Rebecca Cuthbert's Blog, page 2

Why no author account?

Why I choose not to create separate author accounts on social media

(Picture: This is me, circa 2020, hanging out with Ra, one of the shelter dogs at the place where I volunteer. He loved to cuddle and weighed about 90 pounds.)

I definitely understand why many authors choose to create separate profiles for their writerly selves on social media. For one, many authors write under pen names, so having only personal accounts wouldn’t make any sense–fans and readers couldn’t find them! Some writers have concerns about privacy for safety’s sake, or because their bosses wouldn’t be cool with what they publish. Another reason is that people share family pictures and other “close circle” content on their personal accounts, and to them it doesn’t feel appropriate to combine those with their posts about books and publications. Still another reason, related of course, has to do with “branding.” And for me, that word opens a can of worms.

My brand is me.

I understand branding and its necessity. I understand wanting to convey to readers what your “vibes” are–what you write, what you like, what your literary aesthetics are. But, several years ago I went through some workplace turbulence and, when things settled down, I realized I could no longer hide aspects of myself, or pretend to be what I’m not, for the sake of someone else’s idea of “professionalism.” Instead I opted for a sort of radical honesty when it came to my representation of self. No masks, no layers, no separation. People could take me for me or not take me at all.

And why can’t authenticity BE a brand, anyway? Why shouldn’t my students and coworkers and editors and readers and childhood friends and gardener friends and writer friends and dog-shelter-volunteer friends and family members get the same version of me?

It can; and, no reason.

It’s all in my writing, anyway.

My poetry collection, In Memory of Exoskeletons, is full of my thoughts and experiences–all very personal. There are poems about my grief over losing my mom as a kid, my own mental health struggles, my love for my husband, my feelings about the way society disregards “women’s work,” how much I love dogs, my garden, body dismorphia, and more.

My memoir and craft text, Creep This Way: How to Become a Horror Writer with 24 Tips to Get You Ghouling, rehashes all of my writerly attempts and failures over the course of the last, oh, twenty years. I admit there that a mean editor made me cry. I recount how terrified I was to go to my first StokerCon. My skeletons don’t live in my closet. They dance around the living room.

Any stranger who reads both of my books will pretty much know everything about me.

My friends are my readers.

Maybe I’ll make national book lists at some point in the future and people far and wide will get used to seeing my name on book covers. But, well, probably not and, even if so, that’s a way’s away. For now and maybe forever, the main readership of my books is made up of my friends and family. All those folks in my personal life. Like, my readers wouldn’t have to look up some interview if they had a question about my work. They could just, you know, text me.

I already can’t keep up with my accounts.

I tried TikTok and failed; deleted the app. I tried SnapChat, and same thing. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. I have a hard enough time dealing with those–the only place I consistently hang out is Facebook, because that is where all of my work threads and friends threads exist. There’s no way I’m adding professional accounts to that list–it’s already too long.

So, if you want to make separate author or professional accounts, do it, especially if you have privacy or safety concerns. But it’s not mandatory!

‘New Press, Who Dis?’ (Undertaker Books is born)

Life is weird and I know it frequently surprises us with heartache and tragedy. But sometimes amazing things happen, kind of out of nowhere, leaving us wondering what we did to deserve such good fortune.

Undertaker Books is one of those amazing things.

At the beginning of 2024, I worked for a different small press (name tactfully withheld; I’m keeping it positive here). There, I met D.L. Winchester and Cyan LeBlanc. We quickly allied ourselves, and then bonded–the three of us had similar work ethics, and acted on the same principles: do a good job for the authors. Conduct ourselves in a way that allows us to respect ourselves. Put out books that make us proud.

Well, that press fell apart. And because phoenix analogies are a little tired, I’ll use a different one: D.L. and Cyan and I looked at the house that had fallen down around us, and we inventoried what we could salvage. Then we hauled it away to a new site, put on our damn overalls, and got to work building something new.

While we planned carefully, the paint on the shutters was still wet when we got our first houseguest: Elizabeth Broadbent, with her breakout Southern Gothic novella Ink Vine. Her stock of copies sold out at AuthorCon III, and Ink Vine topped Amazon’s charts all that weekend (and hovered there afterward). Reviews are still coming in, and they are great! The Horror Tree just gave it five out of five crows. (Do you like sexy scary swamp magic? Then get yourself a copy!)

