I have so much big news lately that it’s had to keep up with.
First off, the timeliest piece of information: I’m teaching a class at Hugo House with Kelly McWilliams! If this is the year you write your first horror novel, this is the class for you!!! It’s all about pinning down the structure of your novel and making it pop.
And the big, big news? I’ve sold a horror novel to Tor Nightfire, and it’s due out 2025!!!!
It’s called The Creek Girl, and it’s a tense cli-fi cosmic horror novel set in a rural Oregon forest that seems to consume all who enter. For more info, check out the announcement Nightfire made!
Here’s wishing you and yours a fantastic new year—and a terrific time saying goodbye to the old one. If you’re a cocktail tippler, the good folks at Lit Reactor put together a fun list of cocktail recommendations to go with delicious books. If you wondered what The Secret Skin might taste like as a cocktail, be sure to check out this great post!
Is it really December already? Much like it has for everyone, 2021 has been an absolute whirlwind for me. There was some bad stuff (like it hitting nearly 120 degrees in my neighborhood) and some good stuff (my husband taught the dog to sit!), but on a professional level, this was a VERY exciting year.
Here’s a list of everything I published this year and what it’s eligible for, award-wise:
• “The Suburbs Are Delicious,” 99 Tiny Terrors, edited by Jennifer Brozek (October 2021). This was my only piece of short fiction! It’s a fun flash piece, so I don’t think it’s eligible for anything. But if you know anybody who’s really scared of spiders, they should avoid this one.
• “Telling Stories of Ghosts,” Apex Magazine. (Spring 2021) This little piece of nonfiction is eligible for the Bram Stoker award, Short Nonfiction category. It’s about way American practices about death can deeply scar children.
• The Deer Kings, JournalStone Press (August 2021). This horror novel is eligible for the Bram Stoker award, Novel category. If you like books that pit children against terrible evil or about communities secretly sheltering evil cults, this one is for you!
• The Secret Skin, Neon Hemlock (October 2021). This gothic novella with dark fantasy elements is eligible for the Bram Stoker award, Long Fiction category. It’s also eligible for the Nebula award, Novella category, and the Hugo award, Novella category!
I also have a super-gloomy essay about cemeteries coming out in the December issue of The Deadlands, but it’s not out yet.
Editorial stuff:
I started editing Nightmare Magazine this February, and it’s been a great experience! We’ve published a terrific mix of horror and dark fantasy. All of those stories are eligible for the Bram Stoker fiction awards. We published a few novelettes that qualify for the Long Fiction award: “Darkness Metastatic,” by Sam J. Miller, “Rotten Little Town: An Oral History (Abridged),” by Adam-Troy Castro, and “We, the Girls Who Did Not Make It,” by E.A. Petricone, but the rest are all Short Fiction. All of our H Word columns are eligible for the Bram Stoker award for Short Nonfiction, too!
Because Nightmare contains a mix of horror and fantasy content–and because I’m also the Senior Editor at Lightspeed–I think I’m probably eligible for the Hugo Award, Short Form Editor.
Other awesome stuff:
It’s been a terrific year for the horror genre! It’s been so wonderful to see up-and-coming indie writers like Hailey Piper and Eric LaRocca get so much critical recognition, and I was so happy to see Zin E. Rocklyn‘s novella Flowers for the Sea make so many year’s best lists. These three writers are really pushing the genre needle into weird and wonderful places, so I hope you get a chance to check them out!
Thanks to everyone who made 2021 such a terrific year–and here’s hoping next year is filled with joy!
It’s kind of weird to have another book out just two months after the most recent one, but that’s the way publishing works sometimes! But I’ve got to say that I’m incredibly excited about this novella. I started it ten years ago, and I think it’s probably the prettiest thing I’ve ever written. So I’m thrilled that The Secret Skin is out today!
The always-awesome Paul Semel interviewed me for his website, where we talked all about “gothic sawmills” and all things booktacular. You should check it out!
I’m so excited that today is my novel The Deer Kings‘ launch day! I’ve never had a book that’s felt so personal to me, so it’s amazing to think of it making its way into other people’s hands.
If you’d like to learn more about the process of writing The Deer Kings, there’s a really in-depth interview with me up at Paul Semel’s website: paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-the-deer-kings-author-wendy-n-wagner. Paul is a terrific interviewer who knows how to get writers to dig deep. In the interview, I talk about some of the scary stuff I saw growing up that inspired the novel, as well as books and movies that helped me write the book. You can also check out a great picture of my dog, Beansy!
If you’re interested in learning more about The Deer Kings, you can check out my publisher’s website here, where the novel is available in ebook and paperback : journalstone.com/bookstore/the-deer-kings
You can preorder my Gothic novella The Secret Skin during my publisher’s Kickstarter campaign (which runs during the month of May). There’s a price break over buying the novella when it releases in October, plus, you can get cool candles, pins, and all the other novellas in the series.
The Secret Skin is a sawmill gothic that begins with June Vogel’s return to Storm Break, her family’s estate. Things in the great house aren’t what they used to be. Doors slam in the night. Faucets turn on, untouched. Something is always watching, whatever June does. And when her brother returns with his new bride, deceit and betrayal threaten to destroy everything she loves.
Here’s the cover text as it appears on the Paizo website:
The Stars Are Wrong
Once a notorious pirate, Jendara has at last returned to the cold northern isles of her birth, ready to settle down and raise her young son. Yet when a mysterious tsunami wracks her island’s shore, she and her fearless crew must sail out to explore the strange island that’s risen from the sea floor. No sooner have they delved into the lost island’s alien structures than they find themselves competing with a monstrous cult eager to complete a dark ritual in those dripping halls. For something beyond all mortal comprehension has been dreaming on the sea floor. And it’s begun to wake up…
The book is due out in August.
The wonderful cover painting (which wraps around the cover—it’s really terrific!) is by Jesper Ejsing.
