My story “The Reading Room” was originally published in Bound for Evil, edited by Tom English. It went on to get me my first-ever honorable mention from Ellen Datlow, and the anthology itself was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, so it’s a story I’m pretty proud of. It’s also going to be one of the stories in my forthcoming collection Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings, and as a preview my publishers have made it available as a stand-alone story on Kindle (and Kindle apps). What’s better, it’s free for a limited time!

If you pick up this release, you not only get a sneak peek at the title illustration that the fabulous Bernie Gonzalez did for the story, but you’ll also get access to some special “bonus content” that I wrote especially for this release. All for the low, low price of $0. So, please, check it out!

My first short story collection is coming out sometime early next year from Evileye Books! For most of you reading this, that’s probably not news, though the “early next year” part might be. The fact is there’s still not a date set in stone, but we’re shooting for March.

The book is going to be called Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings. It’s going to consist of ten stories, two of which are previously unpublished anywhere, one of which is my currently out-of-print novella The Mysterious Flame. It’s going to be fully illustrated by the incredible Bernie Gonzalez, who also did the cover, which you can see here. I’ve seen the illustrations, and I can say that this book is going to look amazing. Hopefully you’ll like the stories, too.

There’ll be more news about it coming down the line, but for now I can say that we’re planning to release the collection in trade paperback and e-book editions in the spring, and then later on there’ll be a limited-edition hardcover, if there’s enough demand. And here’s the part where I ask for some help. If you’re interested in the collection, and would like to stay in the loop on it, it’d help out if you dropped a line to theloop@evileyebooks.com and let them know. And if you’re a reviewer and would like to get an ARC, send an email to reviews@evileyebooks.com. Finally, if you want a copy of the limited-edition hardcover, send an email to bookclub@evileyebooks.com and let them know that you’re interested in the hardcover of my collection. None of these will commit you to anything, but it’ll help let the publisher know that the demand is there.

To say that I’m excited about this would, of course, be the grossest of understatements, and I want to say thank you to everyone who has already expressed their enthusiasm for it, and to everyone who reads this website, no matter how you got here. I’ll have more news (and other things) coming down the pipe very soon.

Those of you who were around this weekend may’ve already seen this, but it deserves a good big post of its very own. The pre-production (so not necessarily final, but probably close) front cover of my forthcoming collection Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings has been revealed:

You can go to the publisher’s site to read a little about the background that went into the cover, but for now I can tell you that the cover art is by the fabulous Bernie Gonzalez, who also did illustrations for every story in the collection (more on that later). There’ll be a lot more news and details about the collection coming down the road, but for now I wanted to share the cover with everyone.

In other news, I believe I can safely announce that I sold my story “The Labyrinth of Sleep” to the fine folks at Innsmouth Free Press for inclusion in their forthcoming Future Lovecraft anthology. Stay tuned and you’ll be hearing more about that in the near future, as well!

The website and table of contents for the first volume of The Burning Maiden, which will feature my story “Count Brass,” is up here. I’m in a really just jaw-dropping table of contents. I’m not going to reproduce the whole thing here this time, though I should, but we’re talking about the likes of Cullen Bunn, Matthew Pearl, Tim Lebbon, Mike Oliveri, Jeremy Shipp, Sarah Langan, Mort Castle, and Joe Lansdale, among others! So yeah, wow!

It’s coming out this October from Evileye Books, the same folks who’re going to be publishing Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings (my collection). “Count Brass” will also be in my collection, though I sold it to them for The Burning Maiden before we’d ever started talking about the collection. Still, this means October is going to be a big, big month for me, for lots of reasons.

While I’m on the subject, you should check out the Evileye book club. It’s the only way to get the limited-edition hardcovers of their various books, including Never Bet the Devil, The Burning Maiden, Cullen Bunn’s Crooked Hills, and Mike Oliveri’s The Pack: Winter Kill, among others. There’s no commitment involved, and it also gets you access to various other special deals. Plus, even though it looks like you do, you don’t have to have a Twitter handle to sign up. Just, if you do, they do updates and stuff via Twitter.

Today I can finally announce what is without a doubt the biggest news in the history of my writing career so far: My first short story collection will be coming out this October from Evileye Books. This has been in the works for a little while now, but this is the first time I’ve been able to talk about it officially. Here’s the press release, though I’ll summarize a couple of salient points below.

The collection is called Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings. An official announcement of its complete table of contents will be forthcoming, along with some other details, but it’ll feature nine stories plus my out-of-print novella The Mysterious Flame. A couple of those stories will be previously-unpublished. There will be a trade paperback edition available at launch, as well as digital editions, with plans for a special hardcover edition sometime next year. And did I mention all this is planned for October, in time for Halloween? Happy birthday to me!

I’ll have a lot more information on this between now and publication, so keep an eye on this space!