Quickly, one guest became a whole party, and only a couple months in, our new little publishing house is full to bursting with good people and good cheer. Our calendars for the rest of 2024 AND all of 2025 are full, and the lineup is amazing. Just to name a few, in addition to Eliza, we’ve signed Kathleen Palm, Robert Ottone, Emma Murray, C.M. Saunders, and, through an agreement with anthology guest editor T.J. Price, Christi Nogle, Ai Jiang, Carson Winters, Caleb Stephens, Ivy Grimes, and Erik McHatton. More news is coming soon–watch our social media feeds for signing announcements!

Because the hosts are allowed to celebrate, too, we are also putting out a few of our own books–have a look at Cyan’s new releases, Mastering the Art of Female Cookery and The Taste of Women, and D.L.’s chapbook story collections, Shadows of Appalachia and A Terrible Place (forthcoming). My ghost story collection, The Hauntings Back Home, with an introduction and thirteenth story by Jonathan Gensler, will be out next year.

And if you will allow me to gush about my publishing partners (and who’s gonna stop me? This is my blog. Ha!), I want to say how much I appreciate them. Cyan is our publisher and formatter, and also the handler of most of our marketing. (Wanna get on an ARC/galley list? Message us!) D.L. is our head of business development and manages all of our contracts and our master schedule. He is also our short fiction editor, running most of our anthology calls. (He will also be editing my story collection and a few long fiction projects.) Yours truly is editor in chief–I edit most of our long fiction projects and scout talent (and by that I mean pester people whose work I love–you know who you are–your DMs haven’t seen the last of me). All of us are novice cover designers who are determined to learn new skills and improve. (I still throw out nine of ten designs, but that’s okay–art is all about trial and error.) The three of us work well together, and we’re so excited to be a part of bringing so many wonderful books into the world.

Undertaker Books runs on integrity, professionalism, honesty, and transparency. We communicate openly with our authors and expect them to do the same. We want to sustain our business but we know money doesn’t fall from the sky, so we will work hard to make sure we are successful. We’ve heard from a lot of authors who have been let down by their former publishers–some of those authors have signed with Undertaker, and we vow to be the rebound who makes them believe in love again.

Undertaker Books: Stories You’ll Take To Your Grave (and folks who will be nice to work with).

“The Taste of Other People’s Teeth”

Published in Shadows in the Stacks: A Spirited Giving Charity Anthology by Shortwave Publishing

Edited by James Sabata, Vincent V. Cava, and Jared Sage

Reader Advisory: Foul language, adult content, sexual situations, murder, death

***

Sherman wouldn’t have even looked in the room where they stored dead people’s abandoned belongings if his dentures hadn’t been lost after that month’s Taco Tuesday at Bronze Acres Senior Living Community, where he’d lived for the past nine months.

Forget trying to get another pair out of his insurance company—those bastards wouldn’t give him a free fart from a willing donor’s asshole.

Calling his son to ask for the money would only be a waste of his pre-paid cellular minutes. Robbie’s Facebook profile said he was an “independent men’s fashion consultant,” but Sherman knew that was just a fancy way of saying he’d been fired again, this time from a Men’s Warehouse.

And after being bled dry by this old folks’ “resort-style” community, who could blame him for sneaking out of his room in the middle of the night to check what staff not-so-secretly called “Dead Man’s Dump?” No one. That’s who. Because Wednesday and Thursday had come and gone and he was already sick of reverse-vomiting those disgusting liquid meals they served to the mumbling, piss-pants raisins slumped in their wheelchairs on the first floor.

…

To read more, order Shadows in the Stacks here.

“Horror allows us to safely explore fear,” an interview with Shadows in the Stacks editor James Sabata

James Sabata, horror author, editor, podcast host, and founder of Spirited Giving, agreed to give us the story behind Shadows in the Stacks, a great anthology that I get to be a part of (yay!). Read on for James’s interview, and see his bio and more information on Spirited Giving and Shadows in the Stacks below.

Q: So what is Shadows in the Stacks? Tell us about it and what it benefits. 
A: Shadows in the Stacks is a charity horror anthology that is a part of our horror-themed fundraiser Spirited Giving. Spirited Giving takes place May 29th at the San Diego Central Library and features author readings, live performances, and book signings, with ticket sales raising money for the Library Foundation SD and the Books Unbanned Initiative.
Shadows in the Stacks is an offshoot of Spirited Giving and another way to raise money to fight censorship and banning books.
Available through Shortwave Publishing and edited by Vincent V. Cava, Jared Sage, and myself, Shadows features short stories from twenty-one authors.
The Books Unbanned initiative is a library program that issues library cards nationwide in order to give electronic access to the library’s digital and audio collections to teens and young adults living in U.S. locations where books are being challenged. The initiative aims to support the rights of teens and young adults to read what they like, discover themselves, and form their own opinions, without being restricted by censorship or political pressure. Many of the books that are banned or challenged are by or about Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), or LGBTQ+ people and explore their experiences, stories, histories, and movements. Reading these books can help teens and young adults understand themselves and connect to others, as well as develop critical thinking and intellectual freedom.
The Shadows in the Stacks anthology features themes pulling inspiration from the books that are facing censorship and banning throughout the United States.

