Author: terribleminds (page 1 of 484)

This year, I am considerably daunted by the prospect of doing in-depth apple reviews — I want to! I do! But with our brand new dog, Cooper, and with one big leg of a book tour over and now a second, shorter leg coming up (see you in New Hampshire, Vermont, Ottawa, and Rhinebeck NY?), oh and a whole book I gotta finish writing, I’ve been sorta maybe kinda busy. So busy I can’t even edit that sentence down to a manageable length.

That said, I am still eating apples, and of course I’m gonna talk about them.

So I figured, let’s do a first round of capsule reviews here — a big post of yummy and, er, not so yummy apples what I done ate.

(As a sidenote, I think my last formal apple review was last February — #41, The Wild Twist. And you’ll find link backs to the 40 reviews prior to that.)

We begin with —

Gravenstein

GRAVENSTEIN WAS THE DOCTOR, NOT THE MONSTER, YOU PLEBE. What? Sorry.

I’ve had a real mixed bag with Gravensteins, but this one was pretty darn lovely. Not as crisp as I expected it to be, but juicy, and with a profound taste of vanilla, rooibos, and a hint of honey and elderflower. Skin had a nice pop, too, and was not deleterious to the eating experience. I know these can be a bit fussy here in America (it’s a Danish apple, I believe?) but this one, from Scott Farm, was a damn delight.

Let’s call it a 7.5 outta 10.

Hubbardston Nonesuch

“HUBBARDSTON NONESUCH, YOU GET OUT OF THAT BARN AND STOP TINKERING WITH THAT GOAT.”

I dunno, it sounds like some old-timey Depression-era farmer name. Or maybe like snake oil. Whatever. I ate two of these — one out of the box, a second a couple weeks later. Both times, got hit by a tongue-scrubbing astringency. First time, was real dull. Juice hits, then it’s replaced with a kind of bright white nothingness. With maybe a ping of elderflower or some other florality. Second apple had a stronger taste — suddenly sub-acid, having lost all of its zip-zoom-zap. Very sweet. But once again, that flavor didn’t last, ghosting into the hedge like Homer.

Uhh, Simpson, not the sightless Greek poet.

Not my favorite apple of the batch. From Scott Farm, Vermont.

Let’s call this a 3.7 out of 10. Why 3.7 and not 3.8? Or 3.6? I don’t know. I’m just making this shit up. Using decimals make it seem like math. (Also it lets me get a bit more granular, if anybody cares about that. Which you shouldn’t. I am not an appleologist and any opinions I offer here should be viewed subjectively and honestly, suspiciously.)

Lamb Abbey Pearmain

I dunno what lambs are doing what in what abbey, but I support my sheepy monkbrothers and monksisters. Baa, baa, my brethen. Baa, baa.

Anyway. Last time I had one of these about… five years ago? I was largely unimpressed. It was a good, not great apple. Maybe a little boring?

This time, not boring at all. A happy-making apple. Kind of a platonic ideal of an apple — crunchy-crispy flesh, great balance of tart and sweet, classic apple flavor with a hint of tangerine or some other kind of citrus? And a slightly weird-but-pleasing umami MSG thing. Sometimes pearmains are expected to taste like pear; this did not. Anyway! It was nice. Not jaw-dropping amazing, but much better than I got last time around. It’s why it’s always good to try apples of the same kind from season to season, or even at different times within a season. Apples change. It’s fun. They’re a chaos fruit. Eris knew it.

That’s another 7.5 / 10.

Hewes Crab

Crabapples, which I initially mistyped as “crapapples,” oops, are a pretty neat little thing. A handful of species are native here, unlike Malus domestica, which is only native to my heart. Crabapples have long-served as a good way to make cider, or jelly, or to improve standard apple stock, or to throw them at children without hurting the children, but really just as a way to let the children know, “I don’t care for you, child, and that’s why I’m throwing a small apple at you — not to harm you, but simply to assert my distaste for you and your diminutive kind!”

Anyway, this little fucker is the Hewes Crab. Or the Virginia Crab. More a cider apple or throwing-at-children apple than one you eat.

