It’s been almost a year since I’ve made a blog post, and I apologize for that, y’all.
Please let me be a bit vulnerable and honest here?
I’m behind on my own 27 Kingdom Kickstarter rewards that so many of you kindly backed last year, and I apologize for that too. I was also contracted for a few other jobs, among them editing the eleventh New England Horror Writers anthology, Wicked Westerns.
I had to step down from all my editing work save Wicked Westerns in what…to my musical knowledge…may as well be the kind of wicked Country/Western song I mocked before I realized how good (particularly if you like dark storytelling) a lot of classic western music was…
My Husband-of-Awesome was overseas for an extended work assignment…
My plumbing started to fail…
My cats got sick…
My knee got injured transporting said sick cat…
My house foundation buckled in a record-breaking blizzard…
My pipes froze in record-breaking temperatures…
My houses electric system revealed severe issues while foundation fixing happened…
A close friend and mentor died…
My beloved horse, Calico Silver, died…
And right now, during our Kickstarter launch, I’m still in household upheaval as we have to have our basement and first floor entirely rewired (per aforementioned electronic issue discovery during foundation fixing).
As a professional editor, if got a manuscript where the main character had all that happen in a matter of months, I’d say it was unbelievable. Real life really is stranger and more chaotic than fiction can convey.
But Wicked Westerns was already in progress.
It was a project I’d passionately wanted to work on and one that I still adore as I’m editing stories now.
I just haven’t had much chance to go online and promote it so that others can share in the awesomeness.
And there’s LESS THAN one week left for the Kickstarter!
I mean, look at this wickedly fantastic Table of Contents!
LOOK AT IT!!
IT IS AWESOME, AND I’M SO PROUD OF THESE STORIES!
THE LAND REMEMBERS.
In the desert, between cacti and shuttered mines, past ghost towns where javelina leave their savage hoofprints, there are lost memories.
In the eleventh New England Horror Writers collection, a stagecoach with no driver rolls into town and dead silver miners bear injuries no known predator could have made. A woman struck by lightning is tortured by violent storm spirits, and a grieving mother seeks solace in the unholy. And Calamity Jane, whose gift of Sight drives her to drink, may not be able to save Wild Bill, no matter what she says—or how loudly.
Out here, the land keeps its tragedies, tragedies that rise again amidst the cries of coyotes at night.
Because in the Wicked West, nothing is truly forgotten.
So, if you also love how the Western story can embrace darkness…
If you want to help make real the passion and creation of some amazing authors…
If you want to get your hands on a copy of the New England Horror Writers’ most ambitions anthology yet…
Saddle up, and support our Kickstarter!
Besides the books, in trade paperback and ebook formats, we have a bunch of other cool rewards for folks! Stickers, bookmarks, swag, art, portraits, and more!
I am still working on 27 Kingdoms, slowly, and I will get back to writing my newsletters, poetry, fiction, and other fun things, but I am reaching out to all of you today just for this special project that means so much to myself, many of my friends and colleagues, and that I promise will have stories that will haunt you in the best possible way.
Thank you all for riding with me, and please check out our Kickstarter!
