Category: The Ramble (page 9 of 449)

*Steps up onto the stage of Chuck’s Terrible Minds blog while squinting at the spotlight. Chuck waves a green flag to get started*

*Thumbs up back at Chuck and takes a deep breath*

Salutations, everybody! Can y’all hear me? *Taps on mic* Yes? Right – let’s get this started:

The Pixel Project, a 501(c)3 anti-violence against women nonprofit, is proud to announce that our Read For Pixels campaign reached its 10^th annual Fall Edition in September 2023.

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. A decade on with almost 300 author livestreams, 90+ AMAs, 20 fundraisers, and 1 Shirley Jackson Award- and Audie Award-nominated charity anthology under our belt, we are continuing to expand 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 giveaways for readers, fans, and book collectors who donate to support our work.

You’re probably thinking: “Neat-O! I’ll go check it out. So why the guest post on Chuck’s blog?”

The short answer: “Because we need your help to reach our $10,000 goal for the 10^th anniversary of Read For Pixels to keep our work alive in this [insert expletive of your choice] year of 2023.”

Like many small grassroots-run nonprofits, our efforts to fight the good fight while grappling with the ongoing fallout from the pandemic and spiraling global inflation in 2023 is taking its toll. 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. So, with our 10^th anniversary Read For Pixels fundraiser progressing in the same fits-and-starts pace that Crowley was railing against while being stuck on the M25 in his attempt to get to Tadfield Airbase to stop Armageddon in its tracks (it’s been just over a month and we’re stuck at $9,255, which is that darn so-near-yet-so-far 92% of the way to our first attempt at raising a modest $10,000 in a single fundraiser), 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, being the generous soul that he is, received our SOS and leaped into action by publishing this blog post to boost the signal for our fundraiser.

So here I am, right at the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2023, presenting five great reasons why you should consider giving to our fundraiser to help get us to our $10,000 finish line by our extended deadline of October 31^st 2023:

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

One of the core services that 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, is currently on ice thanks to Elon Musk’s ongoing destruction of The App Formerly Known As Twitter. While we transition this program to another platform, 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, shows, and other awareness-raising tools we deploy.

THE WIN-WIN FACTOR: Donate to us and you can also tackle your holiday season gift list at the same time! From signed rare/limited/luxe editions to goodie bundles stuffed with books and swag to tuckerisations galore, we have treats for every donation level from luminaries such as Anne Bishop, Brandon Sanderson, C.S.E. Cooney, Dana Cameron, Juliet Marillier, Kendare Blake, P.C. Cast, Sebastien de Castell, and more. And while you’re savoring the joy of squaring away some of your holiday gifts early, also savor the fact that your donation will be going towards keeping our programs and initiatives that connect victims and survivors of VAW with the help that they need.

Great Reason to Give Generously #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 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/or 1-to-1 video chats focused on the craft of writing and/or tips about the publishing industry. Participating authors include Alan Baxter (Horror), Jasper Fforde (Fantasy), Mary Robinette Kowal (Science Fiction and Fantasy), Meg Gardiner (Crime/Mystery), Sebastien de Castell (Fantasy), and Sylvain Neuvel (Science Fiction). Enjoy knowing that while you are getting expert help for your WIP or fixing a stubborn writing challenge, you’re also supporting the creation and growth of online resources for educating folks around the world about VAW.

Great Reason to Give Generously #3: Support online platforms for people to speak up about VAW… while having a chat with your favorite 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 9 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 publicly to 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 blog interview series and the Voices of Dads Against VAW interview 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, Julie E. Czerneda (Science Fiction and Fantasy), Karen Odden (Historical Mystery), Kimberly Belle (Crime/Mystery), RJ Barker (Epic Fantasy), and Swati Teerdhala (YA Fantasy) 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 Generously #4: Help us boost the signal for anti-VAW activists and advocates worldwide… while gifting your geeky loved ones with terrific treats

A longstanding part of our work involves showcasing 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.

THE WIN-WIN FACTOR: If you have a geeky friend or family member and you see a Read For Pixels goodie offered by their favorite author available on our fundraising page, donate to snag that unique treat and delight them during the upcoming holiday season while supporting signal boosts for anti-VAW activists and advocates. BONUS: You’ll have an interesting story to tell them about where the gift came from. It might even be a great opener for chatting with them about VAW.