Q: Why did you and the other editors choose this theme?
A: I don’t think there was ever a question on what the theme would be. I don’t even remember discussing it much, to be honest. We are running a fundraiser that is generating funds for the Library Foundation and the Books Unbanned Initiative, so it made absolute sense to lean into those social concerns.
At the same time, we left it very open to authors to interpret any way they wanted. We didn’t give them specific topics they could or couldn’t touch, and they kept it varied, interesting, relevant, and respectful.

Q: What is your personal take on horror writing? Why do these stories matter?
A: Horror writers deal in grief and trauma. I have this deeply held belief that the majority of people who write horror experienced a lot of grief and/or trauma in our lives and we were shaped by those experiences. But those are shared experiences. Horror allows us to safely explore fears, anxiety, grief, trauma, etc. while still being on this side of the screen or on this side of the page. We can turn it off or close it if it becomes too much but we’re also able to keep it open and safely explore the darker pieces of reality.
On another level, we are able to explore grief and trauma in a more communal sense. We can share the book or film with one another. We can talk about what we felt with it or what it brought out of us. We can learn how it affected someone else differently and see their side with this shared experience. There’s a whole level of emotion and shared secrets between an author and a reader.
But there’s another aspect that I find fascinating and that’s how much easier we make it for people to privately delve into these explorations without having to talk about it with others. Maybe you’re going through something and you don’t know how to talk to someone else about it or maybe don’t even know what it is to put it into words yet. You
might find something in a story that resonates with you or allows you to understand something about yourself.
That’s my overall take on horror as a genre. It’s also why I’m super lenient in my definition of “what horror is.” Horror is individualized while speaking to a full community. Putting labels on things discounts someone else’s truth. These stories are important because we don’t know who needs to hear them. Writers can reach people they will never meet in person. Readers/viewers can find common ground to start conversations with others. I fully believe that horror is doing a lot of good for people in a world that doesn’t expect that.
With Shadows in the Stacks, we’re hoping to start some conversations. We’re praying that we plant some seeds in the minds of readers and hope that they can’t let go of those ideas. Maybe they will start to see how much is at stake with how things are changing in the world today. Maybe they’ll see why censorship and banning isn’t good. Maybe people who think they aren’t affected will see that they absolutely are.

Q: What would you tell readers who are thinking of picking up a copy of Shadows in the Stacks? What should they know about the stories in the anthology? 
A: The first thing I would say is that these are really good stories, even without the overall context of social commentary. I think you’re going to forget what the theme was and get lost in the lives created on these pages. These stories are all really different while somehow fitting together beautifully. Some are dark. Some are hilarious. Some walk a completely different path and make their own mark that won’t let go of you. When you add back in that context of social commentary and how it plays into the horror in twenty-one stories. These stories don’t hold back. They came to make statements and they did. That doesn’t mean they’re preachy, but they don’t shy away from anything. My buddy, author SA Bradley, always says, “If you want to know what society feared at any given time, look at their horror stories,” and looking at this many different fears really puts into perspective how worried we all are about the future.
As Laurel Hightower said in the introduction: “This anthology is a love letter to the human race. An offering from each of the talented authors who bled on the page for the stories you’re about to read. A dream of what could be, a nightmare of what is. A light in the darkness of a ban on books, hands joined to protect one another and our precious gifts of knowledge. Join them—join us. Hold tight and know the hands that hold yours, be they never so rotted or clawed or slippery with gore, belong to hearts formed of the same swirling nebulae of stardust. No matter how dire things look, be that flame in the dark.”

Q: What were the challenges and rewards of putting together this project? 

A: The single biggest challenge with anything like this is getting people to hear about it and hopefully take a chance on it. We’re relying on word of mouth. We’re relying on author to help us get the word out. We’re relying on people taking a chance and interviewing us on their websites. (Thank you, Rebecca). It’s rough though. We can’t be everywhere at once and share it with everyone. We know it’s a great book. We know the stories are some of the best you’ll find this year. It’s about getting others to know that. Most of the other challenges I expected never really materialized. It’s been a good journey putting this book together. As of writing this, the book is up for pre-order through Shortwave Publishers (http://bit.ly/ShadowsInTheStacks), but I don’t know how much it will raise for the library or anything at this point. I consider that a “future” reward… so I want to talk about the rewards I have gotten already from this book.

