I’m tremendously excited to announce that my 2020 queer cosmic horror novella The Worm and His Kings will be getting two sequels, each published by Off Limits Press, forming a cosmic horror trilogy of novellas!
The second book, Even the Worm Will Turn, will release in 2023. The third and final book (title to be revealed) will release in 2024. I can’t wait to share more of this cosmic horror world with you! Worm faithful, keep watching.
Narrated by Laura Lockwood
It’s early, but the audiobook for my new space horror novella Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing is out! Find it on Libro.FM + Audible + other sites! Laura Lockwood gives a stellar narration following the plight of Alto, Esme, and Zelany against the horrors on the M.G. Yellowjacket.
Proud to share that I’m not represented by Lane Heymont of The Tobias Literary Agency. I’m excited for what lies ahead!
Also, since I won a Stoker and lost a bet with my wife, I had to make a deleted scene from Queen of Teeth public. Thankfully Tor Nightfire was happy to host, so check out Yaya Betancourt Dreams of Teeth (Or, How to Kill a Toothy Darling).
Release day, at last!
From Off Limits Press, publisher of The Worm and His Kings, my fourth novella heads to space in Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing and it’s out today with brilliant cover art by A.A. Medina!
Communications specialist Alto’s shift aboard the starship M.G. Yellowjacket turns hellish after waking from a tryst to learn every crewmate has vanished. Worse, a sinister presence has crawled aboard the ship. It’s violent, destructive, and it can reach into your thoughts to make you see and feel what it wants.
Anxiety-ridden Alto might be the least-qualified person to face a creature that can hack minds like computers. Only a perilous journey to the ship’s bridge can reunite comms specialist with crew and give them a chance to call for help.
But the intruder only scratches the surface of this crisis, and discovering the truth will bring Alto face to face against a nightmare beyond flesh and thought.
“Hailey Piper boards a starship where the most terrifying part of the voyage isn’t the cargo hold full of corpses, the tentacled creatures that stalk the pod bays, or their mysterious, otherworldly master, but the depths of the human psyche. An intriguing blend of b-movie scifi and incisive, soul-baring reflection.” – Adam Cesare, author of Video Night and Clown in a Cornfield
Paperback available now from Barnes & Noble and paperback and ebook on Amazon.
It’s March here in 2022, but in Blackwood, Vermont, there’s no time better than Halloween.
A little over two years after its print and ebook release, Benny Rose the Cannibal King is now in audiobook! With new art by the fantastic Don Noble and narrative by the magnetic Laura Lockwood, it’s time for a Halloween ghost story, whether new to the Blackwood Devil or if he’s a familiar treat. You can find the audiobook on Audible, Libro.FM, Hoopla, and more, plus your local library’s digital collection. They don’t have it? Request it, and they might grab it for you.
“An almost cinematic experience … this book has teeth.” – Rue Morgue
Blackwood, Vermont has one legend to its name—Benny Rose, the Cannibal King. Every local kid knows him and tells his stories, especially on Halloween. When a new girl moves to town in the autumn of 1987, the legend inspires high school junior Desiree St. Fleur and her friends to pull a Benny Rose-themed prank. A few laughs and screams, and they’ll have a Happy Halloween.
But a vicious storm crashes into Blackwood and interrupts the festivities. Soon the girls find themselves trapped and hunted in a strange neighborhood where no one will help them. There’s nothing made-up about Benny Rose this Halloween night. The truth is coming, and it’s hungry.
Today’s a special day: the reveal of the cover art for my upcoming Off Limits Press novella Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing. Stellar work by A.A. Medina, who’s captured the book’s space horror right there before you turn a page.
And we have a release date: May 7, 2022!
AND the Kindle preorder is up on Amazon. From the back of the book:
Communications specialist Alto’s shift aboard the starship M.G. Yellowjacket turns hellish after waking from a triste to learn every crewmate has vanished. Worse, a sinister presence has crawled aboard the ship. It’s violent, destructive, and it can reach into your thoughts to make you see and feel what it wants.
Anxiety-ridden Alto might be the least-qualified person to face a creature that can hack minds like computers. Only a perilous journey to the ship’s bridge can reunite comms specialist with crew and give them a chance to call for help.