Great Reason to Give Generously #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 $10 or $1,000 to help us reach our $10,000 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, and bakes far too many carb-and-sugar-loaded goodies.

And so we arrive at harvest time. The air has chilled. The trees are bursting with red fruit. The hinge of your jaw tightens with want as you can taste the apple even before you bite it, bringing with it not only juice and tartness but also, the promise of being better than everyone, of being the greatest version of yourself, perfect and special in every way, damn any who disagree, and damn any who will not dare to take a bite of this red-black apple.

Black River Orchard is out this week. (Next week in the UK.)

Let us get your procurement options out of the way, with special note that Your Local Bookstore is always the best, unless you wish for a book that I have mauled with both my signature and some crass personalization — in which case, you’re best getting from either Doylestown Bookshop or any of of the bookstores I will be visiting in the coming weeks. Finally, signed copies available also through The Signed Page!

Otherwise, your choices include but are not limited to:

Hardcover: Bookshop.org | B&N | BAM | Amazon | Powells

eBook: Amazon | Apple | Kobo

Audio: Kobo | Libro.fm | Apple | Audible

And more ways to buy here, at the PRH page for the book.

Also come see me on tour, and I’ll A your Qs and we’ll even eat weird apples together — and check out the Ruby Slipper apple merch.

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About the Book

A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the bestselling author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.

“Chuck Wendig is one of my very favorite storytellers. Black River Orchard is a deep, dark, luscious tale that creeps up on you and doesn’t let go.”—Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.

Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.

Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples… and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?

Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.

But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

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“Wendig wows with this wildly unsettling horror tale… Wendig is brilliant at slowly raising the plot’s emotional temperature and making his characters, caught in a creeping nightmare, feel both real and empathetic. This masterful outing should continue to earn Wendig comparisons to Stephen King.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Wendig writes doorstoppers, but it’s safe to say there’s something for everyone here, from the creepy Eyes Wide Shut vibe (complete with sacrificial rituals) to the Stephen King–laced dichotomy between the world’s everyday cruelty and the truly grotesque carnage that follows. Both complex and compelling, a nightmare-inducing parable about our own wickedness.” —Kirkus Reviews

“An epic saga that is at once a propulsive horror novel and a parable, a thriller and a cautionary tale, Black River Orchard is the immensely talented Chuck Wendig at his finest.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six

“A gripping story of love and legacies gone rotten, deeply rooted in the landscape and as twisty and gnarled as an ancient apple tree.”—T. Kingfisher, USA Today bestselling author of What Moves the Dead

“This will undoubtedly be heralded as one of the finest horror novels of the twenty-first century.”—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“Enchanting, exquisite and dark, Chuck Wendig masterfully weaves a new horrifying fairy tale in Black River Orchard.”—Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award winner of Crime Scene

“Creepy and insidious, Black River Orchard whets your appetite and then turns you inside out.”—Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Queen of Teeth

“Black River Orchard should come with a warning label: You’ll never bite into another apple without remembering this dark, demented, and genuinely frightening novel.”—Jason Rekulak, author of Hidden Pictures

“Chuck Wendig’s Black River Orchard slithers and shines, its dangerous belly full of dark magic and accusations. I’ve been a fan of Wendig for years, and this is his best novel yet.”—Gabino Iglesias, Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil Takes You Home

“An essential for horror readers, and buy it for new horror readers—it will convert them instantly.”—V. Castro, author of The Haunting of Alejandra

“Plucks your heartstrings and preys on your fears at the same time . . . High-stakes horror meets peak emotional investment means Total. Reader. Devastation.”—Sadie Hartmann, author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered

“A fresh and unexpected horror feat, expertly drawing from the ancient, endless wells of our greatest fears.”—Premee Mohamed, Nebula Award–winning author of Beneath the Rising

“A dark, frightening tale that will chill readers to the core.” —Booklist

“Insatiable, passionate, weird, and creepy, Wendig’s latest is perfect for those who appreciate the slow-burning horror tomes of Stephen King and Robert McCammon.” —Library Journal

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What You Can Do?

