What’s that? How is it being a writer right now? An author? Ha ha, yeah, man, yeah, no, it’s fucking great, everything is super cool right just, just really chill and what is it the kids say? Skibidi? It’s all coming up skibidi. Skibidi toilets all the way down, dude. Yeah, no, check it out, right? So it’s like, publishers always threw us to the wolves a little but — but then there was Twitter, which was this rickety platform we could all stand on and squawk like angry blue jays about our books. Except then I guess that got bought by an apartheid-huffing man-boy billionaire who I think instant ..read more

If you were like, “Gosh, I really would love to read about how EVIL APPLES infect a small town in Pennsylvania and the orchard from whence they came spawns an EVIL APPLE CULT,” but you were also like, “All I have in my pocket are these ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE PENNIES,” then gosh wow, do I have a deal for you. Simply go to any of the ELECTRIC BOOKMONGER websites, shove your pennies into your computer, and yell at it: GIVE ME BLACK RIVER ORCHARD, YOU FUCKING ROBOT PIECE OF SHIT, I HAVE GIVEN YOU MY GOLD, NOW GIVE ME NIGHTMARES. And it’ll work. I mean, probably. Some approximation of that. W ..read more

AHOY, FRANDOS. A bit of news! A spot of news, perhaps, in the British parlance, or even a spotted dick of news? A bubbles-and-squeak of news? Whatever. Anyway, hey, look — Black River Orchard is up for its second award! It’s on the final list for best horror at the Locus Awards, amidst truly spectacular company. Company so good it is 100% true to say, “It’s an honor to be nominated,” because it’s like getting to hang out at a cool party I wasn’t technically invited to. I mean, the list is: Tananarive Due, Grady Hendrix, Stephen Graham-Jones, T. Kingfisher, Victor LaValle, Alix Harrow, Isabel ..read more

In just over a year’s time, Ryia Cautella has already earned herself a reputation as the quickest, deadliest blade in the dockside city of Carrowwick—not to mention the sharpest tongue. But Ryia Cautella is not her real name. For the past six years, a deadly secret has kept her in hiding, running from town to town, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the formidable Guildmaster—the sovereign ruler of the five kingdoms of Thamorr. No matter how far or fast she travels, his servants never fail to track her down…but even the most powerful men can be defeated. Ryia’s path now leads d ..read more

Reviews — meaning, in this case, usually a star-driven text-based evaluation of a book by an author — are curiously controversial. And understandably so! As authors, we don’t precisely know how to grapple with them, if we should look at them ever, if we should engage with them in any way, if we should ask for them, or pretend they don’t exist, or god, do they even matter at all? As readers, more questions ensue: where should they go, what do star ratings mean, who are they for, what is their ultimate purpose, and are they increasingly more noise and less signal? I sometimes pop on THE OL’ SOC ..read more

Listen, it’s the time of the year when B&N offers a pretty nice deal on preordered books, and so of course every author in the world is like AHHHH PLEASE PREORDER MY BOOK, and honestly, if you can, it’s great? It’s good for the author, it’s good for bookstores, it’s good for the overall bookish ecosystem. It is not required, but you will surely find a lot of cool books to pre-order out yonder, and of course I am obliged to hang out my own shingle and gesticulate wildly toward it. I, in fact, have two books for preorder– The first, arriving June 25th, is the paperback of Black River Orchard ..read more

Fallout is, so far, the most videogamey of all the potential video game adaptations. When I say it is the perfect adaptation, I don’t simply mean in quality — though the quality is high! — I mean that it somehow has distilled the experience of the game into the sweet narrative liquor of a television show. Game mechanics are represented organically, and in a way that makes sense, down to (and these are first episode spoilers, very light, but be warned) using stimpaks and having a scene of “presenting my skills for character creaton” and the bloody mess perk and the junk jet gun, and, and, and ..read more

I continue to be on Threads. It’s fine? My quick capsule review of it is that it’s effective at reaching people, the algorithm is over-reactive and also terrible by its very nature, and the UI is hostile and I can’t ever seem to get a grip on really using it well. It still seems designed to broadcast more than it is to converse? But, it’s fine. It’s a thing that exists and I don’t hate it, and these days, in the Year of Our Lord 2024, that’s next door to an endorsement. The one thing that you have to know is, the algorithm really does rule all — which means that when someone has a WEIRD IDEA ..read more

With some books, I know the exact moment the story seed arrived. With Wake of Vultures, it was trail riding on my horse and watching a vulture circle overhead while an obnoxious donkey tried to hump my boot. With Bloom, my latest cottagecore Horror novella, it was my teen daughter asking me why all the hot serial killers are dudes. But with It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, I… do not remember. Which is also a big part of the book. It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, which we will call IWOHFAM from here on out to avoid wrecking the internet with too many words, is about Sarah Carpenter, a woman in h ..read more

I have seen the sentiment around that generative AI for writers and artists is “inevitable,” which is a message that I think falls right in line with the myth of the starving artist — meaning, they’re two bits of pervasive folklore put forth by the Powers That Be, because it rewards and enriches those powers. To put a finer point on it, it’s fucking capitalism. It’s capitalist propaganda bellowed from the deepest, most cankerous cave of moneyed interests, because if they say it enough times and make it true, then they make more money because we make less money, the end. Just the same, I’ve se ..read more