Up From the Fathoms #20
A new year, a new start
Happy New Year, everyone!
I hope 2025 brings you health, happiness, prosperity, and peace.
Looking back on 2024, I’m proud of the things I accomplished. The Mind Worms was published, I wrote several short stories which should be making their way to your eyeballs next year, and my friend David Wellington and I launched the new podcast Spooky Science Lab, which is doing better than we ever could have dreamed.
There’s lots to look forward to in 2025, including a new story collection and a new season of Spooky Science Lab. More about both later in the newsletter!
Plus, 2025 marks my 25th year as a professionally published author! That’s quite a milestone!
I don’t really make resolutions, but I do think the new year is a good time for reflection and reevaluating one’s goals.
One goal I have for 2025 is to get out of my apartment more. Those who’ve known me a long time know I used to do the majority of my writing at the main branch of New York Public Library, a beautiful Beaux-Arts building perhaps best known for the scene at the start of the original Ghostbusters where the team encounters a ghostly librarian.
The lockdown in 2020 forced me to relearn how to write at home, despite all the distractions that exist there. (Including the cats.) Eventually, I just got into the habit of writing at home. I wrote all three Dr. Laura Powell novels at home (mostly), but I miss going to the library. I miss having a subway commute (believe it or not) that gives me the time to switch from home brain to writer brain, and which also affords me extra reading time.
My desire to return to writing at the library ties into my second goal, which is to complete another novel. I have a commercial thriller all planned out—tentatively titled A Gleam in the Dark—and I just need to sit down and really dig into the writing of it. I’d hoped to get more of that done in 2024, but the best laid plans and all that.
Whatever goals you’ve set for yourself in 2025, I hope they bring you lots of joy and a true sense of accomplishment!
Sneak Previews
Now that the contract has been signed, I can finally announce—and I’m announcing it here first; this hasn’t been announced anywhere else yet—my new collection Monuments in Darkness will be published by New York City’s fabled publisher of all things Weird and Lovecraftian, Hippocampus Press!
(Normally, this is where I’d link to their website, but their website is, frankly, an eyesore that looks like it was designed in the early 2000s.)
Hippocampus is aiming for a July 2025 publication date. However, they’re a small, independent publisher and delays are often par for the course. Stay tuned.
Monuments in Darkness will collect eleven stories, including two brand-new, never-before-published stories. Here’s a sneak peek at the table of contents:
The Fire and the Stag
The Rest Is Noise
Lucienne
Every Path Taken
Spawning Season
Six Strikes on a Laboratory Lightning Rod (original to this collection)
Whatever Happened to Solstice Young?
Daughter of Echidna
The Fifth Horseman
Companion (original to this collection)
General Slocum’s Gold
Longtime readers will remember “General Slocum’s Gold” as my Bram Stoker Award-nominated novelette from 2007, originally published as a chapbook by Burning Effigy Press. After Burning Effigy folded, “General Slocum’s Gold” was only available as an e-book for the past decade. I’m thrilled to bring it back into physical print here, where it will be able to reach a whole new generation of readers.
I’m planning to have at least one book launch, definitely in NYC but maybe others elsewhere, too. Keep watching this space.
I can’t think of a better way to mark my 25th year as a writer than a big party where I’m also launching a new book!
In the Flesh
Catch me at Boskone 62 in Boston, MA, February 14th-16th! I’ll be speaking on panels and might even do a reading or host a kaffeeklatsch, but I don’t have my schedule yet. I should have it in time for February’s newsletter.
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Later in the year, you can find me at Necon 43 in July and the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival in October.
Spooky Science Lab
The podcast is coming back for Season 2 on Monday, January 13th!
Mark those calendars!
Every week, you’ll be able to listen to a brand-new episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts!
And don’t forget, Spooky Science Lab has merch now! T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, tote bags, phone cases, stickers, you name it!
Check out our merch store here!
As an added bonus, if you take a picture of yourself with any Spooky Science Lab merch and email it to contact@spookysciencelab.com, we’ll post it on our social media sites and tag you!
Let everyone know you prefer your science spooky!
Until next time!
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