It’s weird. Crabapples are weird. But it is interesting, at least. The ones I had were a bit mealy, without juice, but had a curious pear-meets-pineapple-meets-savory-tamarind thing? And then as I ate it, more kinda happened in the mouth. It finished with a complex butterscotch hit. Which is pretty strange. And fun. So try one. But then throw the rest at children.

Worth a 5 outta 10, just for the butterscotch thrill.

Opalescent

No photo here, just a brief update — I reviewed this last year and gave it a nut-kick of a score: 2.5 outta 10. But this year, I had a batch, and found them pretty sublime. Crisp, dense, a berry hit of tart-sweet, a tinge of something floral. A major fucking glow-up for this apple. From dud to stud. Easily bumping it to a 8 outta 10, which again: wow, zero to hero. Good job, Opalescent. Good job.

Chenango Strawberry

Is this the sequel to Django Unchained? No. It is fun to say though. Especially as some kind of exclamation of surprise. “Chenango Strawberry!” you exclaim, as the masked killer leaps out from behind the curtain.

Ate this fun friend in Wisconsin — the first of many apples I bought and consumed there (from Brightonwoods, a great orchard). First, the smell off that apple was profoundly strawberry. Which, okay, it’s right in the name. But a lot times, you don’t always get what a name advertises. The Hubbardston Nonesuch does not smell like a guy named Hubbardston, for instance. Or maybe it does. I’ve never met a Hubbardston.

So, beyond the smell… it was a tough apple to review. Lovely aroma, and the taste was honestly fairly berry-like. But the texture on my iteration of it was just gushy mushy mealy mess. Like, a pre-applesauced apple. You don’t even need your mouth to make it. It just exists in that state already.

So, sadly, a 4 outta 10 from me.

William’s Pride

William! You fool! With your damnable pride! Yes, you are an apple! Yes, you have a butt, unlike other apples! But your juicy butt will be your downfall!

Another softer apple, but not mealy or mushy — just on the side of still pleasant.

Very juicy, drippy juicy, with some warming pie spices attached to the aftertaste — you know, that cinnamon-clove-nutmeg. Autumnal shit. Though also there’s an after-aftertaste, where it tastes like the air in a used bookstore. Or maybe like you’re just licking a used book. I dunno.

It’s good. I coulda used more tart. Maybe something a little more exciting. I’m not sure William really deserves all that Pride. But I’ll afford him a 6.3 outta 10. In part because of that juicy butt.

Blenheim Orange

Real dense cronchy boy here. The skin is forbidding. It’s like you’re trying to open plastic packaging with your teeth. But the flesh…

THE FLESH

SAVOR THE FLESH

Okay sorry, got weird there.

It has the sunny disposition of a Cox’s Orange Pippin. It’s bright, friendly, a floral zip, an electric lemon tickle. The density of it though is difficult. It’s like eating an apple at the center of a black hole. An apple crushed by all the pressure of collapsing space-and-time. Not pleasant in that sense.

But tasty otherwise!

7 outta 10. Woop.

Golden Nugget

Boy, that’s an ugly fucking apple. It’s some kind of goblin butt canker. Like you pried it off an ogre’s back and then it fell into the dirt.

In short: tough, gnarly apple with a green, unripened smack of tartness — as the flavor resolves, it goes straight for unripe banana. Not under-ripe. But totally un-fucking-ripe. Green. No yellow. Like you’re eating the banana while it remains hanging from its tree. Or bush. Or shrub. I don’t know how bananas grow. Maybe you pluck them from a monster’s diaper, I have no idea.

Ummmmmm. I think I should really hate it, but my mouth did find it interesting, and my mind was more compelled by it than I expected.

The sign notes it develops in cold storage, which I did not give it a chance to do. Like a GoldRush, it may really mature off the tree.

This one sucked but I also liked it, because tastes are weird.

I still can’t give it more than a 5.9 outta 10. I mean, let’s be real.

Doctor Harvey

“DOCTOR HARVEY, DOCTOR HARVEY. WE HAVE HUBBARDSTON NONESUCH ON THE LINE FOR YOU, DOCTOR HARVEY.”

