[Letters From the Labyrinth] Official Brian Keene Newsletter 5/7/17

Hello. My name is Brian Keene and this is Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for fans of my work. If you're a new subscriber, previous issues are archived here.

This was taken last Sunday. It's the view from my dock. The weather was nice, so I sat out there and worked on edits for END OF THE ROAD.

By now, I'd planned on working in my new office/recording studio, but construction has been temporarily halted due to the fact that I don't have the money to finish it. I need around another $600, and this is one of those months where everything seems to have come due -- taxes, utilities, annual professional fees (website hosting, etc) -- so pulling that amount out of savings would leave me with a dent in my emergency fund.

Is this too much information? I don't know. Maybe. My point was this... I've been going nuts because the contents of my former office and the contents of my former library and the contents of my former podcast studio are currently all in boxes, and the new office and studio isn't complete, and so, I've had to resort to taking my laptop out to the dock and having the river as a backdrop while I work.

Which would be fine except that it fucking rained all week long.

Anyway, edits on END OF THE ROAD are finished. If you read the original weekly columns when they ran on the Cemetery Dance website, you didn't read everything. There was a lot of material that never made it into the columns. All of that will be included in the book.

Gabino Iglesias, one of my favorites of the next generation of writers, is penning the Introduction. Soon as he's finished with that, I'll send the manuscript off to Cemetery Dance.

The above screenshot is an example of that extra material I mentioned -- in this case, a text message conversation between authors John Urbancik and Mary SanGiovanni, which occurred during last year's Farewell (But Not Really) Tour. It was never included in the weekly columns, but will be included in the published book.

In addition to finishing those edits on END OF THE ROAD, this past week I wrote a new essay about my friend, author Tom Piccirilli, and his legacy, and his "Self" series, in particular.

That essay will appear in an anthology for the Ghost Town Writers Retreat, which takes place August 3rd through 6th, 2017, in Georgetown, Colorado. While the focus is on the darker side of writing (horror, mystery, paranormal romance, etc.) all are welcome. There will be a continuous track of general interest author topics Friday through Sunday. If you ever wanted to just pick my brain for writing advice, this is your chance. In addition to myself, other guests include Stephen Graham Jones, Mary SanGiovanni, Don D'Auria, Keith DeCandido, Sara Megibow, Mario Acevedo, Josh Viola, Jeanne C Stein, Shelley Adina, Guy Anthony De Marco, Jon Bassoff, Sean Eads, Travis Heermann, and more.

All the info is on their website (linked to above). If you have an interest in writing, I really encourage you to come.

Artist Daniele Serra posted the above pic on Twitter this week. It's a page from a new comic we're doing together. And no, it is NOT the Big Two comic that had the internet going nuts with speculation a few weeks back. This is for a different comic. I'll give you a hint. It's an adaptation of one of my short stories. See if you can figure out which one, based on the art. Give me your guesses on Twitter!

THE NAUGHTY LIST is still wowing film festival audiences and getting great reviews. Here's the latest review, courtesy of Monologue Blogger.

Matt Hayward's first short story collection, BRAIN DEAD BLUES, was released last week in paperback and for Kindle.

Included is an exclusive novella, God is In The Radio, in which an ageing rock-star pens a song with help from a peculiar old man, one that leaves his fans itching for more. Eleven additional tales of monsters, murder, and the supernatural lie within these depths that will not only entertain you, but send chills up your spine.

•A young girl discovers that a monster does, in fact, dwell beneath her bed.
•An antique store owner stumbles upon a circus artifact that local down-and-out's are just dying to see.
•A bare-knuckle boxer tries his luck in the ring one last time, only to fight tooth and nail by light of the full moon.
•A starving man sees only one option to survive the zombie apocalypse - by taking a bite of the undead.

I've read it, and recommend it very, very highly. Click here to order.

And if money is tight, Gavin Dillinger -- another young author whom I enjoy -- just launched a free serialized web novel this week called GOOD BOY. It is designed to be an improvisational novel, meaning he's making it up as he goes along, with no editing (other than for grammar and flow). Which is exactly what I did with EARTHWORM GODS II: DELUGE many years ago. This first chapter is crackling good. Read it for free here.

That's it for this week. A few reminders:

PATREON - Where I post new short stories, a serialized ongoing novel, and behind-the-scenes stuff.

TWITTER - The only social media outlet I still use regularly.

Take care.