First up would be my relationships with the authors and my fellow editors and the amazing Alan Lastufka at Shortwave Publishing. I’ve probably made Alan insane with countless emails but he has been an absolute dream to work with. Incredibly professional, insightful, and creative. He designed the cover for the anthology and did a great job. I’ve become closer to several of the authors in the book. I have become friends with a couple I had never met or read before. That’s the big reward for me right now; increased community. And that’s what we shoot for overall at Spirited Giving, so it’s fun to see it handed back to me this way. It’s even led to further collaborations, as Vincent V. Cava and I are now launching a new monster book series called Midnight Monster Madness (coming in April). The other reward for me is as a reader. I got to read some of the best stuff I read this past year, read authors I didn’t know before, AND I got to talk to the authors about those stories. That’s a luxury we often do not get and I’m happy to have had it as one of the rewards.

More information:

James Sabata is a horror author, produced screenwriter, and co-host of TheNecronomi.Com, a weekly podcast analyzing horror films as social commentary. TheNecronomi.Com has over one million downloads. James is the founder and director of SPIRITED GIVING, a pop-up horror-themed fundraiser helping local communities. James has written several books and has three more coming out in 2024. His first feature film is reportedly currently in production. He lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife, daughter, two cats, a tarantula, and the ghost of an older gentleman with a hilarious sense of humor. For more on James and his projects, click these links:

James’s website: JamesSabata.com

TheNecronomi.Com Podcast: TheNecronomi.Com

Sign up for James’s newsletter here.

Sign up for Midnight Monster Madness here.

Shadows in the Stacks releases on May 28th from Shortwave Publishing (http://bit.ly/ShadowsInTheStacks). If you’re attending Spirited Giving or StokerCon, you can have your copy waiting for you there and get it signed by many of the authors, who will be in attendance.

Learn more about Spirited Giving: http://spirited-giving.com
Learn more about The Books Unbanned Initiative here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/books-unbanned
Learn more about The Library Foundation SD here: https://libraryfoundationsd.org/

The Social Commentary of ROSEMARY’S BABY with Rebecca Cuthbert and Laurel Hightower

on TheNecronomi.com Podcast with host James Sabata

Rebecca Cuthbert and Laurel Hightower join us to discuss ROSEMARY’S BABY.  We’re deep diving into both Ira Levin’s novel and the 1968 film and looking at gender roles, mental illness, oppression of women, isolation, control, gaslighting, marital rape, and more.

Then we lighten the mood by learning one of Laurel’s hidden talents!

Listen here.

CREEP THIS WAY has launched!

Today I am excited to share that CREEP THIS WAY: How to Become a Horror Writer with 24 Tips to Get You Ghouling, is officially out in paperback and ebook format from Seamus & Nunzio Productions.

If you would like to get a copy for yourself, here’s the link!

CREEP THIS WAY is half memoir, half craft text, with advice on how writers can get a foot in the door of the horror genre. Lots of the advice and vignettes are relevant to all writers, though, and Christopher Ryan (the publisher) and I hope that many writers at all levels will find something useful in the book’s pages.

As with my first book, In Memory of Exoskeletons, anyone who reviews CREEP on Goodreads or Amazon will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of my hybrid collection, Self-Made Monsters, set to be released this fall from Alien Buddha Press.

An in-person book launch celebration is planned for March 28th on the SUNY Fredonia campus, hosted by the Department of English. The event will include a reading and book signing, with copies of CREEP THIS WAY available for purchase, along with copies of In Memory of Exoskeletons, The Start (RebellionLit), Soul Scream Antholozine (Seamus & Nunzio), The Crow’s Quill (Quill & Crow Publishing), and poetry broadsides. Swag free with book purchase, of course!

“It’s Always a Demon”

Published in Dusty Attic Publishing Jan. 2024 issue

***

I want to believe

in second chances, but

necromancy’s a dressed-up

hoax.

Your mom’s dead for good, bitch;

that there’s a demon—

can’t you tell her eyes aren’t right?

Don’t you know she never called you baby?

…

To read the rest, visit Dusty Attic Publishing and click open the issue!

New Year: New Releases, New Role

It’s January 2024, and I’m kicking off the year with lots of gratitude and a little bit of disbelief. I have to keep reminding myself: yes, it’s real. I signed the contracts. I have the emails. I have the messages. It’s all there, in writing.

