short story

Release day: A Light Most Hateful + 100th short story

Hear that thunder crash and boom—A Light Most Hateful is here!

Released today by Titan Books, with cover art by Julia Lloyd, my new novel is also my tenth book, a twisting story of small-town survival horror set against a summer storm of monsters, madness, and the breaking of reality and friendship.

“An ambitious, genre-shredding novel that takes big swings and, improbably, lands every one.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A stunning novel that purposefully plays with genre conventions and centers love, even as it actively terrifies readers to their core.”

– Library Journal (starred review)

Available from Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Amazon, Penguin Random House, LibroFM

Mona Awad’s Bunny meets Stranger Things in this mind-bending and terrifying examination of female friendship and the lengths we’ll go to protect the ones we love, from the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth.

Three years after running away from home, Olivia is stuck with a dead-end job in nowhere town Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania. At least she has her best friend, Sunflower.

Olivia figures she’ll die in Chapel Hill, if not from boredom, then the summer night storm which crashes into town with a mind-bending monster in tow.

If Olivia’s going to escape Chapel Hill and someday reconcile with her parents, she’ll need to dodge residents enslaved by the storm’s otherworldly powers and find Sunflower.

But as the night strains friendships and reality itself, Olivia suspects the storm, and its monster, may have its eyes on Sunflower and everything she loves.

Including Olivia.

ALSO out today, my 100th published short story, “Scratch-Off Universe,” appears in Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, a beautiful anthology celebrating the 100th anniversary of Weird Tales, featuring essays, poetry, stories from magazine issues of yesteryear, as well as new work.

I’m honored to be part of this piece of weird horror history, especially with my milestone tale about a group desperate to change the world in the parking lot outside a small-town baseball field and what they discover in scratching away layers of the known to find the unknown.

 

“A Soliloquy of Tongues” in Shakespeare Unleashed; Dragon Award finalist

I’m a little behind on updating, but I have a couple of cool entries to post!

Shakespeare Unleashed came out near the end of July, an anthology of horror stories and sonnets inspired by works by William Shakespeare. My Hamlet-inspired story, “A Soliloquy of Tongues,” focuses on Queen Gertrude of Denmark and the lengths she’ll go for a little peace and quiet.

Also, in news of last year’s work, No Gods for Drowning is up for a Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel! I’m honored and excited to see it up there with such brilliant work. Winners will be announced in a few weeks at this year’s DragonCon!

“Bad With Secrets” in Unspeakable Horror 3

It’s the final day of Pride Month, and it’s only fitting I have a grim story in a special book.

Unspeakable Horror 3: Dark Rainbow Rising is a queer historical horror anthology, with each story delving into a different point in history from way back to recent, exploring queerness in the time and the horrors surrounding.

My arcane tale “Bad With Secrets” is the first story in the book after Chad Helder’s opening poem, telling of a woman’s escape across the country during the McCarthy Era from the most powerful man in Washington, D.C. with a folder of evidence that needs to reach California … just as her breaks down in the desert.

A lot of people know about the Red Scare at the time, but less known is the Lavender Scare which targeted queer individuals as being a national threat. I’m proud to have a story about it alongside tales in this book full of talented authors and all the horrors they’ve conjured.

Pride Month might be ending, but queer horror is forever.

“A Riddle to the Death” in Les Petites Morts

I’m back from a wonderful StokerCon just in time for a new short story release!

It’s publication day for Les Petites Morts, the new anthology from Ghost Orchid Press. Here find 14 stories of erotic horror inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore, and some of them are illustrated! It’s a fantastic TOC, featuring Sara Tantlinger, K.P. Kulski, Joe Koch, S.T. Gibson & more.

My spicy sphinx tale “A Riddle to the Death” has the honor of opening the volume, and it has an illustration by Daniella Batsheva. This is an exciting, heart-pounding anthology, perfect for lovers of horror and dark romance alike!

“She Tasted of Good Fortune” in We’re Here + more

I’m heading to StokerCon in Pittsburgh this afternoon, but a quick update before hitting the road on two new stories.

We’re Here: An Anthology of LGBTQ+ Horror is out today in ebook! All stories by queer authors, and all proceeds go to the Trevor Project, and with it releasing during Pride Month, what could be more perfect?

