This is Episode 3 of Terrornado Alley, a presentation by Horror in the Heartland, a chapter of the Horror Writers Association, organized by chapter president Tommy B. Smith .
At the end, I read my story, “They Never Listen,” which first appeared in Ghost Parachute.
Give this a listen if you have a few minutes. And the other episodes too, where you can hear about ghost lights and hauntings.
Make sure to hit the like button on the video. Thank you!
My second StokerCon is complete! I bought my ticket for 2027.
Not without taking a deep breath first.
I was reviewing my expenditures for the conference. Airplane tickets, hotel (not even counting my idiotic double-booking for one night, discovered too late to remedy), airport parking, food, cocktails, book purchases… I was reasonably frugal this year. And still it was a pretty big spend.
So I asked myself, “Can you really afford to do this?”
And I decided, “I can’t afford NOT to do this.”
What do I get out of StokerCon?
What it’s really about for me: purpose and belonging.
The pitch sessions are a perfect illustration. Everyone at the pitch sessions has a specific mission—throw this thing we’ve worked on out into the wild and hope someone catches it. We’re all focused on what we’re hoping and the work we’ve done to get here. But there’s genuine camaraderie in the waiting area. It’s not competitive—it’s a support group.
StokerCon reminds me that it’s worth it. All the gorgeous days when I’m indoors asking myself if I should finally kill this darling here on my 16th rewrite when I could be outside soaking up nature in a kayak or hiking up a bluff for the view—it’s worth it.
It was hard to re-enter the daily grind this time. I mean, it always is. But this time especially. I walked onto the airplane home with a renewed sense of commitment, but also with the sense that these intense, passionate, dedicated, wildly creative, undeniably odd, supportive, hard-working weirdos really are my people.
I’ve said about myself: Draw any circle around a group I might be part of, and I’ll find a way to put myself outside it. At StokerCon, the circle is big enough.
Shout-out to AuthorCon / Scares that Care, a horror author event I’ve attended three times and counting. I’m certain I get so much out of StokerCon because I’ve been to AuthorCon, my introduction to the very best that horror author culture offers.
See ya next year, Halloween People.
I’ll have a story in it!! My story Like Furies will appear in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 17, edited by Ellen Datlow!
Every year I look forward to this volume. It’s more than an anthology—it’s a State of the Genre address. I hoped someday to get a mention in it. I am honored to the core to be part of the actual table of contents!
Ellen’s approach to compiling this book is a demonstration of the strength of this horror community. It’d be easy to fill the anthology entirely with known names—and there are plenty of them, including authors from whom I have multiple books on my shelves—but that’s not what Ellen does. She routinely selects several authors she hasn’t published previously (like me). This willingness to find and support authors and artists not already established in the horror world is one of the reasons the entire horror genre is currently experiencing a Golden Age. It’s not a closed club. It truly is a community open to new voices as well as supporting the leaders of the genre and honoring its founders.
Thank you, Jeani Rector, for first publishing this story in The Horror Zine—and not just for publishing it but also for taking the time to work with me to make it better. You know it’s a good edit when you see the suggestion and think “Why didn’t I notice that?” Her advice and know-how made this story so much stronger!
Thank you JG Faherty, my Horror Writers Association mentor. I signed up for the mentorship program with three goals: qualitative, quantitative and aspirational. JG helped me reach all three—and he continues to mentor me. He also read and commented on Like Furies and, as always, his suggestions were spot-on. After the first draft, before I let anyone else read it, I went through it and thought to myself, What will JG say about this?” And I made some deep changes to the story right there. That was part of meeting goal 1: helping me learn to edit and analyze specifically my horror writing with confidence.
Goal 2, quantitative: I made a professional sale to James Aquilone with a story appearing in the Stoker-nominated anthology Shakespeare Unleashed.
This was my aspirational goal—to write something Ellen Datlow wanted to see.
I’ll be pre-ordering 10 copies… or more… I hope you’ll get one too! Tell your bookstore to stock it when it’s available. And don’t worry, I’ll remind you!
I grew up in a town where the Pied Piper was (is) a big deal. In fact, because of it, I was a rat in a parade.
My home town is Frankenmuth, Michigan, known as Michigan’s Little Bavaria. One of the town landmarks in the Glockenspiel at Bavarian Inn. The Glockenspiel is a 50-foot bell tower that plays music and tells the story, with the help of carved figures that emerge onto a platform, of the Pied Piper.
One year the kids in my neighborhood entered the annual Children’s Parade, part of the then-weeklong Bavarian Festival, with a Pied Piper rat group, and a Pied Piper child group, with two of the older boys playing the Pied Piper. So… I was a rat.
When I say I have always been fascinated by the darkness of the Pied Piper of Hameln story, I mean it.
In Children of Chicago, Cynthia Pelayo took a dark tale and made it even darker, dark as pitch. In Pelayo’s hands, we have a Pied Piper that is truly the stuff of children’s legends, and the instrument of the kind of pure anger of which children can be capable. This is a story about children killing children. And somehow, it is told with compassion. Unflinchingly, but also with empathy. It’s a stunning accomplishment.
If you are familiar with the Pied Piper story, don’t think that will help you. This is a horror story with thriller overtones, and the mysterious twists and bends that come with a good detective mystery. You might think you have it figured out, and you might, partly. You won’t see the whole thing coming at you, I assure you.
