NOVEMBER! Sweet, sweet November is here! This is one of my favorite months of the year: a quiet time, a prelude to the seasonal insanity of Christmas, to use a borrowed phrase—a bit of Halloween hangover, and one of the most beautiful months in Maine. But first, let’s get the rest of that October recap out of the way, shall we? I recapped the beginning of my October in last month’s post, so I’ll just be focusing on what happened after Lost Oblivion launched.

MERRIMACK VALLEY HALLOWEEN BOOK FESTIVAL

This was my best show of the year from a sales stand-point. While I didn’t have copies of Lost Oblivion available to sell there, I had a tremendous time selling all the other books (including one of the rare The Wild Dark special edition hardcovers!). The most popular book of the show for me was The Wild Dark with Hallowed Oblivion a close second and The Wild Fall in third (very representative of the popularity everywhere else).

The best part of this show? Meeting the readers. There are some readers I’ve only interacted with on social media and it was so amazing to see them in person for the first or second time ever. You guys are what keep me going. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the kind things you’ve said and done, the reviews and ratings you’ve left, the suggesting of books to others. Thank you for everything.

I also had a lovely time seeing author friends I don’t get to see very often and meeting new friends as well! I was tablemates with Steve Van Samson and what a wonderful and fun person he is! I loved nerding out over our love of nature books together and I can’t wait to read the books I got from him.

After Merrimack, I journeyed to Providence to do a reading with fellow authors, Rob Ottone and Aquino Loayza at the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council Bookshop. I was nursing a headache and some anxiety that day, but I was blown away by how gorgeously curated that bookstore is and how lovely everyone who works there is. What a special and amazing place. I wish I lived closer so I could go back and visit again. We all read from portions of our books and S.J. gave us a great Q&A discussion after each one. Not to mention, I got to spend lots of time with these two (who are absolutely a hoot together).

More podcasts! First off, I had the pleasure of hanging out with L.C. Marino on his The Suspense is Killing Me Podcast where we talked all about The Wild Fall and my other books in the Wild Oblivion series. You can find that conversation here.

Next up, it was an absolute treat to hang out with Don and James for a couple hours as we discussed social commentary on one of my favorite films, THE WIZARD OF OZ! I was absolutely blown away by how much knowledge Don had on the film and how much I learned from him during our talk. The Wizard of Oz was always a film that we watched around Thanksgiving time at my house (so what better time for this to air!). Go check out our talk here.

Last but certainly not least, I had the pleasure of hanging out on the Dead Headspace Podcast with fellow authors Robert Ottone and Zach Rosenberg to talk about character and world building. All of us have such an interesting way of approaching how we create our stories and it was so much fun to listen to everyone share their techniques. You can find our discussion here.

I also had the pleasure of visiting my old high school last Monday and presenting to the creative writing class there about writing technique, self-publishing, and more. I’ll admit it was pretty strange being back in those halls in an entirely different scenario to when I last roamed them (and it was crazy how different things are from 17 years ago compared to now).

I’ll be honest, I had a kind of crazy goal in mind that didn’t pan out. I wanted to write a novella before PitDark (a book pitching event that happens yearly on X (formerly Twitter - may it rest in peace). That would have meant writing something in two weeks. That obviously didn’t happen. I had an amendment to try and write something before MoodPitch (a similar book pitching event that draws on moodboards) which was supposed to happen this week. It was recently cancelled.

During all of this time, I realized that my desire to write a novella wasn’t going to cut it with my story idea. The concept has deepened enough that it now requires a novel length to accurately tell the story, so I’ve decided to work on it through the winter and hopefully have something to pitch come spring time.

That’s right: I’m opting for a more traditional publishing with the next book.

This doesn’t mean I’m done with self-publishing. It means that I think this book would do better in the hands of a different small press or publisher.

While this one is currently untitled and I’m not ready to reveal anything solid yet, I will say that the inspiration for this book is coming from Lake Placid meets The Cat Lady meets Silent Hill 3. I’m also tentatively referring to it as “Crocodile Tears”. That’s all you get. Let your imaginations run wild.

If you haven’t heard the news yet, I have joined the team of a new small press, Third Estate Books, which hopes to highlight BIPOC Queer writers starting in 2024. I’ll be working as an editor and with layout and formatting books and I’m excited to be a part of the new endeavor! To find out more information about Third Estate, here’s the link to the discord here! (A website will be up soon.)

I am open for manuscripts to edit/proofread as of November 1st! If you are looking for a developmental editor or proofreader on your project, go check out my rates at my website here and contact me via [email protected].

I’m as slow as ever with reading. But… I did finish Coy Hall’s short story collection, A Pantheon of Thieves, which was STUNNING! I also read Peter Danielsson’s A Year Under the Machine, which is unlike any other horror tale I’ve read before. I’d also opt for getting the physical copy of it (which you have to order through Peter).

I’m currently reading:

We got to watch a few fun things over the last couple weeks. I introduced my partner in crime to The Ritual on Halloween, which is SUCH AN AMAZING MOVIE. (Still need to read the book by Adam Nevill). We also watched Five Nights At Freddy’s (which we both enjoyed but felt it lacked the terror that the games initially gave when they first came out). We finished Detroiters Season 2, CSI Vegas Season 2, and also enjoyed the hell out of The Fall of the House of Usher.

I’m currently watching:

I just finished up playing Burnhouse Lane, an indie game by Harvester Games (same ones who created The Cat Lady) and it was consuming. I played until after midnight one night. Definitely an awesome story (though the ending I thought was fitting turned out to be not a good one). I’m not currently playing anything right now, though I have re-started Alan Wake and need to finish that.

I’ll be updating the blog a bit more regularly now that we’re out of peak horror season. I’m hoping to get some Cooking Adventures up as we head toward Thanksgiving and another Nostalgic Horror episode up within the next couple weeks as well. I’ll also be giving you a sneak peek of what book gift boxes will look like on my website this holiday season and who some of the guests are for next year’s WINTERVIEWS.

Stay tuned!

Kat