I have a novelette inside, “She Tasted of Good Fortune,” which takes place in the world of No Gods for Drowning and tells of curses, criminals, and a sultry deal to find a fortune teller before the night is done. It’s a standalone tale, so whether this is your first dive into the No Gods for Drowning world or you’re returning from reading the book, you’re good to go.

I’ve added a hub page for No Gods for Drowning as a series/setting, where you’ll be able to find links to the current book and novelette, as well as future books and stories as they’re announced/released.

Also if you’re attending StokerCon, I have a flash fic in the new souvenir book, The Monsters That Made Us, which isn’t available beyond the con. “The Black Lagoons of Our Eyes” is my queer love letter to The Creature from the Black Lagoon and series, and how I see myself in its titular creature. I’m delighted it can appear with many top-notch essays and stories of horror origins.

“The Girls With Claws That Catch” in Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic

My last new short story for May is out today! The awesome magazine Cosmic Horror Monthly presents their new anthology, Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic: An Anthology of Hysteria Fiction, a book that “is rage-made-art, an unsettling meditation that also serves as a charitable platform to support abortion rights in the United States. Inside are twenty-six haunting speculative tales that explore the social, political, and personal dimensions of hysteria.”

Among those 26 is my story “The Girls With Claws That Catch,” about navigating a life far removed from what your parents wanted and expected of you, told through the lens of Lewis Carroll’s “The Jabberwocky.”

Tech Horror, two new stories

I have two new stories out (and one more to come a little later this month).

First up, What Draws Us Near, an anthology of forbidden media, released on Saturday, the first anthology published by the lovely bookstore Little Ghosts Books in Toronto. It’s an amazing TOC, and I’m excited to be part of it with my story of a suspicious VHS tape, a dead mother, and a dark secret, “There Is No Cult, This Is No Classic.”

And today, Shortwave Media has released Obsolescence, a Black Mirror-esque anthology of future tech gone wrong. My story opens the books with The Fly meets Society in “Why a Bicycle is Built for One.”

“In the Garden of Horn, the Naked Magic Thrives” in Bound in Flesh

It’s a new story day! And in fact, it’s my first new short story of 2023, and it’s a wild one.

Bound in Flesh releases today from Ghoulish Books. Edited by Lor Gislason, it’s a banquet of 13 body horror tales, including my story of blood magic, “In the Garden of Horn, the Naked Magic Thrives,” which boasts probably a record number of a certain organ for a short story. Check it out!

“Queen of the Cloven Heart,” novel mentions

Out now from Dark Matter Ink, it’s Zero Dark Thirty, an anthology gathering 30 of the darkest stories from Dark Matter Magazine’s first year. The stories are dark sci-fi and horror, and among them you’ll find my medieval vampire tale “Queen of the Cloven Heart.”

Also in regal news, Queen of Teeth had the pleasure of appearing on Sara Tantlinger’s LitReactor horror romance article “Horrormance Titles for a Macabre Valentine’s Day,” and on Lindy Ryan’s LitReactor article “Eat Your Heart Out.”

Lastly, No Gods for Drowning had the honor of appearing on the Locus Recommended Reading List alongside a marvelous curation of speculative work from 2022.

“Cross-Generational Cryptid Theory” in The Arcanist

My final short story of 2022 is up!

The Arcanist is going on permanent hiatus. I’ve had the honor of appearing there four times in the past with stories  Crones in Their Larval State,  Demons of Particular TasteJormungander’s Dance, and The Mother Stitch, with the first three reprinted in my short story collection Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy because I felt so strongly about them (and the fourth might have been there, but it came out after signing the collection with The Seventh Terrace).

So many final story of 2022 is also my final Arcanist story. I’m so glad I could be a part of its swan song with this weird post-post-apocalyptic weird familial flash fic, “Cross-Generational Cryptid Theory.” It’s free to read and listen to online, so enjoy.

In Queen of Teeth news, two items: the novel has been nominated for the This Is Horror Award for Novel of the Year 2021, so thank you everyone who voted for it. Also, the audiobook will be releasing from Tantor on December 27th, but it’s available for pre-order now.

Also exciting, No Gods for Drowning has officially made Vulture’s list of “The Best Horror Novels of 2022” alongside incredible work that came out this year. I’m honored to see my book among them.