This very old apple (er, variety, I’m not eating a 400-year-old vampire apple) is designated a cooking apple — which is to say, good for sauce, pie, what-have-you.

This would not be good for pie because it was a bit too soft. Not mealy! But soft. It’d turn to PIE GOOP, I think.

Still, for a cooking apple — it’s fairly pleasant, and I encourage you to watch the video of me eating it, because the pop of the skin is honestly unparalleled. I’ve never had an apple pop like this. It’s straight up ASMR shit.

The flavor itself starts nice — it’s got this berry-flavored wine cooler thing going on. And it was juicy as all heck. Just a gusher. A real squirter.

The flavor, though, recedes quickly, as to flee a crime scene.

So, it’s a 5.1 outta 10 for me, just over the line with that magnificent pop.

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All right. More apple reviews to come! I’ve still got an absolute shitload of apples to talk about — and next week, I’ll be in New England, so you can be sure that Imma eat some fancy goddamn apples there, too. Just don’t tell Delilah I’m dragging her to an orchard and we’re going to sacrifice ourselves to the apple trees. Shhh. Shh!

Also if you want a perfect spooky-season-apple-season read, I feel obliged to remind you I wrote a book about a sinister orchard and its evil apples —

Black River Orchard, out now. Grab signed/personalized copies from Doylestown Bookshop, and they’ll mail ’em right to you.

*Straightens up, squares her shoulders, and tiptoes onto the stage of Chuck’s Terrible Minds blog.*

*Chuck holds up a poster saying “GO FOR IT! YOU CAN DO IT!”*

*Nods at Chuck, takes a deep breath and clears her throat.*

Salutations, everybody! Is this mic working? *Blows on mic. Jumps a little at the high-pitched squeal coming from the speakers.*  All right – here we go:

The Pixel Project, a 501(c)3 anti-violence against women nonprofit, is proud to announce that our Read For Pixels campaign has reached its 12^th annual fall edition in September 2026.

Read For Pixels has come a long way since September 2014 when Chuck himself, Joe Hill, Sarah J. Maas, and nine other award-winning bestselling SF/F, Horror, and YA authors helped us reach out to their readers and fandoms about violence against women (VAW) and raise funds to keep our anti-VAW work alive. Just over a decade on with almost 300 author livestreams, over 100 AMAs, 24 fundraisers, and 1 Shirley Jackson Award- and Audie Award-nominated charity anthology under our belt, we are continuing to grow our archive of globally accessible resources about VAW for geeks, book lovers, fandoms, parents, teachers, and kids, as well as leveraging the power of genre fiction and storytelling to educate people about VAW. Authors, editors, publishers, and agents have also helped us raise approximately $10,000 per year by providing exclusive goodies as thank-you treats for readers, fans, and book collectors who donate to support our work.

You’re probably thinking: “Oooh! Let’s see what the fuss is all about!  So why the guest post on Chuck’s blog?”

The short answer: “Because we need your help to reach our $5,000 goal for the 12^th Annual Fall Edition of Read For Pixels and keep our work alive in this [insert expletive of your choice] year of 2026.”

Fighting the good fight while grappling with the effects of increased geopolitical turbulence worldwide in 2026 is continuing to take a toll on our organization, as it has with many small grassroots-run nonprofits. Women’s organizations have experienced decades of scarce funding for the overall women’s rights movement and women’s human rights are often one of the first casualties in turbulent times such as these. In fact, UN Women sounded the alarm in summer 2025 that the funding situation is so dire that up to 60% of nonprofits and charities working on women’s rights are at risk of shutting down. The ongoing – and seemingly neverending – war on Iran has relentlessly sent global inflation further spiraling, and our 12^th annual fall fundraiser is now officially the SLOWEST fundraiser the history of the campaign, moving so slowly that we feel as stuck as Atreyu’s horse Artax who perished in the Swamps of Sadness in The Neverending Story.  It’s been a month and we’re stuck at $2,527, which is just 50% of the way to our very modest $5,000 in a single fundraiser so you can imagine our growing concern. While we are 100% volunteer-staffed, we do have bills to pay so that we can keep our campaigns, programs, and services running.