I’m ringing this bell a lot, and I apologize — but while readers do not owe their authors anything beyond nabbing the story from a store or library, there are things you can do to help this book (and by proxy, me as an author) continue to exist in the world and not perish in a deep dark abyss of obscurity. Those things include:

• Tell people about the book! Word of mouth really, really, reaaaaaaally matters, and it is arguably the best and maybe even the only truly effective way for a book to reach its readership.
• Leave a review. Somewhere! Anywhere! Amazon, Goodreads, Storygraph, TikTok, Instagram, your blog, my heart, carved into an apple and thrown through the windows of your neighbors!
• Call your local library and ask if they’ll carry it.
• Come see me on tour. It helps, seriously. Bookstores wanna see you. I wanna see you. I want you to eat weird apples with me. It’s gonna be great. We’re forming a cult. There’s probably a creepy uhh I mean totally cool and not creepy van. Get in. Let’s ride to the orchard.
• Send me bags of apples and money! I mean, can’t hurt to ask.

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Ten Things To Know About The Book

1. It’s best to go in with minimal spoilers. (This is admittedly my belief with all books, but this is one where I think the less you know, the more rewarding the total reading experience will be.)

2. Yes, it’s a big book, but damnit, it has short chapters. I work very hard to make these books as easy and addictive to read as possible. Not to say that always works, that’s on you to decide. But I do make every effort.

3. The audio is amazing. It has a wild array of narrators, including: Xe Sands, Brittany Pressley, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Cindy Kay, Kalani Queypo, Gabra Zackman & Victor Colomé

4. The cover is also amazing. US cover is designed by Regina Flath. Fuck yeah, Regina Flath. If there is a Regina Flath fanclub, I wish to join. Check out her Insta, and follow her there.

5. I don’t have any particular trigger/content warnings conjured (outside, well, this is a horror novel, so expect some of that horror up in there). Storygraph is always a good place to go to look for community-curated content warnings, where you can find or add them accordingly.

6. This seems like a “fall book,” and it is, in the sense it’s very apple- and harvest-focused, but the book itself (roughly) comprises a year of time, from harvest to harvest.

7. It takes place in Bucks County, PA, but also, not there, exactly. Readers of The Book of Accidents will pick up what I’m laying down.

8. Speaking of that, as always, I like to connect my stories in curious little ways, and you’ll find those Easter Eggs here, too. Readers of The Book of Accidents might even realize there are some hints in that book about this book written in all the way back then…

9. Lately I’ve taken to using the acknowledgments portion of my books as an afterword to talk about the book itself, and you’ll find that in this one, too.

10. Hey, at the very least, you’re gonna learn some shit about apples.

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And that’s it. I can only yell so much about this book. I’m really happy with it. It’s the evil apples book that has lived in my heart for like, five years now, and it’s gonna be out in the world and from here, it’s yours. Yours to love or hate, yours to carry forward or kick into the dirt. I hope you love it. I hope my weird finds your weird and the intersection is this book. I hope its roots dig in. I hope it bears fruit.

I hope you’ll take a bite of my apple.

*eyebrow waggle*

Maybe I’ll see you out there in tour.

Enjoy the book.

When Barker Davis wanders into Hollow Hills one day, blood-soaked from head to toe, the town immediately blames the deranged toymaker living in the woods nearby. But arresting the toymaker leads to more questions than answers and the bloodbath is just beginning. Now, it’s up to Sinclair Redman to figure out what’s really causing the carnage before bodies pile too much higher.

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When I first wrote String Them Up it was early 2022 and Murder Puppets weren’t really a big deal on the market. Billy, from Saw, seemed to be sidelined after Spiral. Annabelle was three movies deep, but seemed to be losing steam despite Annabelle Comes Home being surprisingly fun. Puppetmaster got a spinoff that nobody paid attention to. Really, only Chucky seemed to be getting much mileage through his TV Series and/or movie which was confusing. String Them Up got picked up by Crystal Lake Publishing (hooray!) and then scheduled for a release that was a year and a half out.

