End (Grimscribe Press)

Fracassi, Philip – Beneath a Pale Sky (Lethe Press)

Landry, Jess – The Mother Wound (Independent Legions Publishing)

Maberry, Jonathan – Empty Graves: Tales of the Living Dead (WordFire Press LLC)

McCarthy, J.A.W. – Sometimes We’re Cruel and Other Stories (Cemetery Gates Media)

Tuttle, Lisa – The Dead Hours of Night (Valancourt Books)

Wise, A.C. – The Ghost Sequences (Undertow Publications)

Yap, Isabel – Never Have I Ever (Small Beer Press)

 

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Bailey-Bond, Prano and Fletcher, Anthony – Censor (Silver Salt Films)

Carolyn, Axelle – The Manor (Amazon Studios)

Chaisson, C. Henry; Antosca, Nick; and Cooper, Scott – Antlers (Searchlight Pictures)

Charles, Kathy; Steensland, Mark; and Stevens, Travis – Jakob’s Wife (AMP International)

Cushing, Aric and Thomas, Logan – There’s No Such Thing as Vampires (Ascent Releasing)

Dong-hyuk, Hwang – Squid Game, Season 1, Episode 1: “Red Light, Green Light” (Siren Pictures)

Flanagan, Mike; Flanagan, James; and Howard, Jeff – Midnight Mass, Season 1, Episode 6: “Book VI: Acts of the Apostles” (Intrepid Pictures)

Graziadei, Phil and Janiak, Leigh – Fear Street: Part One – 1994 (Chernin Entertainment)

Peele, Jordan; Rosenfeld, Win; and DaCosta, Nia – Candyman (Universal Pictures)

Pisanthanakun, Banjong – The Medium (GDH 559)

 

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Garza, Alexander P. – notsleepyyet (Weasel Press)

Lansdale, Joe R. – Apache Witch and Other Poetic Observations (Independent Legions Publishing)

Manzetti, Alessandro – Dancing with Maria’s Ghost (Independent Legions Publishing)

McHugh, Jessica – Strange Nests (Apokrupha)

O’Brien, Brandon – Can You Sign My Tentacle? (Interstellar Flight Press)

Simon, Marge and Turzillo, Mary – Victims (Weasel Press)

Sng, Christina; Yuriko Smith, Angela; Murray, Lee; and Flynn, Geneve – Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. (Yuriko Publishing)

Snyder, Lucy A. – Exposed Nerves (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Walrath, Holly Lyn – The Smallest of Bones (CLASH Books)

Wolfe, Jezzy – Monstrum Poetica (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

 

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Chambers, James – Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign (Hippocampus Press)

Cluff, Michael and Becker, Willow – Humans are the Problem: A Monster’s Anthology (Weird Little Worlds)

Datlow, Ellen – When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (Titan Books)

French, Aaron J. and Landry, Jess – There is No Death, There are No Dead (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Guignard, Eric J. – Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World (Dark Moon Books)

HOWL Society – Howls From Hell (HOWL Society Press)

Johnson, Eugene – Attack From the ‘80s (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Schlossberg, Josh – The Jewish Book of Horror (Denver Horror Collective)

Showers, Brian J. – Uncertainties: Volume V (Swan River Press)

Thomas, Ben – Tales from Omnipark (House Blackwood)

 

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Abbott, Stacey and Jowett, Lorna – Global TV Horror (University of Wales Press)

Decker, Lindsey – Transnationalism and Genre Hybridity in New British Horror Cinema (University of Wales Press)

Falvey, Eddie; Hickinbottom, Joe; and Wroot, Jonathan – New Blood: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Horror (University of Wales Press)

Olson, Danel – 9/11 Gothic: Decrypting Ghosts and Trauma in New York City’s Terrorism Novels (Lexington Books)

Knost, Michael – Writers Workshop of Horror 2 (Hydra Publications)

Lester, Catherine – Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema (Bloomsbury Academic)

Potts, Jim – Defending a Serial Killer: The Right to Counsel (Vesuvian Books)

Wetmore Jr., Kevin J. – Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters (Reaktion Books)

Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew and Hansen, Regina M. – Giving the Devil His Due: Satan and 

Cinema (Fordham University Press)