Chuck, who has been a solid supporter of our work for years, received our SOS and leaped into action by publishing this blog post to boost the signal for our fundraiser.

So here my team and I are, as Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2026 kicks off, presenting five fabulous reasons why you should consider giving to our fundraiser to help get us to our $5,000 finish line by our extended deadline of October 15^th 2026:

Great Reason to Give Today #1: Support accessible information for victims and survivors of VAW… while acing your holiday gift list

One of the core services The Pixel Project provides is bridging the information gap that victims and survivors encounter when trying to get help. Our daily helpline retweet session, which tweets out domestic violence and rape/sexual assault helplines for women in 205 countries worldwide from 8.00PM to midnight Eastern Time, 24/7, 365 days a year, has now transitioned to Bluesky. Additionally, we continue to respond to individuals contacting us for help, doing the research legwork to provide them with information about specific victim assistance services in their part of the world, and incorporating this life-saving information in the books, videos, social media posts and other awareness-raising tools we deploy.

THE WIN-WIN FACTOR: Donate to our fundraiser and tackle your holiday season gift list at the same time! From signed rare/limited/luxe editions to goodie bundles stuffed with books and handmade treats to poetry written just for you, we have treats for every donation level from literary luminaries across different genres such as Kelsea Yu, Linda D. Addison, Milton J. Davis, Sarah Read, Sylvain Neuvel, Zig Zag Claybourne, Subterranean Press and more. And while you’re savoring the satisfaction of squaring away some of your holiday gifts early, also savor the fact that your donation will be going towards running programs and initiatives that connect victims and survivors of VAW with the help that they need. BONUS: You’ll have an interesting story to tell your loved ones about where their holiday gift came from. It might even be a great opener for chatting with them about VAW.

Great Reason to Give Today #2: Support resources for educating folks about VAW… while getting help for your writing

We have built an ever-expanding archive of nearly 300 resource articles to date about everything from how to stop street harassment to lists of organizations tackling everything from child marriage to MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women). Additionally, our website has beginner-level primers about different types of VAW, including violence against trans women, online violence against women, bride trafficking/kidnapping, and obstetric violence, and our Facebook page is an excellent just-in-time source for the latest headlines and articles about VAW.

THE WIN-WIN FACTOR: Whether you are a budding writer or experienced author who is considering making a donation, we have a stellar line-up of Read For Pixels author alumni offering critique bundles for WIPs (works-in-progress) and query letters, and/or 1-to-1 video chats focused on the craft of writing and/or tips about the publishing industry. Participating authors include Karen Odden (Historical Fiction), Keith Rosson (Horror), Juliette Wade (Speculative Fiction), Pintip Dunn (YA Fantasy and Romance), Romina Garber (YA Fantasy), Sara Tantlinger (Horror and Poetry) and more. Enjoy knowing that while you are getting expert help for your WIP or fixing a seemingly intractable writing challenge, you’re also supporting the creation and expansion of online resources for educating folks around the world about VAW.

Great Reason to Give Today #3: Support online platforms for people to speak up about VAW… while having a chat with your favourite author

A key pillar of our activism and advocacy work is providing digital platforms that are safe spaces for people from different walks of life to speak up about VAW. Every October for the past 10 years, we have hosted the “People and Pets Say NO!” photo statement campaign via Facebook and Instagram for people and furbabies from all walks of life to step up and publicly call for an end to VAW during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We also offer VAW survivors and dads who are male allies opportunities to speak up via blog interview initiatives such as the Survivor Stories series and the Voices of Dads Against VAW series.

THE WIN-WIN FACTOR: While your donation keeps our platforms available for folks to speak up about VAW, you can enjoy a chat with your favorite author in the name of supporting a good cause. For this fundraiser, Clay McLeod Chapman (Horror), Mercedes M. Yardley (Horror and Poetry), Pintip Dunn (YA Fiction), Susan Elia MacNeal (Historical Crime/Mystery), and Rachel Howzell Hall (Mystery/Crime and Romantasy) are all happy to have a video chat with donors to natter about everything from writing and the publishing industry to Victorian crime history and geeky hobbies. These video chats are all open to individual donors, with some also open to groups (Book clubs or library groups or even just a group of like-minded geeky friends/fans are welcome to pool together the donation to get one or more of these chat sessions). 

