"Our Town's Monster" is live at Chizine.

There's a randy couple, a persnickety real estate agent, an old school house, a historical swamp, and, we hope, a monster at the end of the story...Right, Grover?


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In mid-February, while doing my morning rounds on Facebook, the name of a recently deceased acquaintance popped up on my "your friend has a birthday today" list. This acquaintance was not someone I was close to, but over the years, I'd had more than a few professional dealings with him and I always found him to be friendly, pleasant, and courteous ( Read more... )

I've been blog-slacking. Hey, I've been busy, all right. Your reward. A slew of one or two-line book reviews! In order of what was read first.

Treasure Island!!! by Sarah Levine: One of the smartest and funniest books I've read in a long time. 25 year-old slacker reads Treasure Island and is inspired to live her using the book as her moral compass ( Read more... )

My satire/dystoptian/kitchen sink novel SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE, due to be published as a trade paperback by CZP in August, has a final cover. And this is that cover!


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The short version: a wonderful, speculative time was had by all.

The way longer version (apologies for people, places, and things I forgot):

Pre-pre-Boskone, writer, friend, man about town, John Langan came to my school to speak to some classes about writing and dairy farming. The students interested in dairy farming were sorely disappointed, but ( Read more... )

Last Sunday, Dec. 4th I flew out to Palm Springs, CA to be a guest faculty lecturer at the UC Riverside MFA program.  Tod Goldberg (writer, uber-blogger, man about town, and director of the Palm Desert MFA program) kindly extended me the invite to talk about something related to speculative fiction. He gently talked me out of doing a "The Jetsons: ( Read more... )

An expose by Laird Barron, Kurt Dinan, John Langan, and Paul Tremblay

The winds of change do not blow from random places; they blow mightily from Toronto, Canada.


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Taking a break from the fun at the Creatures blog to document my geeking out at Rock 'n Shock this weekend ( Read more... )

Boston, MA (September 2011) -- In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic ( Read more... )

Putting off prepping for back to school with quick, half-formed mini-reviews of books I read. Lucky you!

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. This is Wilson's first novel (he previously published the fantastic short story collection TUNNELING TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH), and it more than lives up to the promise of his stellar short fiction. The Family ( Read more... )