Happy 2024 Includes (Avoid) Seeing a Mouse!

And a new trimmed-down blurb written last night, for a Horror Writers Association announcement to come. Or at least one may hope (you send in the information, they decide when — and if — to use it). But one must try, yes?

So the book itself, AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL, is expected out in exactly a week, January 8, if things go as expected. Look for it on Amazon then! Not that I’m not going to plug it here too when the moment comes, and may I remind: There’s still time to ask for a PDF pre-publication copy (cf. December 26, way down at the bottom), hopefully with an eye to writing an honest review — but no obligation. I just want to see the collection read! Although better, of course, would be to buy a paperback copy.

And then, if you like it, perhaps still write a review?

AVOID SEEING A MOUSE is a relatively short collection as such things go — twelve stories combining to just under 40,000 words. But with lots of variety in it, I think. For the “trimmed down” synopsis: AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL offers twelve stories set in times from the mid-part of the previous century to a heat- and pollution-baked far-future Earth, but all in worlds a bit askew from what we might be used to. A city-wide celebration with only the dead invited, an anti-Communist who collects bottles, a twisted take on the ’80s Voyager space probes to Saturn, and a title tale of a 1999 pre-New Year’s Memphis where Y2K fears combine with an ancient Egyptian curse, and more, conspire to blur the lines that separate waking from dreams.

And for me as well, the whole thing was a surprise. I hadn’t expected to write/compile a new book in 2023, but a chance “manuscripts wanted” announcement for a shorter-than-usual collection tempted me to try to put one together — just as an exercise, if for no other reason — and I sent it in. So it was rejected, but then a second publisher’s Facebook post spurred some minor tweaks and a re-sending there, and . . . Bingo! A rapid acceptance (see November 21, et al.) — proof sheets and edits wrapping around the Thanksgiving holiday — covers and pre-publication copies. . . .

And a happy all-but-unexpected New Year!