Great Reason to Give Today #4: Help us boost the signal for anti-VAW activists and advocates worldwide… while getting your Fall Reading Fix

A longstanding part of our work involves spotlighting how anti-VAW advocates, activists, and organizations worldwide are changing the world for women and girls, as well as their ideas about what people can do to help stop VAW in their communities and countries. Our Inspirational Interviews series has been running for a decade and counting. We also run topical sessions with anti-VAW advocates and activists speaking about their work and educating people about VAW. This year, we also collaborated with a criminologist from the University of Cambridge to disseminate her White paper on the role of ‘weaponised attachment’ in trapping domestic violence victims to anti-violence against women charities, nonprofits, and NGOs worldwide.

THE WIN-WIN FACTOR: Donate to our fundraiser and stock up your stack of fall 2026 reads at the same time! From good bundles stuff with books and swag to e-book bundles to single signed titles, we have book-filled treats for every donation level from acclaimed authors such as Angela Sylvaine, Grace R. Reynolds, Kendare Blake, Marisca Pichette, Padma Venkatraman, and more. And while you’re feeling the satisfaction of ensuring you don’t run out of great stories to fill your fall days, also know that you are helping amplify the voices of activists and organizations around the world striving to bring an end to VAW.

Great Reason to Give Today #5: Support the right of women and girls to live a life without violence

Nearly 1 in 3 women and girls worldwide experience some form of violence in their lifetime. In terms of domestic violence alone, over 1 in 4 women under 50 have experienced physical or sexual violence from a male partner.

So donate to our fundraiser because you believe in supporting efforts to prevent, stop, and end VAW. Whether you can give us $5, $50 or $500 to help us reach our $5,000 goal (or even zoom past it to a stretch goal), every cent counts.

(And when you donate to us, please also consider donating either cash or supplies to your local women’s shelter or rape crisis center. Like us, they need all the help they can get.)

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

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Interested in checking out The Pixel Project’s anti-violence against women work? Visit us at https://www.thepixelproject.net/

Interested in checking out our Read For Pixels fundraiser and making a donation to help keep our work alive? Go here.

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Regina Yau is the founder and president of The Pixel Project, a virtual volunteer-led global 501(c)3 nonprofit organization on a mission to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women at the intersection of social media, new technologies, and popular culture/the Arts. A Rhodes Scholar with a double Masters in Women’s Studies and Chinese Studies, she has a lifelong commitment to fighting for women’s rights. In addition to running The Pixel Project, Regina also teaches English to middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, writes stories about cheeky little fox spirits and terrorist chickens, bakes far too many carb-and-sugar-loaded goodies, and can be found artistically posing upside down in Aerial Yoga class.

BEHOLD: A DOG.

It’s a strange thing, to get a dog after you’ve ever had any other dog, because frequently the new dog is there to replace, in some sense, a dog who has come before them. I don’t mean as a literal replacement, where you’re hoping to get a weird little clone of the former (likely ending up with a real Paper Jam Dipper situation there), I just mean, you know you had a dog in one of the beloved dog slots in your household, and then one day, you didn’t. You had a VOID OF DOG and that hurts to have but it’s also kind of awful to fill, isn’t it? The great emptiness of having lost a dog hurts really horribly, but it can feel, I dunno, somehow like a betrayal to replace the dog that you lost, too.

(Ah, the paradox of grief: terrible to behold, but worse, perhaps, to be rid of.)

But the truth is, as George Carlin correctly noted, life is a series of dogs. And when we lost Loa in April, I knew at some point we would not be replacing her, because she is irreplaceable — but, that we’d still want to and maybe even need to fill the Great Yawning Dog Chasm in our life.

That has now happened.