Woofter, Kristopher – Shirley Jackson: A Companion (Peter Lang Publishing)

 

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

Clasen, Mathias – “Fear Not!” (Aeon)

Cowen, David E. – “Introduction” (Victims) (Weasel Press)

Ward, Kyla Lee – “Vampire Poetry” (Penumbra No. 2 (2021)) (Hippocampus Press)

Diak, Nicholas – “Cullzathro Fhtagn! Magnifying the Carnivalesque in Lovecraft Through the Comic Book Series Vinegar Teeth” (Academia Letters)

Ognjanović, Dejan – “The Three Paradigms of Horror” (Vastarien Vol. 4, Issue 2) (Grimscribe Press)

O’Quinn, Cindy – “One and Done” (Were Tales: A Shapeshifter Anthology) (Brigids Gate Press)

Tamásfi, László – “The Devil Flew Away”(Dracula’s Death)(Strangers from Nowhere)

Verona, Emily Ruth – “A Horror Fan’s Guide to Surviving Womanhood” (thefinalgirls.co.uk)

Wetmore, Kevin J. – “Devil’s Advocates: The Conjuring” (Auteur Publishing/Liverpool University Press)

Yuriko Smith, Angela – “Horror Writers: Architects of Hope” (The Sirens Call, Halloween 2021, Issue 55) (Sirens Call Publications)

Signed book plates for overseas readers

Jan 20, 2022

It’s a fact that sending signed books from Australia to anywhere outside Australia is heinously expensive. I’m more than happy to send signed books anywhere in the world, of course – you can order them by clicking the orange “Signed Paperback” button on any book page. But if you’re outside Australia, the postage will likely double the cost of the books. So an alternative is required. That’s where book plates come in. A book plate is a sticker that I sign and post to you, which you then stick into the book you’ve bought in your own country (therefore you only pay local postage rates for the book).

So that design you see on the top left is my latest book plate. They fit in a small Thank You card, which I can post anywhere in the world at “Card Only” rates, which is about AUS$5 all up. The book plates themselves are AUS$1 each. So, for example, 5 signed book plates would only cost you AUS$10 (which is about US$8). Bargain! Most people tend to put the book plate opposite the title page or inside the front cover, but you can pick anywhere really. Entirely up to you. You don’t even have to stick them in a book. Stick them wherever you like!

So if you’re keen for one (or more) for books you’ve already bought or plan on buying, here’s the place to do that. CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR BOOK PLATES. The maximum is 5 per order. If you want more than five, complete an order for five, pay, then start again for however many you want. This keeps the shipping at AU$5 per order, but you will have to pay that AU$5 each time, plus the AU$1 per book plate. That’s the cheapest arrangement I could manage.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR BOOK PLATES.

Clicking that link will take you directly to the cart where you can select the number of book plates you want. Make sure to select the cheapest AU$5 shipping option. Also, tell me Who to sign them to and What books they’re for – you do this in the checkout section, at the top right, where you see a box for “Notes about your order”. That way, I can personalise each individual book plate. Right here:

That’s it! Simple. Any questions, drop me a line. I’m always happy to accommodate signed book requests to the best of my ability. The tyranny of distance makes it tricky sometimes, but we’ll always find a solution.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR BOOK PLATES.

The Call of CthuPooh

Jan 18, 2022

Twitter is always good fun (assuming you curate your feed and block the arseholes with abandon.) A while back Laura Keating posted this:

Winnie the Pooh is in the public domain.
The entire Lovecraft canon is in the public domain.

Do what you will with that information.

The responses to it were wonderful. Of course, I couldn’t resist that. My first response was this:

Winnie the Pooh and H P Lovecraft are now both in the public domain. Epic mashup opportunity.

The Hundred Aeon Wood
A Shadow Over Christopher Robin
The Honey Out of Space
The Call of Cthupooh
NyarlathoTigg
The Piglets in the Wall
The Dunwich Eeyore

(Help me I can’t stop)

But then I got a bit carried away and write a whole thing. So I’ve transcribed it here for safekeeping. Click through and read on Twitter or scroll down to read it here.

Christopher Robin will never tell anyone what we saw that night. But me? Oh bother. I am a Very Honest Bear.

