the WV Book Festival is this Saturday

Get ready Charleston, it’s one of the best weekends of the year—the West Virginia Book Festival! This Saturday (Oct 21), from 8:00 am to 6:oo pm, come meet WV authors (including me) for a day of book-buying, presentations, and hearing from the headline featured authors. It’s free to attend. As usual, I’ll be there, selling my books and some new mugs. So make some space on your calendar this Saturday for the West Virginia Book Festival, held at the Charleston Coliseum. For more information, go to wvbookfestival.org.

Update: #amwriting – fall, weird, bigfoot

#AmWriting in Autumn

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. Continue reading

Happy Halloween

I kind of already said this, but HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Here is the jack-o-lantern Emily and I carved this season:
 

October is the best month for a variety of reasons. You got beautiful fall colors, crisp, cool weather, and yeah, Halloween (see above). I got in some good mountain biking, had tons of fun at the annual West Virginia Book Festival, and got to meet up for coffee with an old friend at Taylor Books, which is a pretty great coffee shop/book store in downtown Charleston that I recommend.
 

Also, this month I released a new Kindle horror novelette, Antique Bed, which you can get on Amazon for only $0.99.
Antique Bed - home
And just in time for Halloween, Horror Tales Podcast released their fourth episode, which is my story “The Unknown Thing”, previously published in Beneath the Waves: Tales from the Deep. Click below to listen (it’s free):
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***EDIT: I was just notified that my story has been listened to over one thousand times already, in just a few days! Cool!
One experience I had that was not enjoyable this month was the Witch’s Brew drink at Starbucks. This purple monstrosity was so awful looking that I just had to try it. There is zero coffee in this drink (not that anyone expected it), and I could only take a few sips before tossing it in the trash.
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As I don’t live in a town where there is trick-or-treating (or a town of any kind, for that matter), sadly, my house is not stocked full of candy (also, I guess they don’t always do trick-or-treating on actual Halloween anymore?). However, Emily and I have some pretty fun plans involving our traditional viewing of Halloween is Grinch Night and some caramel apples that are sure to ruin our teeth but be wildly tasty (ironically enough, last night I had a dream in which two of my teeth fell out for no reason).
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So go enjoy the holiday, however you do that—consuming tons of sugar, watching movies, listening to Horror Tales Podcast, or reading one of my books (I guess somebody else’s book is fine, too). Remember that tomorrow candy will be dirt cheap.

Go to the West Virginia Book Festival this weekend in Charleston, WV

Hi everyone, this weekend is the West Virginia Book Festival at the Charleston Civic Center. Please come and support books and writers and West Virginia. It’s free!
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Of course I will be selling autographed copies of my novels in the Festival Marketplace. I look forward to meeting you there. Marketplace hours are Friday the 26th from 11:30 AM to 6:30 PM and Saturday the 27th from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Big Deal Authors presenting include John Scalzi, Dennis Lehane, and Meredith Sue Willis. Cool Things To Do include writing workshops, buying books, guest lectures, and buying books. The highlight of the year! See the schedule here.

Flash #Halloween #Kindle #giveaway

Happy Halloween everybody! A few things:
First, today only I’m running a giveaway where you can enter to win a free ebook version of each of my books, Little One and When the Watcher Shakes. This is how you enter: Follow me on Twitter (if you already do, you’re halfway there!), then retweet the tweet below:

I will randomly select a winner from all those who have retweeted before 12:00 AM on November 1st 2017, and then I will send that person a direct message via twitter to work out emailing the ebooks. If you are a nook reader instead of Kindle, don’t worry, I can send you an epub instead.
Second, a big thanks to all those who sponsored and attended the West Virginia Book Festival last weekend. I had a blast, met some great people, and got to see some favorite writers speak. I also managed to sell a book or two! I didn’t take a lot of pictures, since my phone was kind of busy being used as a credit card swiper, but here are some photos from the event:

I forgot to bring my phone to Joe Hill’s talk/signing. I also forgot to bring my Joe Hill Special Issue of Cemetery Dance Magazine for him to sign. Kicking myself for both, but mostly the latter.
Anyways it was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Happy Halloween!
Oh and of course, here is this year’s Jack-O-Lantern from me and Emily to you!

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Happy Halloween!

Coming to the West Virginia Book Festival 2017

On October 26th and 27th, get on over to the Civic Center at Charleston, WV for the West Virginia Book Festival!
2010_Bookfest_LogoListen— this is going to be a great event. The author speaker lineup is huge, and it includes Joe Hill and R. L. Stine! I keep checking that author list over and over again, thinking I just imagined these guys are coming. Nope, it’s real!
Oh yeah—The Fonz is gonna be there, too (no, seriously, check out that link).
There are also some really great WV writers presenting, including Marc Harshman and Carter Taylor Seaton. And other awesomeness will be going on, like writer workshops and book selling. And admission to this thing is free.
I’ll be over in the Marketplace selling my books, so after you’re done meeting the rock stars, come over to my table and chat. I don’t even care if you didn’t come to the event because of me. (I have free bookmarks!)
Don’t miss this!!! And don’t forget about dropping by my table to say hi! Check out these links for more info on the event and to connect on social media:
wvbookfestival.org
WV Book Festival Facebook Page