We now have Doctor Cooper Cheese Esquire, the Third:

Cooper — or Coop, or Cheese, or Mister Squish, or simply Dude — came to us quite fortuitously, whereupon we entered into the possibility of getting a new dog by setting an incredibly high standard for ourselves, one that we knew would take a long time to surmount. We figured we’d dip our toes into the process, waggle them around a bit, and then slowly, slooooowly wade into the waters of New Dog Loch over the next several months. Maybe we’d end up with a dog by Christmas, we thought. That’d be quite speedy!

*clears throat*

Our last two dogs, Loa and Snoobug, aka the greatest dogs ever, were both shelter pups, each of them coming from one particular shelter called Last Chance Ranch. They’re a great, great shelter. They are like sommeliers pairing people with the best dog available. They are cautious with who they give dogs to, but not so cautious that they’re just driving by in a van and chucking a puppy at your head before speeding off. They always have dogs, but rarely do they have them for too long.

So, we took a look at their website, saw they had their annual Open House. We decided to go. The event is less OOH LOOK AT OUR ANIMALS thing and more a fun day with merchants and food trucks and horse demonstrations and stuff. But they also walk their dogs around so you can meet them. Mostly we figured, hey, we’ll meet a few dogs, get used to this process again, and that’ll be great. Who doesn’t want to meet random dogs??

Thing is, both my wife and I, independently of one another, also looked at their list of current, adoptable dogs.

And we saw one named Scout.

He was listed as seven months old, and as a Hound / Terrier mix.

My wife was like, “I don’t really want a boy dog?”

And I was like, “Oh, same, and also, a dog who was part retriever would be nice.”

And we were, together, like, “Yeah, no, probably not this dog,” and yet, I guess in each of our minds we were like, well, but he looks really nice?

So we went, wandered around, met dogs, and it was great.

And yet, we hadn’t seen Scout wandering around.

They weren’t really doing new appointments for one-on-one dog meets that day, but we figured, okay let’s just pop in and see what’s up.

I had already put in a generic application and was approved, so that helped when we got in there and they were like, it’s a really busy day, but you guys ARE approved, and your last two dogs did come from here, soooooooo.

And the very nice young woman behind the counter said, “Oh, I know what you need. You guys need to see SCOUT.”

And it was like, shit, okay, she read us like a damn book. We hadn’t said anything about Scout. She just knew.

So — they bring this dog out.

And he is just an absolute love bug. He is a dog-type dog, if you know what I mean — just a happy galloping FRIEND TO EVERYONE. He came to each of us in order, and with each of us he leaned into us, then melted to the floor like the cheese on a cheeseburger.

We spent maybe five minutes with the dog. They also showed us another dog, Lumi, who was this sweet little hound girl, but they correctly (if a bit grimly) noted: “She loves other dogs, and she’s gentle, so she’s going to get along great with your older dog, but she’s also maybe not going to do great when that dog… isn’t around anymore.” And I thought that was actually pretty insightful and thoughtful. So we said, fuck it, whatever idea we had about being cautious and critical through this process was out the fucking window.

We loved Scout.

We wanted to adopt Scout.

Like, right then and there.

But they said, you haven’t had a dog meet yet. Meaning, we still needed to bring Snoobug up to meet him. To make sure they don’t try to tear each other to ribbons or something.

Further, they do not generally put a ‘hold’ on dogs, so if we walked out of there, there would be plenty of chances for people to adopt him. And they would, because he was great. (And would have a shot at walking the open house that afternoon.)

We said, hell with it, we’ll go get our other dog right now.

And they said, it’s too busy to do that today.

But.

BUT.

They also said, you know what, we can see this is the right fit, so we will put a hold on him. Nobody else will be able to adopt him until you bring your dog up in a couple days. So, two days later, we were back up there, and Snoobug and him had a great DOG-MEET-DOG situation:

And that was that. There were no barriers to us taking him home.

So, spoilers warning:

We brought him home.

We’ve had him for several days now, and lemme tell you —

This dude rules.