Of course, it started well before that night, as so many things do. Start before they end, I mean. And end before they begin. Like Piglet says, “Time is a flat circle.”

If only we could have known the things we toyed with, Piglet and Tigger and Kanga and Roo and me. But they toyed with us too, didn’t they?

If Christopher Robin hadn’t found us that fateful twilight, who knows what might have occurred. But we paid the price didn’t we?

Eeyore. I haven’t mentioned him, but I should. He was there, wasn’t he? My Very Small Brain struggles to hold everything together. He’s gone now, like he never was. But he was, wasn’t he?

When we found the strange symbols carved into the trees in the deepest darkest parts of the Hundred Acre Wood, we copied them down. That was our error.

Eeyore didn’t like them. He warned us. Told us not to. But we did.

We should have listened. Roo cried every time he saw a symbol, Eeyore nodded as though Roo’s tears were a Very True Thing.

We should have listened.

Children see True Things beyond the Gossamer Veil of Lies.

Long ago we built Eeyore a house at Pooh Corner, where the wind doesn’t blow. The icy breeze through those sticks should have warned us.

Roo cried. We should have listened.

“Don’t write down the symbols,” said Eeyore. “At least not in my house.” The icy wind grew.

Roo cried. We should have listened.

For fun we wrote those symbols in a circle around Eeyore while he begged us to stop. Something outside of us drove us to torment him so.

And the sun began to set, that icy breeze grew. Where Eeyore’s roof should have been, something deep and ancient opened.

Roo cried. We should have listened. But it was too late by then.

Something both There and Not There reached from the deepest swirling galaxies beyond, wrapping around Eeyore as he screamed.

Kanga grabbed Roo and bounded away. Tigger tried the The Whoopty-Dooper-Loopty-Looper-Alley-Ooper bounce while tears of blood streamed from his eyes. But Eeyore screamed on.

Piglet ran in circles begging me to do something but I am just a Very Simple Bear. I could not undo what we had wrought.

That multitude of night began reaching all around, snatching at all of us. Then, thankfully, Christopher Robin appeared.

Eyes wide, mouth frothing, he tore apart the sticks of the House of Pooh Corner. He shunned them. He grabbed me and Piglet and Tigger and ran.

“Don’t look, don’t look!” cried Christopher Robin. “Don’t give it the power of your observation!”

But I looked. And it burned.

Kanga and Roo were running away through the Hundred Acre Wood and as far as I know they are running there still.

“Never speak of it!” cries Christopher Robin if ever we mention it. I hear him sometimes, sobbing in the night.

He goes deep into the Hundred Acre Wood and takes an axe to chop down the trees marred by those nightmare sigils. He searches for them all the time.

Piglet permanently shakes as though he’s cold. Tigger doesn’t bounce any more.

And Eeyore. I should mention him, because he was there, wasn’t he? Or am I imagining him? A donkey? Now I say it aloud it seems so unlikely.

Christopher Robin will never speak of that night, but I am a Very Honest Bear, so I’ve written it down. For who? I don’t know.

Honey isn’t sweet any more. I wish my brain were smaller still. But I remember. I think. I don’t know.

Stay out of the woods and if you see a symbol, turn away. Trust me. It’s a Very Bad Thing.

The Fall: Tales From The Gulp 2 cover and contents

Jan 18, 2022

I know a lot of people have been excited for a follow-up to THE GULP. That really makes me happy, because I’m super proud of that book and I’m so glad it’s resonating well with readers. I had every intention of writing more if the first set of stories was well-received, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. Five more stories are coming in April in THE FALL, volume two of the Tales From The Gulp. I had hoped to put the book out sooner, but there’s good reason for waiting until April which I’ll talk about soon when I allowed to. Meanwhile, check out that sweet cover! Again, it’s using artwork from my talented wife, Halinka Orszulok. Find more of her stuff at www.halinka.com.au

The five new stories make a kind of complete arc across all ten stories, so there’s hopefully some sense of closure with these two volumes. But, of course, there will be more from the town of Gulpepper. Too many people and events I want to explore further. Here’s the full blurb for THE FALL.

Strange things happen in The Gulp. The residents have grown used to it.

The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people.

A man enjoying early retirement makes the mistake of visiting The Gulp.
A fishing boat crew find themselves somewhere entirely unexpected.
A farmer has an argument with his wife that turns violent and then entirely catastrophic.
A Venture Scout troop from Enden travel a little too far on their bush excursion.
Everything that’s been getting stranger than usual in The Gulp begins to run completely out of control.

Five more novellas. Five more descents into darkness.
Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.

The five new stories are “Gulpepper Curios”, “Cathedral Stack”, “That Damn Woman”, “Excursion Troop” and “The Fall”. Pre-orders will be available soon for both the paperback and ebook. Watch my social media feeds for that news. Meanwhile, you can read an excerpt of the first story here.

Here’s the full wraparound cover:

Happy New Year for 2022

Dec 31, 2021

Here’s a little something I posted on Twitter today. Click through to read the tweet thread, or it’s all transcribed below.

It’s New Year’s Eve, so that seems like a good time to tell this story of what happened back in about ’02 or ’03. Somewhere around there. I’ve never told anyone before.

Me and three friends decided to see the new year in somewhere remote. We rented a cabin up in the Snowy Mountains (don’t forget, it’s summer in Aus for new year) and we headed up there with loads of food and booze.

The place was on a property, but miles from the main house. You went past the house, then along a dirt track for about 3km to the edge of the bush. Little log cabin, it had power, tank water, all that.

It was beautiful. Bush along one side, and a view of a million miles across a huge valley right in front, with epic mountains in the distance.

We arrived about lunchtime on the 31st, got set up in there. Had the place booked until the 3rd of January. A cool private break for four friends.

There was a big old BBQ out front, and seats with a wooden table. The new year would be seen in looking at stars over that massive view, cooking up steaks and snags, drinking cold beers. Wonderful.

It all went well to begin with.

Honestly, we were all pretty wasted by about 10pm, but had no intention of slowing down. As the clock rolled around towards midnight, one of our number (let’s call him Jim to protect the innocent) said he needed a piss. He strolled off towards the bush.

“The toilet is about 3 metres away and inside!” I yelled after him, but he called back something about country living and walked into the shadows under the ghost gums.

We carried on, opened new beers, and then I realised it was coming up to midnight. “Where’s Jim?” I asked. He’d been ages.

The other two shrugged, let’s call them Gaz and Baz (I don’t know how much the guys would want me to share this story, so…)

Gaz laughed and said Jim probably got lost in there. Baz said he’d probably passed out, he was so drunk. He’d wake up in the bush in the new year with leaves and twigs stuck to his face and wonder where the hell he was.

I said we should look for him, but then Gaz said, “Hey, it’s midnight! Happy new year, ya cunts!”

We started cheering and whooping, clinking bottles and wishing each other all the best, Jim forgotten for a moment.

As our celebration died down, there was the tail end of a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere out in the trees. My stomach turned to ice at the sound of it, goosebumps rippled my skin, despite the hot summer night.

“Did you hear that?” I asked the others. “Hear what?” they both said.

“There was a scream,” I said. Gaz and Baz both shook their heads, claimed they didn’t hear a thing. “Probably a dingo howling or something,” Baz said.

But I knew it wasn’t.

Jim didn’t come back that night. The next day, hungover as fuck, we went looking for him in the trees. Didn’t find him. All we found was his t-shirt, ripped and torn, and bloodstained.

We stood there, the three of us, holding this gory thing. What the fuck had happened?

We reported him missing, and of course, they searched. But they found nothing. One bloodstained shirt was all that was left of our friend.

I’ve wondered a lot over the years what got him. The rangers said there was no sign of a struggle, no evidence that he’d even been there except our word and the shirt. No tracks at all.

I mean, they couldn’t even find the tracks he’d left going into the trees. The three of us they accounted for, but not Jim. They started asking us if we were fucking them around, lying about a 4th person for a laugh.

But the owner confirmed four of us had checked in.

What happened to him?

We kinda moved on with our lives. Just one of those unexplained things, you know?

But a couple of years later I went back out there. I rented the same cabin again, just by myself. Not for new year, but some time in February, I think it was.

When I got there, I went back into the bush right where we’d found the shirt. I remembered it well, the tree the shirt had been caught on – it was a unique shape and hadn’t grown that much. I just went there to sort of remember Jim, but something made me look up.

