“The Puddle Girl of St. George” is a unique kind of ghost story set in the beautiful, haunting St. George, West Virginia. I’m very proud that it was selected for publication in the annual Anthology of Appalachian Writers.
Even though this volume (Vol. XI), featuring guest editor Karen Spears Zacharias, was technically published back in June, I’ve been waiting to post about it until there was a working link for ordering the book. For some reason there was a listing for it on the Shepherd University Online Bookstore for a while now, but it has been listed as Out of Stock until this month. Well, better late than never—you can order it now!
Happy Halloween everybody! Here’s a look at this year’s jack-o-lantern at the Huguenin house. Emily took the first photo (the better one), mine is the blurry dark one.
Don’t forget I’m going to be in Huntington, WV tomorrow from 6pm to 10pm with a table at the Haunted Majestic, a super-rad haunted house floating on the Ohio River. Admission is $17 for a really awesome event.
Tonight, I won’t be there, but if you want to go on actual Halloween night, graphic novel artist/writer Jason Pell will be there. He has some really cool stuff. Check out his work at Bug House Comics!
That’s all. Enjoy the holiday. See you tomorrow night (or Saturday).
The leaves have been fantastic around here the last few weeks. We’ve had some beautiful blue-sky days lately, though they have been a bit warmer for my tastes. Even though I’ve been going through some really hard stuff lately, I’m doing my best to get out and enjoy the greatest season in West Virginia. I even got me a brand new set of overalls. Autumn is probably my favorite time of year, especially here, though I do not think it would be so special if it were fall all year round (a guy’s gotta ski sometime). The last two years, we’ve had some biblical-scale infestations of those pseudo-lady bugs. This year I have a plan to keep them out, and, so far, the lady bug problem has been subdued. Crossing fingers. Other than that, the only negative I can think of regarding Octobers is being reminded that there are still people in this world who think it’s OK to say/write/think to one’s self, “Happy Fall, Y’all!”. (If you’re that person, please note: it is never OK). Otherwise, it is pretty much the perfect month. Here are some pictures from my walk to my writing spot a couple days ago, though my old smart phone needs to be replaced. It is not capable of really capturing the brilliance and beauty. I wish I had some pictures from a bike ride I took up on Burner Mountain, but I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with memories, like a healthy human being.
#AmWriting Weird Fiction
I finished a very strange Augustus Valley novella recently. I started it in February, planning for it to be a 3k-5k word short story for Hinnom Magazine (before the editor there had some kind of personal emergency and kind of disappeared from the internet—come back, C.P.! We miss you. Seriously, hope you’re OK).
At first, I had trouble with it, getting in words in fits and starts. Slowly, it grew—and kept growing (much like something in the story that… well, isn’t generally supposed to). Next thing I knew, it was past 10k words, then 15k… and this September I buckled down and knocked out the last of it, coming out to around 21,300 words after some editing. I guess I might dare say the story is a touch Aickman-ey. I hesitate to make that comparison, because I would not presume to lift myself to his level. It’s super weird, though.
I’m not great at pitches and summaries for even my more traditional stuff; I really don’t know how to pitch this one. A kid goes to work cleaning a mansion for a very strange man, who tries to mentor him in his off-the-wall philosophies on science and religion. Then crazy stuff happens. You will be amazed! Disturbed! Confounded! Horrified! Anyone interested yet? I hope my trouble to summarize it in a compelling way does not mean that it is actually a dud. I was afraid it would be, after all the trouble I had finishing it, but when I went back over it, I found myself quite happy with it. Hopefully readers will also be pleased. I do not know when it will be available for you to read, but if you sign up for my emails, I will notify you as soon as possible.
#AmWriting Bigfoot
After that, I got back to work on the Bigfoot novel at last. Once again, I find it unlikely that I will finish it this year. However, I’m actually starting to make some progress on it, which I could not say until this season. Sometimes it feels like writing this book is more difficult than tracking Old Sassy over Cheat Mountain.
Other notes and news
The West Virginia Book Festival was a whole lot of fun, as always. Big thanks to my buddy Stephen Golden for lending me his couch and food. Thank you, all who made it out to support me, and hello to any new readers who might be visiting my blog for the first time. Thanks to you guys, I sold out of all the copies I brought of Little One, the first time I’ve ever done that. Next time I’ll try to plan a little better.
On November 1st and 2nd (aka Halloween Weekend, despite it being November), I’ll be signing books at the Haunted Majestic in Huntington, a floating haunted house on the river. I am psyched to go and meet more people and check out this awesome event.
If you haven’t picked up the latest Black Static (#71), I highly recommend grabbing a copy. I found Stephen Hargadon’s “Dixon Parade” quite enjoyable. Shades of Thomas Ligotti and Ramsey Campbell. I have not finished the rest of the magazine, but I was very pleased to discover a new author and seek out more of his work.
Hey! If my website looks crazy or not what you expected or are used to, just know that I’m working as hard as I can to get it fixed soon! I am trying to migrate to a different host. Please bare with me!
Well, that’s it—for When the Watcher Shakes. But the sale has just begun on my ghost novel,Little One. Just 99 cents for the Kindle version, only this week. Don’t miss it.
Thus begins my End of Summer Sale on the Kindle versions of my novels! Head over to Amazon (US or UK) to buy my first novel, When the Watcher Shakes, for just 99 cents!
The walls were meant to keep evil out—but they only hid the evil within.
“A chilling entry in the small-town horror genre. Huguenin combines suspense, mystery, and action in page-turning style.” — Scott Nicholson, The Red Church
It’s already getting very cool in the Allegheny mountains. Autumn is coming.
As the summer wraps up, I’m going to be doing a 99 cent sale on the Kindle versions of my novels (sale price will apply to the US and UK amazon markets only). When the Watcher Shakes will go on sale first for a week, followed by Little One for another week. Stay tuned.
Email list subscribers will be notified first.
Whoah! I have been so busy that August (and with it, the Lewisburg Literary Festival) completely snuck up on me. Can you believe that August starts this Thursday?
Refer to the website and Facebook page for details on schedule, speakers, workshops, and all that jazz! (Unfortunately, there is no literal jazz, as far as I know. One of the few things that could make Lewisburg cooler is a jazz lounge).
Come out on August 2-3; I’ll be there. More excitingly, so will Tobias Wolff and Sarah Vowell. And other cool people.
This is one of the coolest literary events in WV in one of the coolest small towns in WV (nay, in all of America!—see Budget Travel Magazine‘s 2011 list). Everything’s so cool.
It’s time for a little update to my first book, When the Watcher Shakes. Behold this gorgeous cover from none other than Ben Baldwin, who also designed my covers for Little One and Antique Bed, and whose art has appeared in publications like Black Static, Stephen King & Richard Chizmar’s Gwendy’s Button Box, and too many others of note to name here.
Please note that this is not a sequel. This is a new edition with some superficial changes to the text. Nothing has changed in regard to plot or characters, and no scenes have been added or removed. So if you already own a copy of the first edition, congrats! You don’t need to get the new one, unless you are, like me, a sucker for awesome artwork and need to have a copy just for the new cover. But now may be a good time to think if you have any friends that need a copy. 🙂
Click here to buy When the Watcher Shakes on Amazon!
