Well, it sure has been a week...
And One Day We Will Die, The Nut House (English & Spanish), Night of the Witch-Hunter, and MORE!
As your favorite writer of weird, dark, and spooky things writes this edition of the newsletter, I am fending off a near knock-out punch of a cold. It’s been a day of DayQuil, Liquid IV, ginger ale, and WWE Clash at the Castle in bed, for this guy. Combined with a heaping side order of feeling sorry for myself for missing the Iron & Wine concert this evening in Saint Paul.
Not exactly in keeping with the highs and highs and more highs of this past week. But, alas, I seem to have flown too close to the sun and the sun has coughed in my face, making me a snotted-up mess.
But enough of my real-life body horror, let’s talk some fiction—horrific, weird, dark fiction. THIS is the week that was…
And One Day (It Was Monday) We Will Announce the Neutral Milk Hotel Anthology TOC
On Monday, Hungry Shadow Press shared the complete TOC for the anthology of weird fiction inspired by the music of one of my all-time favorite bands Neutral Milk Hotel. And what a coincidence, I just happen to be editing said anthology.
It’s a great mix of 11 invited authors and 11 authors selected from the slush (and trust me when I say the competition was stiff) with one story per song. I’m incredibly proud of this line-up of authors/stories.
Another round of applause to: Lillah Lawson, Helen Victoria Murray, M. Lopes da Silva, Camila Hamel, Briar Ripley Page, Joe Koch, Tiffany Morris, D. Matthew Urban, Christi Nogle, Tim Major, Dan Coxon, Matthew Kressel, Lindz McLeod, Erin Brown, Brian Evenson, Edward Barnfield, Dale Light, Corey Farrenkopf, Ai Jiang, Michael Horita, Richard Thomas, and John Langan. If you want a snapshot of the weird, strange, awe-inspiring writing that moves me, you could do a lot worse than checking out these stories.
AND, we also got to announce that Adam Clair (author of the Elephant 6 retrospective Endless Endless) will be penning the book’s foreword…
AND Chris Bilheimer, cover artist & designer extraordinaire, will be providing the cover. For those who don’t know, Bilheimer designed the iconic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea album art (and probably lots of other covers from your favorite bands)
The book is out in November. Initial edits have been shared with all authors (at the very least). I’m sure we’ll have eARCs and all those good things for y’all very soon.
You Wanna Get Nuts? C’mon, Let’s Get Nuts
Sometimes it takes a while for a book to find its home. Sometimes there are false starts along that road. The Nut House is one such title. Originally serialized in the July to December 2022 issues of Cosmic Horror Monthly, The Nut House is a talking animal/crime/cosmic horror mash-up.
The pitch? Asher Black, a black squirrel reputed to be the best acorn thief in the neighborhood, is recruited to lead a crew breaking into a human’s house where a cache of nuts is rumored to have been hidden. However, behind the home's pleasant exterior, the hoarder’s home holds dangerous garbage piles and a cultish menagerie of pets and strays worshipping the corpse of the homeowner while secret voices whisper in the walls.
Originally signed with another publisher for the collected edition, things didn’t work out (it happens!) and I found myself searching, searching for a new home for this strange hybrid tale.
And find a new home I did…with emerging small press publisher Undertaker Books. I’d been watching Undertaker for a moment (not in a creepy way I promise), seeing the incredible talents they’ve been signing to their roster. And, folks, I wanted in.
This new collected edition of The Nut House will feature chapter opener illustrations by the immensely-talented J.C. Amberlyn (fun fact: in another professional life, I edited J.C.’s The Artist’s Guide to Drawing Animals…so I know she’s got the goods). In addition, as further incentive to buy the book for folks who might’ve read the original tale in CHM, the book will include the novelette-length prequel tale “The Acorn Run.”
I’m a big fan of the FARGO TV series and the crisscrossing narratives over different time periods. The Nut House and “The Acorn Run” are my attempts to capture some of that magic. But with, y’know, squirrels.
