In February 2021, “AV_NEST.CASEFILE” appeared in the horror/dark fantasy anthology, Dim Shores Presents Vol. 2. I’m pleased to say that it’s now been released as a podcast episode on Creepy! The wise folks at Creepy suggested the title “AV_NEST.CASEFILE” might be a little awkward when read aloud (and maybe a little awkward read silently), and it now is named “She Will Come to Brood”.
The truth is, I’m late to my own party here; this episode came out about a month ago. February is busy, okay? I miss stuff. But you shouldn’t miss this. It’s got creepy birds, giant eggs, and an eighty-foot nest.
Click the image above to be brought to the episode on their website, or find it on any of your favorite podcast apps, like Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify. Don’t forget to leave a review if possible.
The Saturday Evening Post’s Most Popular New Fiction of 2022 – Number Ten Might Surprise You 👀
The Saturday Evening Post has rounded up their Most Popular of 2022 in various categories. Last night I was surprised and happy to see that “We Suckle” snuck into their top ten short stories!
(Can’t figure out why my screenshots are turning out with such poor resolution, sorry)
Tales to Terrify is coming at you again—this time, with my short story "Animals." Just released today, Episode 556 of the Tales to Terrify podcast will get you where you need to be, if where you need to be is creeped out and revolted. Might be a good one to listen to while you get dinner ready; just my suggestion. Or maybe sitting by yourself in the shed out back. Keep an eye out for rats.
My short story, “What Grows Underneath Ends in Silence,” is now available in Night Terrors Vol. 21, published by Scare Street. These seventeen stories are sure to get you in the mood for spooky season. Buy it now for Kindle or in paperback!
If you’re scared of birds, or if you want to be, you’ll dig my story. If you don’t, I’m sure you’ll find a favorite from any of the other fantastic writers in these pages!
The folks at Tales to Terrify have done it again! My scifi horror short tale, "Drifting Into the Black", has been given new life in audio. Just released today, Episode 486 of the Tales to Terrify podcast is sure to meet your dark scifi/space survival horror/action/dread needs. Give it a listen on your way to work, or sitting at home alone in the dark.
I started working on a Bigfoot novel either early last year, or perhaps even in later 2017—can’t remember for sure. So far, my word count is somewhere around the 5k mark. Which is terrible, considering I’m pretty sure I wrote the first draft of Little One in less than three months. In January, I reviewed my goals and again committed to finishing this novel before the end of the year—not a lofty goal!
You know how much I’ve written on it since then? Zero. No, actually I do think I went back and changed a couple sentences. Switched a barred owl call to a screech owl, or something like that. What’s the deal, man? Am I still suffering from chronic writer’s block?
Well, not exactly. For one thing, I have been working at a specialty coffee shop in Elkins (TipTop, come check us out!), so I haven’t had as much time to write. Though I don’t work very long shifts (about six or seven hours in a day), the commute ads another two to three hours onto that. Since I’m not good at little spurts of writing without larger blocks of unstructured time, that means I almost never am able to come up with anything during the days I work at TipTop. Occasionally I’ll get a bit done before work, but it has never been more than three hundred words, and it usually is nothing at all.
However, I have not been as blocked up as I was last year. Though I have not made significant progress on the novel this year, I have been writing. In January I decided to start off by writing a short story to submit to Hinnom Magazine, very cool horror mag that is taking great strides in a good direction. (They have published my work twice before, see here and here.) I was aiming to finish the short story before their submission window closed at the end of February. A reasonable goal, you might think, despite the new job. I still get free days, and it shouldn’t take me a month and a half to finish a three to five thousand word story.
Well, turns out this “short” story doesn’t want to end just yet. It’s currently weighing in at over twelve thousand words, and doesn’t look to be finishing up extremely soon. Of course, I will try to cut much of the fat off of it when I finish, but now it is hungry, now I can only feed it until it is full. (I ended up sending a different, already finished story to Hinnom). So while I really wish I had more done on the novel, I am pleased to have broken out of that horrible funk I was in since at least the second half of 2018, when I struggled even to come up with 150 words in a day. I’m anxious to see where this novelette goes (will it become a novella?)—and I hope that it turns out good enough that those 12k+ words weren’t just a big waste!
A tribute to found-footage style horror films like The Blair Witch Project, the story is presented as a thread of emails among filmmakers and a mysterious horror film group calling itself Pine Arch Research, which is “based—locally.” A representative of the aforementioned group emails filmmaker Aly Duarte an invitation to submit work to the Pine Arch Collection, a horror film series to be later uploaded to YouTube, “Cult status guaranteed.” Initial footage shows Aly’s house in a fog with strange black arms reaching up to her bedroom window. Aly is spooked by the invasion of privacy, but like any not-famous artist, she is flattered by the solicitation for her work. She passes the email on to her friend and colleague at Georgia State University, Bobby Power. Bobby is also wary of their tactics but is intrigued until seeing the video, which gives him an understandably dreadful feeling. Continue reading →
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