Chicago is as much a character in this story as the children and the detective trying to save them. Calling it a love song to Chicago is trite. But still true. I’ve been to Chicago a dozen times, but I’ve never seen it presented in quite this loving, honest, respectful way. The next time I’m there, I’ll try to visit Humboldt Park. I won’t be chanting rhymes in front of candlelit mirrors, though. No way.
The drink is a mimosa. It was early-ish and I’d had … some beers… the previous night. The place is the Crazy Horse bar and grill in Bloomington, Indiana.
Somewhere I heard the expression “teaching the dead to talk with us.” I don’t think, really, that’s quite what was said. I don’t know that “the dead” were involved at all. But the minute I thought it, I knew I had a story.
I’ve been watching shark videos and reels in the way many people watch funny cats or goats in pajamas. I see people who are shark experts swimming with sharks. I admire them.
And I wonder if there are consequences to messing with the order of things.
I don’t have the answers. Just a story. Here it is.
This story first appeared in Feed Lit Magazine.
It’s Appalachia January for me! I really love that region of the country, and would like to get to know it better. But for now, here’s what I’ve been reading.
Madame Cruller’s Couch by Elizabeth Massie at Stooges in Jackson MO with an Old Fashioned. Subtitle is apt: Dark and Bizarre Tales.
Brother by Ania Ahlborn at Walker’s Bluff (again) with a Blackberry Whiskey Lemonade. Just when you think it’s gotten as dark as it’s going to get, guess what? It gets darker. For me, Ahlborn is one of the scariest writers out there right now.
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby at Walker’s Bluff with a Black Rose cocktail — a high octane heartbreak of a book. I’m actually about two chapters from finishing it. I’m slowing down because the high speed making me race too fast!
NOTE: OK. I finished it. Might be the best last sentence ever.
Happy reading! Read horror! Read flash fiction!
So, I did something dumb today. I completely missed the driveway as I backed my truck into the spot, and got it stuck but good in the mud between the driveway parking space and the sidewalk. I don’t have an explanation.
Yes, I do. It was aliens.
So I came inside and made this reel from the story A Bedtime Story, from the book Better You Believe: A Collection of Horror by Tony Evans. I met Tony briefly at Scares That Care/AuthorCon in Williamsburg, Virginia last year. He’s part of the Appalachian horror writers’ scene. This story is one of my favorites in the collection. I hope you like my pseudo-spooky reading of it!
I’m starting out the year with a few anthologies I’ve been pretty anxious to read. I’ll read simultaneous with novels and other books.
Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, edited by Jonathan Maberry, is going to be great. I became a Weird Tales fan in the late 1980s, when Weird Tales was part of Terminus Publishing and under the helm of George H. Scithers, John Gregory Betancourt, and Darrell Schweitzer. The magazine covers were beautiful and lavish, and I can see some of the illustrations with my eyes closed. Weird Tales in that era introduced me to some of the best writers in horror at that time. I can’t wait to dive into this 100 year retrospective and forecast, edited by Jonathan Maberry, who is absolutely a perfect choice for this. (He’s also the editor of the current iteration of the magazine.
I brought the book with me to Route 51 Brewery, where I enjoyed a Pumpkin Ale, easily the best of its kind in the region.
I just finished Stories We Tell After Midnight, vol. 2 edited by Rachel A. Brune. I’ll have to get volume 1 now. It’s a Crone Girls Press publication. Support indie horror publishers and get this book! Seriously, the founders are terrific people who were very welcoming to me at my first horror con. After-midnight nightclubs, nursery rhymes gone awry, dating while cannibalistic, becoming part of an all-too-real movie premiere—and more.
I had this book with me just after Christmas at my favorite dive bar in Union County, Fuzzy’s, while starting out the night with an Angry Orchard.
I’m a little bit fixated on the Appalachians right now. I’m always low-key into that region but driving through a corner of it on the way home from Scares That Care / AuthorCon last spring poured fuel on the Appalachian-love fire. So I’m ready to tear into Tony Evans’ Better You Believe: A Collection of Horror. Also, I plan to attend AuthorCon IV in St. Louis in October. I don’t have a book yet, but I will have a manuscript by then, I hope.
I started reading this one at Blue Sky Vineyard, where my wine of choice that day was Seyval.
Read horror! Share your #nerdinabarwithabook!
My writing comfort zone is flash fiction. It’s where I found my voice. And my first writing community. The process of writing a novel is vastly different from flash. I really love both processes. Writing this novel makes me appreciate the freedom of flash, and renews my respect for the creative process that happens there.
I approached the novel methodically. Or so I thought. I had a multi-page annotated outline to guide me. As it turns out, I hadn’t planned and plotted nearly enough! About 2/3 of the way in, I realized I had not thoroughly considered some of the most important plot points—like, why do you have TWO ghosts? Also, if you want the reader to like your main character, maybe spend some time making her likeable?
With flash, I rarely have even a smidge of an idea when I sit down to write. I use random-word prompts or picture prompts. When I start writing, I don’t know where I’m going. It’s free-falling. Sometimes it works and the words soar. Sometimes it’s more of a crash and burn. But it’s exhilarating. Even the flailing around can sometimes produce a nugget of a story.
I’m friends with and know so many writers, I feel kinda precious being all excited about draft 1, novel 1. But, having gotten this far, I can say I’ve learned tons about my own processes. For me, flash is instinct followed by thinking. Novel-writing begins with thinking and is aided by instinct.
I’m excited to dive into the second draft. I plan to have it in hand by AuthorCon St. Louis.