He very much has his own personality, and yet, reminds us of our last dog, Loa, in a lot of crucial ways. He loves toys. He’s food-focused. He’s people-focused. But he’s also none of that to the extreme. He isn’t destroying toys (or our stuff). He loves treats but isn’t always on the hunt to eat stuff he shouldn’t. He’s not so much a Velcro dog as a dog who always wants to know where we are before he chills out. He’s incredibly sweet, and fun, and smart? He’s actually very polite? Snoobug has come around to him, too, which I’m so glad for, because — you know, she and Loa were like sisters. They worked in tandem quite well. And we weren’t sure what it would be like to bring in a young buck like this goofball — but his energy has given Snoobug energy. She’s kind of come back alive a little? Doing a lot less loafing about. (Not that there’s anything wrong with loafing!) They chill in the same bed without an issue, so I love that. And he gets along splendidly with my sister’s new dog, a seven-month-old something-or-other. They spent about 45 minutes just tearing into each other in the best possible way:

(Oh, the other thing? He’s not a seven-month old hound-terrier, either. He’s a 9-ish month old hound-retriever mix. As evidenced by how relentlessly — and how well — he will play a game of fetch.)

He’s already sitting like a little prince. We’ve got him ringing the sleigh bells by the door when he wants to go out. No accidents in the house. He’s also really pretty! I mean, my gosh, his eyelash game alone is champion shit:

Though to be fair, he’s not always so well-put-together:

Still. What I’m trying to say is —

We’re very, very lucky.

AND HE’S VERY SQUISHABLE LOOKIT THE LITTLE SQUISHY MAN HIMS A PRECIOUS GENTLEMAN

Ahem.

You’ll have to excuse me. I just can’t help it. Look at him.

Expect more COOPER content to come, I’m sure. Honestly this might have to just be a COOPER CHANNEL, 24/7 from here on out, but okay fine I guess I’ll still talk about apples and book-writing and all that.

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If you wanna help keep Mister Cheese here in that sweet kibble, buy my books. And if you get ’em from D-Town, they can send them to you signed and personalized.

Oh, also, don’t forget:

I’ll be at Gibson’s Bookstore in New Hampshire on Oct 13th with Delilah S. Dawson, and also with Delilah at Phoenix Books in Burlington, Vermont. Then, I’m at Can*Con in Ottawa before heading back into the states and hitting up Oblong Books with Sam The Man Rebelein on October 20.

(And if you’re reading this the day I’m posting it — I’ll be at Doylestown Bookshop tonight in support of Keith Rosson and his newest, CRONE. 6PM!)

OKAY BYE

Popping in here to letchyall know there’s a couple sales going on if you’re so inclined to save some ducats — both The Staircase in the Woods and The Book of Accidents are on sale in their respective electronic formats for a buck ninety-nine a pop. And this is true at all the e-book sites, which is to say you can find them at Kobo or Bookshop.org, if you’re the kind who doesn’t want to go poking around the place of the long river.

And here I note these books are… mmmnnnyeah, kinda useful if you’re looking to read The Calamities. By no means is The Calamities a book that requires the reading of any other book of mine. That said, the books do connect in a non-intrusive, non-essential sort of way. You’ll find some crossovers and such. (Also with Black River Orchard, and even Wanderers/Wayward a little bit, but those aren’t on sale.)

Anyway, just thought you guys might like to know.

Enjoy! Or don’t! I’m not your mother! Thought I do talk to her on the phone a lot and she’s a reaaaaaal gossip.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

Two-and-a-half weeks out there on the road sharing the gospel good word of demons, demons everywhere with readers, and I gotta tell you, it was both a very exciting and also incredibly wearying tour.

The exciting: I mean, every event was legit great, with tons of cool readers coming out. I visited excellent bookstores. I got to chat with delightful writing partners. I saw friends new and old! I recognized a few people from their avatars online, which is rare, because frequently at events I’m so mentally overwhelmed by stimulus that I might not even recognize people I know quite well. (“And you are?” “I’m your mother.” “I’m pretty sure you died seven years ago.” *undead wail*). I ate heirloom apples from a killer Wisconsin orchard. Oh, and I went to the Minnesota State Fair, thanks to pals Bill Childs and Stacy Schwartz. What a hoot! A greasy, sugary, foodie hoot!

(Some photos below.)

On the other hand, there was the wearying.

