One Big Step Up The Staircase, Plus Calamities And Other News

Hey, here’s a fun thing that has happened: The Staircase in the Woods is doing very well for itself. The translation is, the book isn’t out in paperback until (I think) early March, and so it’s pretty early in its bookish life cycle — and even at this point in that life cycle, it’s now outsold the entire run of Wayward and, as of last week, Black River Orchard. Both books that have been out in paperback and out for a good while now. Which puts Staircase on par with Book of Accidents and Wanderers, so that’s really lovely.

Now, to be clear, that’s not indicative of quality — nor is it a ding against those other books. (Erm, I hope.) What does mean, I believe, is that this book has seemingly landed well and resonated with people and that’s in part thanks to all of you for carrying it forward and telling folks about it and maybe even occasionally chasing them through the woods with it in your hands gibbering incoherently until they purchase or take out a copy for themselves. Your fear-based chase campaign has worked!

So, hey, thank you. I will air-high-five you now, and you should air-high-five me back, and we should both be very cautious not to accidentally smackpunch our monitors or laptops onto the floor like dipshits.

Let’s see, what else is going on?

I received edits back on the first book of my demon-blooded duology, The Calamities, and the edits were exactly what I both expected and required — my editor, Tricia Narwani, is truly among the best in the business (and for me, the best) and she should be winning awards every fucking year but isn’t because, I assume, the universe is cruel and foolish. I already sent her the first four or five chapters just to make sure I was on the right track, and the response was an enthusiastic affirmative, so away we go into this occultish demonic wonderland I’ve created for myself and, eventually, you.

Some things to check out if you’re so inclined —

Staircase in the Woods gets a nice shoutout for a book about liminal spaces at Reactor.com.

In Green Bay, Black River Orchard got a nice TV and online shoutout from Fox 11 News (alongside Jenny Kiefer and Lindy Ryan)! Thanks to the Brown County Library for shouting us out.

Black River Orchard gets another shout-out from Bookstr, whatever that is, alongside Nat Cassidy and T. Kingfisher for being… cottagecore? I guess that’s a thing? I don’t know! We’ll go with it.

Greene County Library has shouted out Staircase in the Woods!

At the New Hampshire Union Leader, a yuuuuuuge list of great horror to read this season, including, yup, Staircase.

Wanderers gets a shout-out as a — *checks notes* — “horror honker.”

Book Riot calls Staircase a “genre-bender.”

Nobody has called any of my books a “honker-bender.”

In Connecticut, another library — Berlin-Peck Community Library — picks Staircase as a horror book for the month of October, woo.

AAAAAND at my own local, Staircase is part of a book-club-in-a-bag, and here i remind folks to email me at terribleminds at gmail if you have a book club and you want me to chat with y’all about it virtually.

FINALLY, I’ll be at the Margaret Grundy library in Bristol, PA on October 25th 1pm – 3pm chatting about horror books and Staircase and whatever else you wanna ask me about. Books will be for sale there! Details here.

All righty, that’s all she wrote. Just a reminder, if you want signed and personalized books from me, Doylestown Bookshop is the place to go. They will ship to you wherever you are. Even on the moon. Maybe not on the moon. Shut up.

OKAY COOL BYE