Category Archives: catfish lullaby

September 9, 2019 · 9:46 am

Giveaway: Catfish Lullaby

Catfish Lullaby CoverCatfish Lullaby is officially out in the world! I’m very pleased with my weird little story of swamps and monsters, found family, blood family, and fighting back against the darkness. It’s picked up a few nice reviews so far, including Publishers Weekly, where is got a starred review, The Miskatonic Review, which had very kind things to say, and Black Gate Magazine, among other places.

If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, here’s your chance to win one. All you have to do is tell me a story. Between now and Friday, September 13, 2019, drop a comment below telling me a about your favorite legend. It could be something specific to a certain region, like the Loch Ness Monster, or the Jersey Devil. It could be a new tale from the creepypasta age, like Slender Man. It could be a personal family story, like the time your grandmother saw a ghost, or something that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend, but you swear it’s true. Eerie voices, UFOs, cryptozoolgy, whatever you got, I want to hear it. Give me your odd tales passed around the campfire, your snippets and incidents that grow with retelling into a full-blown legend. (Note – you don’t necessarily have to tell me a full story. You could say your favorite legend is Bigfoot for their fabulous sense of style, and that’s good enough for me!)

At the end of the week, through the magic of random number generation, I’ll pick a winner and send off a signed copy. I can’t wait to hear your stories!

ETA: Thank you to everyone who played along and shared your favorite legends, inexplicable encounters, and creepy stories. The random number generator has declared Hailey the winner. Congratulations!

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September 1, 2019 · 2:05 pm

September Shenanigans (and Beyond!)

This fall is going to be a busy one. Catfish Lullaby officially comes out on September 3, and I’m super excited for it to be out in the world! It’s my first foray into longer fiction, and deals with monsters and family – both found and blood – which are two of my favorite things to write and read about. I’ll be posting more about the novella after the official release, and doing a giveaway at some point. I’ll also be participating in several events this fall, many of which will include readings from, and signings of, Catfish Lullaby.

Sunday, September 8 at 2 p.m. the wonderful Anna Kashina and I will be hosting a joint event at Main Point Books in Wayne, PA. We’ll be reading from our work, interviewing each other, and signing copies of our books. We’ll also be providing tasty treats and alcohol. We’d love for you to join us!

Story FestThe last weekend of September, I’ll be participating in the 2019 Saugatuck StoryFest in Westport, CT.  Saturday, September 28 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. I’ll be part of the Echoes: A Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories panel, along with Stephen Graham Jones, Ellen Datlow, Seanan McGuire, Paul Tremblay, Bracken McLeod, and Rick Bowes. We’ll be talking about our stories, and discussing ghosts in general and why stories about them have such staying power. Following the panel, we’ll be signing copies of the anthology, along with our own work. I understand there’s also some sort of mixer event that evening, and the line-up for StoryFest in general is wonderful. R.L. Stine is the keynote speaker!

October 18-20, I’ll be attending Capclave in Rockville, MD. I’ll be doing a reading on Friday night, and participating on panels on Saturday and Sunday. I’ll put together a separate post with my schedule, but for now, you can see it here, along with all the other wonderful participants. Capclave is a lovely, laid-back con focused on books and reading. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it.

A Song for a New Day CoverOctober 30 from 6 – 7:30 p.m., I’ll be at the Penn Book Center with the wonderful Sarah Pinsker as part of the All But True reading series. She’ll be talking about her debut novel, A Song for a New Day, I’ll be talking about Catfish Lullaby, and we’ll both be reading and signing and chatting with the audience.

I’m also attending the Baltimore Book Festival from November 1 – 3. TBD whether I’ll be participating on any programming, but even if not, it’s a wonderful festival to wander around and soak in all the literary goodness. The Festival brings together tons of fantastic authors each year, and of course there are always plenty of books for sale. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area!

I’ll update this post as more links and schedule information becomes available, or if any other events pop up. I hope to see you at one of the above-mentioned theres!

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May 4, 2019 · 5:33 pm

Catfish Lullaby Coming Soon

Catfish Lullaby CoverSome number of years ago I was at a county fair in Florida. In a tent set up with picnic tables, a live band was playing. The acoustics weren’t great; it was loud, and we were all the way in the back, so I could only halfway hear the singer. I had a vague sense of a bluesy, countryish, folksy kind of thing, but it seemed to me in that loud, hot, hard-to-hear space, that the man on stage was singing about a monster. Or maybe a legend. One of those tall tales, like John Henry, or Paul Bunyan, a larger-than-life figure either walking into or out of a swamp, leaving only footprints behind, baked hard as rock into the mud by the rising sun.

There’s a better than even chance that the song was not about that at all. More likely it was about a sweetheart leaving, a broken heart, moving on, taking revenge, or the best darn truck or hound dog the singer ever had. It doesn’t matter. I heard what I wanted to hear, or  what I needed to hear. Thus Catfish John was born.

Fast forward several years to nowish, and I have a debut novella about to make its way into the world. It’s a weird, horror, Southern Gothic type thing about a small town, buried secrets, friendship, and family. There is a swamp, and there are definitely monsters. Catfish Lullaby officially comes out on August 13, but it’s currently available for pre-order from Broken Eye Books and Amazon. The gorgeous cover art is by Sishir Bommakanti. Over on the Broken Eye Books website, you can see some very kind things Mike Allen, John Langan, and Craig Laurence Gidney had to say about the novella. You can even read a sample.

So thank you, unknown singer, for whatever it was you were singing about that day in Florida many years ago. From such misheard lyrics are legends born.

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