Because when I wasn’t doing all the cool things?

I was doing the uncool things. Which mostly consisted of:

a) driving

b) existing in a hotel room

c) driving more, or being driven

d) hurriedly eating middling food where I had to be careful not to ingest diarrhea lettuce or salmonella cilantro or shrimp made of fiberglass or whatever the newest thing is that RFK Jr is out there licking

e) sleeping

(oh, there was also the part where I did get a gut-bug in Minneapolis, which caused me to miss my Denver event, very sorry Rocky Mountain People, I do love you and hope to see you again someday)

I mean, no, it wasn’t all that way, but it was more that than I wanted it to be — part of it, I think, was down to the choice to drive the tour and also have the tour be largely through the Midwest, which isn’t always the most exciting drive. The drives tend to be long and most highway driving anyway is very good at sort of sanding down all the interesting characteristics of a location and letting it just be “asphalt plus maybe some trees here and there.”

(That said, I think the drive through Wisconsin is actually quite lovely. Wisconsin, you and Minnesota are great states. Don’t let anybody give you any shit.)

So those between-times, which were the dominant times, I often felt quite — I don’t know. Lonely? Unmoored from the universe? Internally greige? It wasn’t great. Again, I dunno if it’s just the era, or my age, or the nature and shape of how I transited from place to place. But it’s fine now. I only decapitated three hitchhikers. Which is good for me! It’s good! I deserve a cookie now.

Let’s see, what else is going on?

Website got hacked while I was on the road, so that was annoying.

I met a Venezuelan Lyft driver who was very angry about “the Muslims” and how they weren’t “real Americans.”

I did eat a bunch of heirloom apples, and I will be posting reviews of them here.

At the fair I ate something called an Apple Donut Ham Grinder, which was also my stripper name back in the early-2000s.

I turned into an ambulatory column of human sweat at the (truly delightful) Belmont Lit Fest just outside Charlotte, NC.

So, yeah.

Thanks to all my most excellent chat partners out there on the road: Todd Keisling, Tracy Townsend, Richard Kadrey, ML Rio, Nat Cassidy, Clay McLeod Chapman, Sarah Read, Eric Asher, JH Markert, and I’m sorry for missing Benjamin Percy and Erika Wurth! Good times and hope to see y’all again real soon.

I remind folks that I’ve still got a little life left in this tour come October —

I’m no longer attending NYCC (some family stuff nudged into the way), but —

10/13 is Gibson’s in NH with BFF Delilah Dawson, who releases her phenomenal Monstera that day.

10/14 is both of us at Phoenix Books in Burlington, Vermont.

Then I’m off to Canada — Can*Con that weekend.

Finally, 10/20 takes me to Oblong Books with Sam Rebelein!

Cool? Cool.

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Now: The Calamities.

It’s out. It’s… I guess doing its thing? I have no idea. I hope people are picking it up and enjoying it. If you are, I do hope you’ll tell your friends, your family, your rogue’s gallery of supervillains that follows you around and interrupts your daily tasks. I also hope you’ll be so kind as to leave a review somewhere online, because that helps.

Booklist reviewed it recently, saying: “Meet Mourning Mayne: eventual inheritor of great, almost unfathomable wealth, who’s not entirely sure he wants it all. Struggling to forge a life apart from his powerful family, he’s forced to return home at a summons from his father, which is impossible to ignore. He’s forced to decide, finally, whether he wants to rejoin the family or turn his back on it forever. At its heart a story about the allure and terror of absolute power and the struggle to retain individuality within a family, The Calamities is Wendig at his very best: a horror story with elements of dark fantasy. Billed as the first book in a new series, The Fiends, which gives you a pretty good idea about where the author is going with his story, this novel features a host of otherworldly characters and the kind of detailed world building that makes Wendig’s novels such a tactile experience for his readers. A great start to what should be a spectacular series.”

So, yeah. Listen to them. Go get the book.

(And you can 100% still get the book signed and personalized by me from my local, Doylestown Bookshop. Click here and tell ’em what you want.)

Uhhhh, that’s it, I think? I should go and write this here sequel, I guess…

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But first, photos: