Rounding things up for 2016

It's been a busy year. The highlight was the publication of my story "Rangel" in "Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume 3", edited by Michael Kelly and Simon Strantzas.

Here's what one reviewer had to say: I have a gut-level dislike of weird/horror stories about Halloween (it's a little too on the nose), but man, did I love this one. Like Glenn Hirschberg in "Mr. Dark's Carnival," Bartlett successfully uses the holiday festivities to emphasize a strong sense of place and occult harvest ritual disguised and wrapped around the everyday. Thirty years ago, a young girl went missing around Halloween, and now her brother is returning to the autumnal gloaming of New England from the home he's made in LA. He's always been stuck in the past, and while the present-day majority of the story is written in standard past tense, the flashbacks are related in present. This all builds to a horribly beautiful moment of gnosis, just as the ineffable just starting to shine through the cracks of the world. Maybe I'm harping on this book because I'm trying to review it now too, but Bartlett shares with Gemma Files's "Experimental Film " the ability to convey something of the numinous, not just the horrific, as forces simultaneously mesmerizing and awful just start to come into view of their characters.

I self-published Gateways to Abomination in 2014 with no writing credits of which to speak, so to have a story in a book with stories by Robert Aickman, Ramsey Campbell, Reggie Oliver, and more...it's hard to reconcile it with my life before writing.

Here's the roundup, then, of 2016:
BOOKS
•Spettrini April 2016. Dunhams Manor Press, limited edition of 25 copies. To be reprinted in The Stay-Awake Men and Others.
•Creeping Waves April 2016. Muzzleland Press
•Dead Air - Early Broadcasts October 2016, self-published 

STORIES
•“If He Summons His Herd” Lost Signals (eds. Max Booth III and Lori Michelle) June 2016
•“Where Night Cowers” Lost Signals (eds. Max Booth III and Lori Michelle) June 2016
•“No Abiding Place on Earth” Nightscript Vol. 2; ed. C.M. Muller October 2016
•“Rangel” (reprint) Year's Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 3 (ed. Simon Strantzas, series ed. Michael Kelly) October 2016
•“The Terrible Old Friend” Ravenwood Quarterly #1 (ed. Travis Neisler) November 2016
•"The Dark Match" Three Moves of Doom, Orford Parish Books (ed. Tom Breen)

And here's a preview of what's forthcoming in 2017, so far:

BOOK
•The Stay Awake Men and Others. Dunhams Manor Press.
STORIES
•“We Pass From View” Darker Companions: Celebrating 50 Years of Ramsey Campbell (ed., Joe Pulver and Scott David Aniolowski)
•"The Long Lost Parent" Collaboration with Tom Breen. Strange Aeons (ed. Justin Steele)
•"The Rats on LePaul" Dunhams Destroys Lovecraft (ed. Jordan Krall)
•"Goat's Rue" Would But Time Await, Orford Parish Books, (ed. s.j. bagley)

ALSO:
Four additional stories written, including "Provisions for a Journey", "In the Van", and "Master of the House."

At least five more stories in progress, and several books in progress as well.

You want a card game based on the Leeds/WXXT mythos (so to speak)? Well, one is coming in 2017, thanks to the masterful Yves Tourigny.

What else? I reduced the price of The Witch-Cult in Western Massachusetts. It was $9.99; now it's $5.99. 

I'm grateful to have worked with Yves Tourigny and Nick Gucker, and I really look forward to future projects involving Michael Bukowski and Dave Felton. I'm grateful to anyone who has read my stuff, and to anyone who's reviewed it.

Well, this has all been a way to put off writing? Why? It's snowing outside. Time to get back to it.

Dead Air Redux - A Word, and the Table of Contents

A WORD (from my forthcoming B-sides compilation Dead Air.)

The stories in this book were written between 2004 and 2009, approximately. Some of the poems were written as early as 1990, slightly modified in 2016. I started writing the stories on my Livejournal page in 2004. Some of them have since been modified or blown apart, and have appeared in similar or very different contexts in my books Gateways to Abomination and Creeping Waves. My vision for what Leeds is has changed since these early years, so some of what you see here is not really part of the whole Leeds/WXXT mythos (if you will), not anymore. I include it for the interest of those who might want to know how I fumbled around the ideas and concepts when I began. I hope you find it to be of some value. Thank you for reading. There is a lot more for me to tell. I hope you’ll stick with me on this bloody and disquieting journey.

There are many more broadcasts to come.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

“BLACK MAGIC,” HE TOLD ME: 13 WAYS TO BEGIN AN ESSAY ABOUT WXXT, THE LAST STATION ON EARTH

THE LAST OUTPOST

STEPHEN AND MARY PART 1

I WAS ACQUITTED OF KILLING MY FIRST WIFE IN 1936

MY MOTHER, LUCILLE AXTON

MORE ABOUT WXXT

I WAS A SCRAPPER

KNIVES

THE MANY STUDIOS, PART 6

(PHOTOGRAPH MISSING)

THE BROADCASTS. TRASMISSION 99.

INTOLERANCE, OR FCC COMMISSIONERS I HAVE KNOWN

EVIL IS UNSPECTACULAR AND ALWAYS HUMAN AND SHARES OUR BED AND EATS AT OUR TABLE

IN OUR EFFORT TO BECAOME A VIABLE PRESENCE IN THE PIONEER VALLEY

EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT HE WAS GOOD AT THE BEGINNING BUT HE JUST WENT TOO FAR

THE GAPS BETWEEN THE BARS ARE THE SUTURES OF ONE’S OWN SKULL

WXXT’S COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAM

WHAT TOM BROUGHT TO SHOW AND TELL

INTERSTATES

AS TIME IS ENDLESSLY SHOVELED ON MY GRAVE FROM SOMEWHERE MILES ABOVE ME

WE DEARLY NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE

MY BROTHER EARL

APPLE PIE, PART 1

OUR NEW HOME

FCC CHAIRMAN MANGROVE O’HARE GOT OFF EASY

UNCLE ROTTFIELD’S BLACK GLOVES

something large and grey

SUCCUBUS, BY JAMES PEMHIGUS MORPHEW

THE BALLAD OF DONALD BELSON SKRATTE

THE DISQUIETING LEGEND OF JOHNNYPANTS WOLFGANG GORSTED

SOME NIGHTS IT’S BLOODLUST

please stand by

THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

THE MIGHTY WALK ON FIELDS STAINED WITH DASHED BRAINS

SITHYL

UNCLE DIGGLE READS TO-DAY’S NEWS

DEAREST MICHELLE

ON A CRISP OCTOBER DAY

DEAD MAN IN MY BED: STEPHEN AND MARY PART 2

MY HALLOWEEN IN 2005

WXXT GOSSIP

SOUP IN WINTER

TUGGING ON YOUR SEAWEED SLEEVES

WXXT ARE ENVIRONMENTALISTS

GOODNIGHT, NURSE

POSTSCRIPT

A WORD