During that year and a half, suddenly, puppets hit the main stage again. Rachel Harrison’s Bad Dolls and Grady Hendrix’s How To Sell A Haunted House popped off. Megan (excuse me, M3gan) came to theaters. Hell, even gaming got in on the pint sized terrors with House Beneviendo DESTROYING ME in Resident Evil 8 and My Friendly Neighborhood rearing their twisted little heads. The floodgates opened all at once and it took me a while to understand why. But through revising and editing String Them Up, and embracing this new wave of glass-eyed murder dolls, I think I’ve learned Five Things Writing STRING THEM UP about why puppets are so damn scary…

Puppets can be scary because of the uncanny valley

I think the main reason that puppets freak people the hell out, is because it’s so easy to mistake something that’s so OBVIOUSLY not human for a human. Which sounds contradictory, but you know what I mean. It’s like AI “art,” right? At first glance, you might recognize what’s really happening. The painting of the spooky lady in the black dress looks good and spooky and you want to give props to the artist for evoking such a uniquely gothic mood. But then you see the fingers and they’re all jacked to hell. And then you see the way the foreground and the background all blend together because a computer couldn’t decide when a dress should stop and a shadow should begin. It’s frustrating. You feel duped. How stupid must you have been for ever thinking, even at a glance, that these ‘paint’ splashes made sense.

I think puppets parade around on the same chaos wagon.

When you see that mannequin anywhere other than a store window, you’re bound for an “Oh, hi Mark,” moment until you notice the blank, dead eyes. Looking directly at these things is so unnerving because they fooled you to start with. It makes you question your sanity in the most discomforting of ways. How could you have mistook a doll on the couch for a real child? Are you stupid? Or did your peripheral vision give you a glimpse through some veil that your regular senses aren’t attuned for? We can’t trust these damn things.

Then, add to this confusion the fact that, in our horror stories, the dolls start to move. When Pupkin attacks in How To Sell A Haunted House, it lends credence to a concept that’s always itched at the backs of our minds. We realize suddenly that those little looks that we originally dismissed, those little “mistakes” of perception, were actually the reality and now we can’t trust anything anymore.

Puppets can be scary because they are everywhere.

It’s the classic shot. The antagonist toy sitting in a pile of other stuffed animals, dolls, or what-have-yous. The main character walks past, unassuming. The demon doll’s head turns. Shit’s about to go down.

It’s a classic for a reason.

The dolls in our houses are so omnipresent and so innocent that we never pay them mind. Even when you KNOW that Chucky is out to get you, it’s so easy to just blow off the cute, fluffy, wooly, plastic comfort objects. It’s Toys R Us Camo for our antagonist. You go toy blind.

And what makes it worse is, if you have kids, then you know that there’s NO WAY to keep track of which toys are supposed to be where. You get used to the idea of them moving “on their own,” because your kids are constantly ping-ponging from room to room with them in tow and there’s no way to track your targets. There’s not even a way to tell the intruders from the regular toys. My kids have so many toys things scattered around the house from birthday parties and ‘borrowed from’ friends and grandparents and trips to the grocery store with mom that if a new, potentially violent, little friend makes its way into our house there’s going to be no way for me to know. Not until it’s too late, at least.

Puppets can be scary because life in plastic, it’s fantastic

How do you kill a toy? Do you take out its batteries?

Sure.

Maybe.

If it’s electronic.

But how many times has THAT worked against Chucky, huh?

Something eerie about puppets and dolls and the whole ‘animated play thing’ trope is just the dark second-act-realization that our characters have that they don’t know how to kill what’s already supposed to be inanimate. Evilized dolls inherently come along with a mystery of what evilized them. If it was a programming error (looking at you, M3GAN) then maybe you can destroy their processing chip. If they’re playing host to a demon, then maybe you resort to your run of the mill catholic cleansing ritual (bathtime, Annabelle). But until the characters deduce what’s making these little monsters tick, that unknowing and resulting inability to battle back can be a blissful well of terror to draw from.

Puppets can be scary because of projection

You know when you were a kid and you used to play with dolls, puppets, action figures, whatever? And you subconsciously projected a lot of your own interests, fears, and insecurities into those toys? Barbie is mad at Ken because Ken won’t let her have ice cream for breakfast? Mmhmm. Sounds familiar. It can be cute. Barbie is mad at Ken because somebody keeps hitting her on the playground and the teacher isn’t doing anything about it? Well, hold on, then… Down this dark spiral we go. Something that I think is under-utilized by the evil puppets in mainstream horror is the role of the puppet master. How the person playing with the dolls can reveal bits of themselves that even they themselves don’t want to address fully. Would my kid tell me he was having problems at school? Hopefully. But would Ken tell Barbie about it? Absolutely. Take the ownership away from it and things can be easier to talk about.