Not sure why, I climbed the tree. It was really tall, but easy enough to clamber up. When I got about twenty-five metres off the ground, and it started getting thin and really unstable, I saw something caught up in a small V of branches.

It looked at first like some sticks, strangely weathered. But as I got closer, I saw it was bones, held together by skin and ligament gone hard and leathery like jerky.

Fingerbones, mostly.

Then I realised, the way the old skin still hung off the bones, it was pretty much an entire hand, jammed hard into the V of the branches, torn off at the wrist. More than twenty-five metres off the ground.

I left it there, and climbed back down. I decided not to tell anyone about it. I mean, it wouldn’t bring him back, would it?

So I’m a bit half-hearted about new year’s these days. It always reminds me of Jim. Cheers, mate, wherever you are.

And call me crazy, but every year, if I stay up, just as the cheering and celebrating ends at midnight I always hear the tail end of a bloodcurdling scream. Somewhere above me.

Anyway, Happy New Year, all!

2021 Awards Eligibility Post

Dec 16, 2021

It’s that time of the year again, where people are compiling their best reads of the year lists and considering what they might nominate for awards. Speaking for myself, I love it when people make eligibility posts like these to help us remember what came out during the year. Especially if stuff came out in the first half of the year, it can be hard to remember. Posts like these are useful for that. If you’re not into eligibility posts, no worries. This isn’t the post your looking for. *waves hand*

If you are interested and considering work for the Stoker Recommended Reading List, the Nebula and Hugo Awards, any Best Of roundups, etc. here’s what I produced in 2021 and is therefore eligible for all the good stuff:

THE GULP

Published in January 2021, this book is eligible for all the Best Collection categories, being a collection of 5 novellas. Given that each novella in it is also previously unpublished, all five are eligible in all the Novella or Long Fiction categories (each story is between 10k and 25k words). Those stories are “Out On A Rim”, “Mother in Bloom”, “The Band Plays On”, “48 To Go”, and “Rock Fisher”. This is one of my indie releases, so while it’s labelled as published by 13th Dragon Books, that’s me. So this is a self-published release.

(For anyone keen on Gulp updates, the second book of Tales From The Gulp, containing 5 more entirely original novellas and making a full mosaic novel across all 10 stories, has just gone to my editor. I’m looking at an April 2022 release for that, along with a few other very cool bits and pieces, so watch this space! Title and cover reveal coming in the new year. The cover is another amazing Halinka Orszulok painting.)

The other solo book I had published this year was GHOST RECALL, which came out just in time to qualify, in early-December. Ghost Recall is about 35k words long, so it’s eligible in all the Novella or Long Fiction categories. Grey Matter Press released this one, and it’s the third in the Eli Carver Supernatural Thriller Series, that started with Manifest Recall, then Recall Night. This third book does make something of a complete arc across all three books, but it’s by no means the last Eli Carver book if I have any say in the matter. So fingers crossed readers get behind it, then GMP and I can work on bringing you more.

Lastly, CROCALYPSE (Sam Aston Investigations Book 3), a monster thriller co-authored with David Wood, came out in March 2021, so if you’ve enjoyed that and think it eligible for anything, we’d be mighty grateful to you. Hopefully there will be more Sam Aston books going into the future too.

That’s it for book releases. What about short fiction? Other than the five original novellas in The Gulp that I mentioned above, I didn’t have too many short fiction publications in 2021. But the things I did publish that are eligible in the various Short Fiction categories are:

“Nurturing His Nature” – The Bad Book anthology, ed. John F.D. Taff (Bleeding Edge Books, July 2021)

“Come His Children” – Cthulhu Deep Down Under 3, ed. Steve Proposch, Christopher Sequeira and Bryce Stevens (IFWG Publishing, June 2021)

“All That Matters” – The Saturday Paper, ed. Alison Croggon (April 2021)

There were also a couple of exclusive short stories published on my Patreon page, but I imagine they’re not really eligible, seeing as only patrons can read them.