Since early fall, I have been working pretty much every day (alongside my editor, Christopher Ryan) on a new book called Creep This Way: How to Become a Horror Writer with 24 Tips to Get You Ghouling. Chris (Seamus & Nunzio Productions) dreamed up the idea and asked me to write it. His pitch was straightforward: there are plenty of “how to write” books out there, but there aren’t many–or any–books about how to become a writer. All the little extra pieces a person has to juggle in order to get their foot through the door to the world of writing (specifically, here, horror writing). Our main goal, in addition to sharing helpful information, was to keep the book approachable. That meant a conversational tone, short chapters, customizable recommendations, acknowledgment of both hardship and privilege, and an affordable price. I’m happy to say that after a whirlwind of writing, revision, editing, blurb requesting and collecting, cover designing, and lots more, our little book will meet the world this month! The official launch will be held on the SUNY Fredonia campus in early February. Look for a review of Creep This Way soon in Cemetery Dance Online by Joshua Gage.

A second title I can share now is Self-Made Monsters, a hybrid feminist horror collection of poetry and short stories (Alien Buddha Press). That will be out in October, with a monster-themed launch taking place at a pub in Fredonia, NY. The collection will be prefaced with an introduction by phenomenal feminist horror author Laurel Hightower, and several wonderful authors have agreed to write blurbs as early reviewers.

Additional titles are in the works for ’24 and ’25, and will be announced when they are official.

Another big news item for me is that I am now the editor-in-chief of a new feminist horror imprint at PsychoToxin Press, called PsychoToxin PINK. I was thrilled by the offer from PsychToxin publisher Christopher Pelton, and together we worked out a plan for the imprint’s first year. We are now running an open submissions call (Jan. 1-15), with writers sending a query email, synopsis, and the first 20 pages of their manuscript to ptppinkeditor@gmail.com. We are considering novellas, novels, and story collections. Ideally, we will find two amazing manuscripts and publish one title in April and one in November. If all goes well, and if I can keep up with my own writing, we will publish three titles in 2025 and settle in to a three-books-per-year schedule. Now and then, I will partner with PsychoToxin Anthology Editor Jennifer Horgan to bring readers themed anthologies; we have a great one planned for 2025.

In March I will be traveling to a writers’ workshop and retreat in West Virginia, and in April, I’m going to AuthorCon III in Virginia. (I’m sad about having to skip StokerCon this year, but it’s just too far away.)

My writing goals for the year are big: I want to finish my novel and start shopping it around, finish my second poetry collection and send that out for possible publication, and finish a nearly-done collection of short stories (Introduction & 13th story by Jonathan Gensler). I have a children’s horror picture book that I’d also like to find a home for.

I might not fit it all in. And if I don’t, that’s okay. It’s going to be a great year no matter what.

“Plea from the Ghost Haunting Your One-Bedroom Queens Apartment that You Clean this Place the F*** Up”

Published in Carnage House: a Splatter Friendly Web ‘Zine

***

Hey.

It’s me.

The ghost haunting your one-bedroom Queens apartment.

Yeah, so, I know I usually keep to the hall closet where you store the vacuum you don’t use enough; or to the inside of the walls, where I bang on rusty pipes and make sighing noises; or, that one time, to the medicine cabinet, so that you saw me in the mirror when you got out of the shower and wiped the steam away and screamed and then almost fainted. But I’ve materialized in front of you today for something much more important than parlor tricks, Patricia.

That’s right. Your utter lack of anything close to housekeeping. And I mean like utter lack.

This is a goddamn intervention.

…

To keep reading, visit Carnage House!

“Becoming”

Published in Descent into Madness: Enter Madness by DriveThru Press

***

They showed up at the beginning of spring, as snow gave way to mud. Angry red patches on her skin that itched and oozed and spread.

Josie was taken to the doctor, given creams and ointments that didn’t work.

“Well how can it heal if you don’t leave it alone?” her mother would admonish, pointing at Josie whatever she held—a steel spoon, a bar of soap, her reading glasses. And whenever she saw Josie’s bloody skin, the patches open and wet, she’d say “God help you; you aren’t helping yourself.”

Her mother and the doctor called them plaques, but Josie knew them for what they were: scales.

What worried Josie most was that she didn’t know what she was turning into: a dragon? That would be okay—she’d fly to her second-grade classroom and blow fire at her teacher, who wrote on Josie’s last report card that she was too often in her own little world. She’d gotten in trouble for it but it made her secretly happy, too: if she had her own world that meant this one, with all of its disappointments, wasn’t hers to stay in.

***

To read more, pick up a copy of Descent into Madness: Enter Madness.