But let’s play this out in its most sadistic form. Let’s throw it back to an episode of Heroes from…what? 2008? There was a puppet master villain there. He kidnapped Hayden Panettierre and her mom. He controlled their limbs. He made their bodies do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was gross. Predatory. They kept him mostly reigned in, because the show aimed for a PG-13 rating, but there’s clearly a darkness here that can be acknowledged, and I bet your imaginations are racing to the worst possible places right now. I know mine was.

So then when I was writing String Them Up I tried to find ways to marry all of this together. I wanted to get an absolute psychopath pulling the strings. I wanted the worst person possible channeling all their frustrations and worst thoughts into some creepy little vehicles for destruction. I think I managed it.

Puppets are FUN

And then here’s my last idea for why puppets are seeing the spotlight all of a sudden again. Ignoring all the pseudo-psychology that I’ve been rambling about. Ignoring how maybe an evil puppet master pulling the strings of mindless cronies might parallel some Cheeto-tinged socio-political happenings in our real world. PUPPETS ARE FUN.

There’s something entertainingly absurdist about watching Chucky’s tiny stumpy legs fluttering as he chases a victim down a hallway. It’s so ridiculous that you have to smile. Poltergeist Clown’s face is nightmare fuel, but tee-hee, those arms are so stretchy! My last, and probably biggest revelation while writing String Them Up was that this comedy could be, and needed to be, embraced. Horror doesn’t need to be doom and gloom for all two hour, two hundred pages, or twelve episodes. A little bit of levity in the right places, like with puppets, can go a long way towards making a story entertaining and memorable. So again, I tried to reflect that in String Them Up. I kept a lot of scenes that will, hopefully, keep you up at night. But I also embraced the nonsensical aspects of my subject matter. I love the way that the story turned out, with all of this thrown in a blender and pureed together like that one scene in Small Soldiers, and I hope you have some fun with the story too.

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William Sterling is an independent author and host of the Killer Mediums podcast. His books tend to play in the realms of “popcorn flick horror” with high body counts and a soft spot for unexpected endings.

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String Me Up: Amazon

William Sterling: Website | Instagram

Being a writer right now is fucking weird. (It inspired me to write a post about that very thing only a handful of months ago.) It was never exactly a normal thing to be, but somehow it’s only gotten stranger. Book bans, so-called artificial intelligence, various strikes in the face of soul-crushing capitalism, and, of course, the gentle and stupid collapse of social media into a plethora of only partially-effective fiefdoms.

Word-of-mouth has always, always been the greatest driver of why people read this book or that book — we listen to trusted sources (our friends, our local bookseller, a reputable TikTok account, an itinerant Tom Hanks wandering the landscape whispering the names of obscure books in your ear), and then we read the book. Then we tell someone about the book because oh my god, you have to read THE DAUGHTER’S DOCTOR’S REVENGE, y’all, it’s the thrilleriest romanticiest spiciest sweetest scariest silliest murder-mystery-medical-body-horror-erotic-cookbook and if you don’t read it you’ll be missing out. Sweet sweet book FOMO.

Social media was never really good for authors to sell their books at a one-to-one basis, I don’t think. Meaning, your tweets were not Pied-Piper tunes fluting your village followers into the bookstore to buy your book. But it did a lot for book culture, which is to say creating ambient effect about not just your books, but the books you love, the bookstores you care about — it was not always the healthiest garden, but it was, still, a garden of books. An ecosystem of book culture goodness. And that is now…

Okay, I know it’s not gone gone. But Twitter is pretty much dead, throttled by the Emerald-Mining Nazi, and TikTok isn’t really for writers I don’t think, and Instagram is mostly for I dunno are we still posting photos of our food over there? I mean, I know I am, because I just posted a photo of a whole-ass potato I found in a bag of potato chips. This potato is now my son, and I have named him Gordon. I will not eat him. How dare you.

Anyway, long story short is, it’s hard to get heard. It’s hard to make you know about these books. It’s hard to make you care about them. Social media — again, a flawed nightmare realm in oh so many ways — also served as a tentpole for the bookish ecosystem, and that tentpole is now chewed by termites. Who are also billionaires! So, what the fuck do we do?