So that’s it for me. If you think anything I’ve put out in 2021 is worthy of attention, I hugely appreciate your vote. More readers is what we’re always after to build a sustainable career as authors, and while books sales through word of mouth is always the first and best way to achieve that, this kind of award and Best Of attention really helps to raise awareness of our work too. Be sure to look back on the year and see what you can do to raise awareness of all the stuff you’ve loved in 2021. And of course, there’s no obligation to do any of this. First and foremost, reading for your own enjoyment is the only thing that really matters and if you’ve read and enjoyed my work this year, I can’t thank you enough for your time. I appreciate you!

Happy arbitrary end-of-year date to you all – may you find health, happiness and fulfillment every day into the future.

What’s the point otherwise?

Dec 15, 2021

A little musing I posted up on YouTube today – sharing here for those of you that might have missed it otherwise.

GHOST RECALL is alive!

Dec 8, 2021

It all started a few years ago when mob hitman, Eli Carver, “woke up” in a car on a dark road. He was driving, but had no recollection of his life up to that point. Or where he was going. Or who the frightened woman in the passenger seat was. That was MANIFEST RECALL and I’m so pleased the book struck a chord with readers. A year later there was a follow up, RECALL NIGHT, in which Eli tried to ignore the ghosts of ex-hits that haunt him and get on with life. But that wasn’t so easy. Life for Eli Carver is weird. Now we have book three in the series, GHOST RECALL. This one goes up to 11. Eli finally accepts that he can no longer ignore the existence of his ghosts and it’s just as well, because he gets dragged into the most bananas supernatural adventure of his life thus far. Whether he survives or not, things will definitely never be the same again.

The amazing Laid Barron, award-winning author of Swift To Chase, said, “Ghost Recall bottles the essence of impending doom that drives the most powerful noir. A haunted man walks the neon streets of a soulless town and all around walls of darkness close in like the steel teeth of a trap. Vintage Baxter: fast, sleek, and bloody-minded.”

The book is out now in all stores, in ebook and paperback. You can also order a signed paperback direct from me. And as if that wasn’t enough, those fine folks at Grey Matter Press have reduced the ebook price of book 1, Manifest Recall, to just 99c for a limited time, so now is a great time to get into this series if you haven’t done so yet.

Click through to this page for all the info and buy buttons – those buy buttons list all the stores as well as the signed paperback option. Or just order wherever you prefer to buy books or, of course, your local library.

Thanks for reading!

“Ghost Recall bottles the essence of impending doom that drives the most powerful noir. A haunted man walks the neon streets of a soulless town and all around walls of darkness close in like the steel teeth of a trap. Vintage Baxter: fast, sleek, and bloody-minded.” – Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase

“Expect collateral damage, blockbuster fight sequences and of course, some great banter between the ghosts and Eli. The previous two entries were both really fun reads, filled with emotions and creating a rollercoaster ride for the reader. This one does the same, but  turns it up a notch… I always love reading Alan’s work. He inflicts everything with darkness, depth, emotions and some of the best action/fight scenes out there” – Steve Stred at Kendall Reviews

“The interplay between Carver and his latched-on ghosts is always a highlight, and possibly the best part of this novella is Baxter early on establishing a new precedent for this relationship that changes the game in a big way. It’s not too long after this that a truly shocking moment comes out of left field as an indirect result. It’s all a nice touch that goes a long way to keep this series the furthest thing from stale, even three books in. While Ghost Recall doesn’t end on a cliffhanger per se, Baxter makes it clear he’s not stopping at a trilogy. With this being the strongest entry in the series yet, I can get behind that decision. – Brennan LaFaro at Dead Headspace

“Ghost Recall is a hell of a lot of fun. Baxter keeps the action swift and furious, and the pressure high, leavened with occasional moments of dark levity. It’s the perfect blend of noir and occult horror – imagine Jason Statham leading The Frighteners if written by Laird Barron and you’re on the right track.” – Michael Patrick Hicks

“If you like your fiction short and sweet, with the back-kick of a mule laced with razorblades, then perhaps it is time to jump into the slipstream of this awesome tough guy created by Alan Baxter… The plot is top heavy with vicious action sequences, a substantial body count and Alan Baxter has a real knack of delivering unrelentingly brutal battles which would not be out of place in a Tarantino flick, or the Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed films of the 1990s.” – Tony Jones at Ginger Nuts of Horror