The Itinerant

This is what I really did during 2020, the Year of Covid. I wrote a book.

This is a post-apocalyptic story. I know, I’ve been told, we’re over post-apocalyptic books. We’re post-post-apocalyptic. But I like to think this one is a little different. (Is that what every author says? Yes, I’m sure, and it’s true.) This book is about ways to think about rebuilding society after the apocalypse.

What’s important in society? What’s acceptable? What’s not? If we’re given a clean slate, how to we reorganize? Do we do what we have always done, or do we do something completely different? How do we take what is innately human and capitalize on those strengths?

These are questions worth pondering, and you don’t need to read my book to spend some time thinking about it. We also don’t need a clean slate to begin to reorganize. We just have to think about it, and then do what is right.

But if you want a story of a teenage kid trying to eke out a living for himself and his little sister in a lawless non-society to help you start to think about these things, this book might be just the thing.

If you read it, and you like it, please post a review on Goodreads or Amazon. It helps.

I’m still here

Oh, boy.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.

Covid happened. It happened to me, although not officially. I was sick early in the pandemic, and it wasn’t until I was over it that I realized what had happened. I am still coughing, almost two years later.

There was much activity in my professional life since I was here last.

Valancourt published a new Paperbacks from Hell edition of When Darkness Loves Us.

Then they published a new Paperbacks from Hell edition of Black Ambrosia.

Then they published a new hardcover edition of Nightmare Flower.

This is an amazing publisher who brings old horror reprints from the dustbins and introduces them to a brand new generation of fans. They are a delight to work with, and their Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, vols. 1 and 2 are fantastic.

And then… A producer/director from New Zealand picked up the film rights to When Darkness Loves Us. James Ashcroft’s dark and mesmerizing thriller Coming Home in the Dark debuted at Sundance last year and is now available on Demand. It should premiere on Netflix in January. Don’t miss it.

So I’m still here, feeling grateful on this Thanksgiving eve, with new news to share soon.