The Temporal Beast Is Dead, But What Wriggles Forth From Its Carcass? (2025 Wrapup, 2026 Look-Ahead)

Sooooo, every year I do my this happened in the past year wrap-up with a I think these things are happening in the future year prophecy, and I’m going ahead and doing that here and now again, with 2025 withering on the vine in the shadow of a newly-budding 2026 —

But first I want to acknowledge, ha ha, what a fucking year, huh? What a real boner-killer of a 365, man. Dang. Looking back feels like I’m peering through a lens smeared with a slathering of chicken grease and Chapstick — a gooey, hazy view that does not incline me to clean it or even squint, but rather, just to throw it away and move on. I just think it’s been a hard year for everyone. Politically, personally, financially, generally — in every direction, a new disaster big and small. Toilet fires and starving tigers and cracking dams and loose hepatitis monkeys. And I think the BIG PROBLEMS are connected to the SMALL PROBLEMS — like, sure, there’s all this big existential threats like climate change and AI and whatever clownshoe nightmare is going on in the White House right now, but all those things directly pipeline toward higher costs and less stability across the board. Never mind the fact of how many people — immigrants, trans folks, anybody who isn’t white and male — are on the run, against the ropes, on the chopping block. So the political becomes (really: always has been) the very, very personal.

I honestly even struggle to encapsulate the year behind. My greatest inclination seems to be not to acknowledge that it existed and to bolt forward, head down, into the new year. But there’s probably some value in one final nesting sit on these time eggs before they hatch, at least in terms of… you know, me. As for what’s going on in this country and the world, honestly, I suspect you’re caught up, and don’t need me to commit 150,000 words to an Annual Retelling of The Atrocities.

So — selfishly, me. Me, me, me. What the hell happened his year? I don’t even know. Who am I? Who are you? How did we get here? Where is my cat, who is very real and not a hallucination and definitely named Sir Mewlington Von Pissbreath?

I wrote a book!

Or, rather, I published a book.

Or, rather, I wrote and published a book — er, two different books.

Or, wait, I published one book, published one short story, wrote and edited one book, and edited a completely separate book.

So, what about all that, then?

The book I published:

The Staircase in the Woods. You probably know about it! I was not quiet about its existence. I can’t be mad about it — the book came out in April in hardcover, and honestly it’s continued to sell well since. So well, in fact, that it has surpassed the total sales of Wayward and Black River Orchard (er, not combined), and both of those are out in paperback now, and have been for years. I think, if I’m evaluating the book at a distance, it’s certainly a book that some people really love and some people really don’t, and honestly, that works for me — I am generally of a mind that interesting books inspire polarizing reactions, so hopefully this book counts as, well, interesting. I certainly cared very deeply about it and it’s kind of a spiritual sequel to The Book of Accidents in that they’re both books that are personal to me, that both attempt to grapple with big squirrely feelings (one about family, one about friends), that each tackle the “haunted house” idea at a sort of oblique angle. I’m glad it’s connected with people. It’s a weird book! I know it. I wrote it to be about some unlikable characters with the goal of making you give a shit about them anyway, and also explaining their unlikable natures through the superpower of Empathy. I dunno! It’s out there. I hope people continue to check it out and talk about it and post reviews. I hope it stands the test of time, but, of course, only time will tell because that’s how this shit works.

The story that came out was “Grand Junction” in the (gasp) Stephen King The Stand anthology, The End of the World as We Know It, which, holy fuck, was just such an honor to be a part of. The story is very much one I mentally dedicate to my own father, who was a hunter, who loved Colorado, and I wanted to write a tale that might speak to some of who he was and what he liked — while, y’know, also writing about the circular nature of good and evil in a world dominated and decimated by Captain Trips, the nightmare superflu. I loved writing it and cannot thank Keene and Golden enough for giving me a shot. And, ultimate thanks to the King hisownself.

The book I wrote and edited?

Well, that’s The Calamities, my demony-horrory-fantasyey book about a bunch of delightfully messy selfish fuck-hungry soul-eating monsters. I wrote the first draft, really wasn’t sure it was any good at all, got an amazing edit letter from my stellar editor Tricia Narwani that basically clarified for me why I felt the way I did about it, and helped me crystallize how to make the thing I wrote be the best version of itself — just turned that in before Christmas and am so, soooo much happier with the book as it stands. I’ll talk a little more about it in the new year — but it was really fun to write and has ties to a lot of my other books. (And if you were looking for some Naberius, well. He’s in here. Alongside a certain orange cat.) Comes out August 18th. Cover reveal soon, but for now…

Finally, I also edited my next middle grade, which I thiiiiiink is now called The Boy Who Dreamed Up Doors, and I’ve gone another edit to do on that in the new year, and then I think it maybe comes out by year’s end? Don’t quote me on that. It’s a weird sort of metatextual riff on portal fantasies! Also a lot of fun to write. Also mayyyybe a secret (and somewhat accidental) screed against AI.

Got to do a book tour for Staircase. Got to sit with an alarmingly cool roster of authors. In that way, my life is quite good and quite lucky.

On a non-writing level, yeah, it’s been a fine year, if a bit blurry? Kiddo graduated from one school and is now in high school holy fuck. Went overseas to Scandinavia — Copenhagen to Oslo to Bergen to Stockholm, then back to Copenhagen. (Each are some of the greatest places I’ve been to. If, erm, very expensive.) I’m healthy enough, I suppose, though especially given the holidays, I could drop a few stone, or however they’d put it in the UK. Maybe I’ll get on one of them fancy GLP drugs and get weirdly skinny! Probably not, but one never knows what the future holds. I read a buncha good books and saw movies and listened to music but I covered that already.

(I note here if you wanna see photos from my trip to Scandinavia, here they be. And there are some below, too.)

So, what’s up then with 2026?

As noted, The Calamities comes out.

Probably, too, The Boy Who Dreamed Up Doors.

(Cover reveals for both coming soon, I suspect.)

Then the sequel to The Calamities mayyyy be not too far on the heels of the first — book two in the duology is Chaos Reigns.

I’ve got a short story to write and turn in for Secret Anthology Thing.

Paperback for The Staircase in the Woods comes out March 3rd. I’m sure I’ll sign and personalize copies at Doylestown to have sent out with some stickers and such to go along with it — and I’m chatting with Thrillerdelphia to do an event there too around launch, which will be a hoot if it works out.

Gonna head to Ireland and Scotland over the summer, in June. Just for funsies, so far — though if there’s opportunity to do a book event, I’ll take it.

Certainly a book tour, probably in August.

My healthcare premiums are going up up up so haha hopefully people will buy my books haha ha haahaaaaa aaahhhhhh.

Anyway. I think that’s about that. I think 2026 will be fun creatively, and probably terrifying in a number of other directions, so we’ll just batten the fucking hatches and power on through the current storm, yeah? Yeah.

I’ll wrap up here with my favorite photos of the year — I’ve got a lot, but I’ll pick a batch and hope you enjoy ’em. I’ll be back before the year topples over with a Writer Resolution for 2026, if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for.

And away we goooooo.