Tag: anthologies

books, fantasy, fiction, old work, science fiction, short stories, Uncategorized, writing

Upcoming Projects: Haunted Houses Collection, Baubles from Bones, and Journeys Anthology

amongthegoblins

Hello! Sorry to have left you hanging for months and months. I’m not great at blogging regularly, but I guess you know that by now.

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

My largest ongoing project (besides my ever-in-progress fantasy series THE VOID AND THE RAVEN) is a collection of ghost stories, tentatively titled HAUNTED HOUSES. This is a long-term project I’m hoping to finish and self-publish in the next five years, or possibly sooner if I’m able. It will include new editions of older stories like “Wake Your Ghost” (which you can read here) and “Spirits in the Dark” (a novelette first published by JMS Books, which unfortunately didn’t get much attention although I was really fond of it). I also hope to include stories like “The Angel,” which you can currently see in Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings by Alienhead press, and about fifteen other stories now in various stages of development. I’m currently editing another novelette called “The Woman at the Top of the Stairs,” which is a gothic romance story set in Prague, and hope to start sending it out soon.

On the subject of publications, I have an announcement to make! A very cool new magazine called Baubles from Bones has chosen my story “The Feast of the Changes” for publication in its inaugural issue. “Feast,” inspired by Where the Wild Things Are, is a soft, dreamy fantasy story about a boy traveling the world with his best friend: a large, furry monster. I had a great time writing it, and I’m really happy that it found a home with this venue. You can read the magazine (or purchase a copy) here.

Cover image for Baubles from Bones, issue 1

There’s one more project I wanted to let you know about: some friends and I are putting an anthology together. It’s a collaborative project on the theme of “Journeys,” and it’s been in the works for a few years now. Everyone involved is a writer friend and occasional critique partner (including several from the Durham Writers’ Group), and all of us write speculative fiction of one stripe or another. Since late 2020, we’ve been batting things back and forth on Discord, deciding the anthology’s theme and parameters and editing each other’s contributions. Given that coordinating with other writers is like herding cats under the best of circumstances, and adding the specific complications of having to play chat-tag across disparate time zones, we had some trouble keeping things going, and there’s been a lot of trial and error involved in this process. But we’ve kept going, and we’re almost finished, and we’re pretty excited about it.

We’re hoping to publish the anthology in September. It will probably be released as an ebook first and then in hard copy. I’ll let you know about preorders as soon as they’re available. If you’d like to receive updates, you can join our Facebook group here.

Contributor Allegra Gulino has also created a Facebook page where you can see promotional artwork she’s created for this project.

We’re really looking forward to telling you more about this project as we get closer to publication time. In the meantime, thank you for tuning in, and have a great month!

Public-domain image of a hand holding a pen, apparently writing, at a sunlit desk with papers and a white coffee mug on it. The sleeve of a cozy gray sweater is visible.
fantasy, fiction, professional life, Uncategorized, updates, writing

Writing updates

amongthegoblins

Stayed up late last night finishing edits on two stories, which I wanted to submit to two different anthologies both due the same day. Thanks to the feline ballet that started as soon as I got in bed, I got about four hours of sleep, but there was a very nice sense of accomplishment in getting those stories done and submitted. Of course, I received a very flippant rejection note only a few hours after sending one in, but at least it gave me the opportunity to slide the story under the wire for another submission call due today.

Back to work now on THE VOID AND THE RAVEN, my ongoing fantasy epic that was meant to be a single novel and is now looking at at least six parts. Two volumes are done. I could submit them for publication, but I’d rather get to the end and edit the whole series together for the sake of cohesion. I’ve been working on this story in different incarnations since about 2010, and I’m about three years into this particular try. I’m guessing at least another three to five years until the whole series is completed. (Of course, if someone wants to give me several hundred thousand dollars, I can stop doing other paid work and start writing full-time, which should speed up the process immensely.)

Public-domain image of a hand holding a pen, apparently writing, at a sunlit desk with papers and a white coffee mug on it. The sleeve of a cozy gray sweater is visible.
books, daily life, horror, professional life, reading, updates, writing

Updates January 2023

amongthegoblins

I’m working on a short story for an anthology my friend Sonya is putting together. It involves murder, ghosts and other spirits, romance, wind chimes, and a dark forest. I hope you’ll enjoy it when it comes out.

Anthologies are difficult in general. Some other friends and I were trying to put one together, but more than a year on it’s still in limbo because it was so difficult to allocate responsibility. I’m really proud of two stories of mine that were published in recent anthologies, but I’m not sure how they were received because neither book has gotten very many reviews. It can be a little discouraging. But then I realize that I myself haven’t read that many anthologies recently–I haven’t even finished reading the ones I was published in. So maybe everyone’s just busy.

Anyway, anthologies are an incredible way to discover new authors, and I haven’t been doing enough reading lately. Are there any collections you’d recommend?

On a completely different subject, I realized last night that the publication of “In the Nevergo” qualified me for an “Affiliate Writer” membership in the Horror Writers’ Association. I applied and was accepted today. I have a few more dark fantasy pieces in the works, so I’m hopeful that I might be able to upgrade to an “Active Writer” (i.e. full) membership before too long. I’ll see if there’s a badge or something I can put on my website. There aren’t a lot of concrete benefits to joining writers’ associations at this point in my career, but it’s a nice boost in a field where it’s hard to feel like a working professional.

(***I just checked and saw that under the updated membership requirements I also qualify for an Associate Membership in SFWA. I’m not quite ready to pay two sets of dues, though, so I’ll keep working towards a full membership there for now.)