But the intruder only scratches the surface of this crisis, and discovering the truth will bring Alto face to face against a nightmare beyond flesh and thought.
Lastly, you can add it to your Goodreads here!
I meant to announce this on the second anniversary of the original release, but I wanted to give the Stoker Preliminary Ballot room to breathe. But here we are: Benny Rose the Cannibal King will be chewing his way into audio this spring from Author’s Republic, narrated by Laura Lockwood! Feast your eyes on the audiobook cover art by Don Noble:
We’re still a ways from the release, but when the time comes, you’ll find Benny Rose the Cannibal King on Audible, Libro.FM, Apple, and more, as well as requestable from public libraries!
Last story of the year, and it’s about a favorite for many: “Feast for Small Pieces” opens my short story collection Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, and also opens the final 2021 episode of Pseudopod, Flash on the Borderlands LIX, which features four horrific flash fics for your listening pleasure.
December is an appropriately cold time to bring my final short story of the year. “The Unpleasant State of Beginning” is only the first story in an incredible table of contents for Vastarien, Volume 4, Issue 2. After a young woman learns a recent murder victim bears her exact likeness, she journeys north searching for answers, into a cold forgotten past. Right now Grimscribe Press is offering digital copies as pay what you can, so check it out: Vastarien volume 4, issue 2
My short story collection, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy from The Seventh Terrace, recently appeared on the New York Public Library’s 2021 list of 100 Best Books for Adults.
Also, my first novel, Queen of Teeth from Rooster Republic, appeared on Library Journal’s list of Best Horror of 2021, one of ten superb horror books to release this year.
Finally, with the year soon coming to a close, I wanted to share some of what’s coming in 2022. I can’t say all the short stories, as some haven’t had their TOCs announced yet:
“An Engine of Pain” in Tales from Between (February 2022)
“We Frolic Within the Leviathan’s Heart” in The Book of Queer Saints (February 2022)
“Blame, Pain, and Selfishness” in A Woman Built by a Man (2022)
“Anything to End the Loneliness” on The Wicked Library (2022) (a new novelette!)
“Pleasant Guests with Better Games” in Planet Scumm #13 (Spring 2022)
“Sable’s Bestiary for Those Who Remain” in Chiral Mad 5 (2022)
“The Turning” in Other Terrors (July 2022)
And more to come. As for books, while no concrete release dates have been announced (updates will sprinkle in as we do release dates and cover reveals), here’s a general look at what’s next:
Quarter 1, 2022: Cruel Angels Past Sundown, a Splatter Western novel from Death’s Head Press
Also Quarter 1, 2022: The Worm and His Kings Spanish edition will release from Dilatando Mentes
Quarter 2, 2022: Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing, a space horror novella from Off Limits Press
Quarter 4, 2022: No Gods for Drowning, a horror/noir mystery/dark fantasy novel from Polis Books
That should do it for 2021. It’s been an incredible year, and I’m grateful for everything that’s come, and everything still to come. Thank you for reading.
Proud to announce that my fourth novella will release from Off Limits Press! Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing will take you into the stars and through the depths of your psyche. Stay tuned for release date, cover reveal, and more info to come!
I also have a new story out, second to last of the year, and it’s a pretty special one! “Life Begins at Injection” is a prequel story to my recent novel Queen of Teeth. If you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, the story spoils nothing. If you have read it, you’ll get some more info on what happened 9 years previous from an important character’s point of view.
You can find the story in the last of PMMP’s Lost trilogy, Lost Contact, along with many other fantastic stories of dark sci-fi and tech.
I also appeared on Ghoulish to talk about Queen of Teeth, the short story, and women in transformation, plus a tidbit about the new upcoming novella. Check it out!
Bunch of new things today, starting with the announcement that Queen of Teeth will be joining The Worm and His Kings in upcoming Spanish editions from the wonderful Dilatando Mentes Editorial. They do a beautiful job with their translations and releases, and I’m looking forward to seeing these books join their line-up.
Next, new stories! First, my tale of manipulation and monstrous love, “End-Times Magic” appears in the new Dark Dispatch: Deadly Love.
After that, I have a weird post-apocalyptic dark fantasy, “In the Land of Ash, Where the Light Is God,” appearing in 2021’s final issue of Boneyard Soup Magazine.