I don’t know, and I don’t have any certain answers, but I know what I think the answer might be, and it’s this:

With my newest book Black River Orchard coming out next week, it’s time I humbly ask you to join my cult. No, I don’t have the cult set up and running yet, but I’m gauging interest. The book itself has a cult in it, in a sort of suburban folk horror context, and evil apples are at the core of this cult, and man, it sounds like fun, having a cult. So I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we all form a cult, and I’ll be the cult leader guy, and we’ll just find a place in the woods, or maybe we can build a bunker? Or a tower? So many structures. Ooh! Ooh! A pyramid! Let’s build a creepy pyramid in the woods. Whoa, I didn’t say it’d be a sex pyramid. You said it’d be a sex pyramid. Let’s not worry about that part right now. Just know this: it’ll be a blast. There will be peace and love and various sinister structures made out of wicker and rattan. You want robes? We can do robes. But maybe robes are feeling staid right now. Maybe you want odd hats. I’m down with odd hats. They have creepy homemade masks in the book — so why can’t we do hats? A hat that looks like the top half of an apple? Maybe some bird skeletons bundled together? Shit yeah. Or a hat made of tree roots, or gummy worms, or whatfuckingever. I’ll put out a suggestion box.

See, this way we don’t need social media. We won’t even require the Internet. We’ll just have our weird little off-the-grid pyramid cult with our dead bird apple hats, and we’ll all read books and have endless book clubs and talk about them while ingesting various yard mushrooms. It’s gonna be great. And the first order of business is, to prove your loyalty to the cult, that you talk about Black River Orchard. This isn’t like Fight Club. First rule is, you have to talk about it. Tell everyone. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell any parrots you see — they are excellent repeaters of information. Have you thought about going door to door and asking folks if they’ve Seen The Good And Glorious Path of Evil Apples? Well, get right on that. Talk about the book. Leave reviews places. Come to the book events. Pre-order the book if you haven’t already, and jump in on that pre-order giveaway campaign. Hell, pre-order ten, twenty of those silly guys. We’ll use them as currency in the new cult. Merch, too! Who needs the internet? We have our own word-of-mouth. And the words in our mouth are NEW CULT NEW CULT NEW CULT. APPLES, APPLES, APPLES. TEETH, TEETH, TEETH. Now put on your odd hat. Come to the pyramid in the woods. We have one week till the book comes out. One week to prepare for

THE APPLEOCALYPSE

ha ha ha I mean

one week to prepare for

PERFECTLY GOOD AND NORMAL TIMES.

Okay, see in the forest, cultist buddies!

* translation is, I might be a little more annoying this next week in the lead-up to the book, and that annoyance might be softened if we’re all in the woods getting high on tree bark and talking books in our weird pyramid, so apologies in advance if I’m extra noisy about this book, it just means a lot to me and it’s hard to get word out, but honestly, all of this would be fixed if you would just join my damn cult already, jeez

With Black River Orchard coming out (ahhhh like, a week and a half now, ahhhhh), I am keen to remind you that if you have a book club and you choose one of my books (like the aforementioned evil apples book), you can summon me and I will show up like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, and I will reveal all my secrets unless interrupted by some manner of bird.

By show up, I of course mean “virtually,” because that’s the easiest way for me to appear at your book club.

Anyway — the deets for that are here, posted last July:

The Book Club Offer.

Please to partake!

And no, I don’t know why I posted such a dour photo of my at the top of this. (It was a photo taken on our recent trip to Europe, aka, YERP.) Here, I’ll post another very serious photo to prove my abject seriousness.

Those are definitely my real teeth and not, for instance, dentaduras.

Anyway.

Bye.

I mean, that’s it, really. It’s on Amazon Prime streaming. It’s great. Truly great. OKAY BYE.

…

…

…

You’re still here, ugh, okay, fine, look — it’s a very serious murder-mystery show set in Tasmania. It’s also hilarious. It’s not exactly a comedy, but also, it’s a comedy. It plays itself straight as a noirish sort of serial killery mystery thing, but at the same time, it’s also truly, truly funny. You get the serious music cues, the ponderous camera drifts over placid water, but then you also get like, the absolutely absurd characters and attitudes and situations born of a quirky small Australian town. It’s like if Broadchurch had a baby with Gilmore Girls, but Letterkenny was the surrogate? I dunno. It’s great. It’s political and surreal and funny and crude and a genuinely sharp mystery.

Go watch it. I’ll wait here.

(And thank you to Kevin Hearne for telling me to watch it in the first place.)