The collected The Nut House is coming June 2025 from Undertaker Books.
“But Patrick,” you say, “what if I want to read The Nut House in another language?”
Well, my friend, I’m glad you asked that…
¿Quieres Volverte Loco? ¡Vamos, Volvamos Locos!
Also announced this week? The Spanish language edition of The Nut House is coming in September 2025 from Dimensiones Ocultas.
Las Casa de Las Nueces will contain the original novella AND the prequel novelette “The Acorn Run.” The book will be translated by Luis M. Cuena.
And to set this edition apart even further, interior illustrations will be handled by the incredibly-talented Laura Pizarro.
This is my first foreign-language rights sale and hopefully not my last.
Some Killer News…
News-wise, I ended the week on a pretty big note.
I’ve been a fan of the work and books coming from Shortwave Publishing almost from the jump. I’ve been thrilled to work with Alan Lastufka on a chapbook edition of my short story “Haunting Lessons” (with illustrations by the multi-talented Caitlin Marceau), my short story published in the online Shortwave Magazine: “And Contributions from Viewers Like You,” and my ongoing interview series “Your Favorite Author’s Favorite Author.”
But I’ve also been envious. Envious of friends like Alex Ebenstein and Brian McCauley who have published fun, scary, thrilling novellas (Melonhead Mayhem and Candy Cain Kills respectively) for the Killer VHS line at Shortwave. Needless to say, I wanted in…
Night of the Witch-Hunter is coming Spring 2025 from Shortwave as part of their Killer VHS line.
In NotWH, a goth high schooler in late 90s tries to summon her witchy ancestor from colonial times but instead brings a cruel, Puritanical, demonically-powered witch-hunter to present-day, and she must master her own magic powers to stop him from taking over. Think THE CRAFT VS. FREDDY KRUEGER.
So excited to be a part of this series. I’ll be updating y’all on the progress with the manuscript (a little over halfway done at this point) over the next few weeks. So keep an evil eye out for that…
Don’t Get Terrified by this Tale…Or Do
If I have one piece of advice to share with writers (and, oh look, turns out I do), it’s that you should always seek out opportunities for reprinting your work. Not because it’ll make you rich (though it might net you enough for lunch) but because you never know when someone’s first exposure to your work or a particular story will happen.
This was the case this week when my short story “Don’t Go in the Woods…Or Do, See if I Care!” was published on the Tales to Terrify podcast. This dark comedy/slasher horror mash-up story was originally written for the tropes-bending It Was All a Dream anthology from Hungry Shadow Press. My pitch for the story is basically “What if Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces was ‘the crazy old man warning teens not to go into the woods’ character from slasher films?
The tale had new life breathed into it via the incredible voiceover work of Rish Outfield. Hearing from readers experiencing the story for the first-time was a good reminder that stories never really die and there are always opportunities to connect with new readers.
Plus I get to share episode space with the great Steve Toase. Toase is a master of folk horror, unique story formats/conventions, and a virtuoso painter with words. I highly recommend checking out his collection To Drown in Dark Water from Undertow Publications (though honestly that applies to EVERY single-author collection published via Undertow).
Ligotti Be Kidding Me…
Final bit of news for the week. My corporate horror tale “The Server Room” will appear in the upcoming Thomas Ligotti Tribute Issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly. Just check out the names on the cover there…this issue is gonna be something special.
What I’m Watching, Reading, Writing
Watching: X-Men 97, Scavenger’s Reign (both fantastic); Malevolence 2, 32 Malasana Street
Reading: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, the Taschen Little Nemo book, Dagon by Fred Chappell, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Brother by Ania Ahlborn, We Are Happy We Are Doomed by Kurt Fawver, Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer. (Variety is the watch-word, folks.)
Writing: Night of the Witch-Hunter, a graphic novel adaptation that I can’t talk about yet! (tease)
What about you? What’s got your attention this week?