Letters From the Labyrinth 410

Good morning! I’m Brian Keene, and this is Letters From the Labyrinth — a long running weekly newsletter for fans, friends, and family.

While I’ve drastically cut back on public appearances for 2025, there are a few things coming up that I want to tell you about.

Firstly, AuthorCon V — a Scares That Care charity event — is just a few months away. We’ve announced a bunch of the Guests of Honor, including (in no particular order) Christopher Golden, Victoria Price, Philip Fracassi, Laurel Hightower, Todd Keisling, Gemma Amor, Jendia Gammon, Jonathan Janz, Red Lagoe, Mary SanGiovanni, and Mike Slater, along with Special Guests Maurice Broaddus, Tim Waggoner, and Dakota Lawrence.

We still have 4 or 5 more Guests of Honor to announce in the week ahead.

Tickets and details can be found here. At that link, you will also see that there is a special Thursday night event. We have partnered with Spirited Giving to bring you a once in a lifetime LIVE Midnight Pals performance, written by Midnight Pals creator Bitter Karella and featuring a bunch of your favorite horror writers as their Midnight Pals counterparts (including myself). In addition to that, Thursday’s Spirited Giving event will also feature readings by myself, Jamie Flanagan, Rebecca Cuthbert, and D.M. Guay. So… definitely worth getting to the con one day early.

Secondly, on Friday, January 24th, I’ll be at the Dark Drafts Festival in Mount Joy, PA. Please note I am listed as a Friday Night Only VIP Guest (I’ve seen some confusion about this online). I will not be there Saturday or Sunday. I won’t be bringing books to sell, but if you brought books from home, I’ll be happy to sign them. And if you didn’t bring books from home, Vortex Books & Comics is only a ten minute drive from the event, and I’ll be there at the store Saturday and Sunday, and we have plenty of my books in stock. In fact, those of you attending for the whole weekend should just make a field trip to the store together.

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If you read one extended news article this week, make it this article on Wired. (Here is an archived version without the paywall). It’s a profile piece on Brad Dennis, a private investigator whom I’ve come to know over the last year (due to both of us ending up on the radar of former science-fiction writer Patrick “Rick” Tomlinson and the crazies that orbit his imploding star), and Brad’s involvement in helping the FBI capture Torswats. Great article, and great to see Brad’s efforts getting some validation and recognition. (And for my thoughts on Tomlinson, click here).

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Over on YouTube, I’ve added videos about THE RISING and THE RISE AND FALL OF BABYLON to the Secret Histories series. Watch them here. (Subscribers to my Patreon got early access).

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Did some equipment testing for the podcast this week. And I’ve decided that it’s not going to be called THE HORROR SHOW WITH BRIAN KEENE. Haven’t decided what I’m going to call it yet, and probably won’t until I record the first episode this coming week.

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Currently Watching: Squid Game season 2 (Netflix) and The Thicket (Tubi and Prime)

Currently Reading: This Damned House by Robert Essig and Wolves of the Calla: The Dark Tower V by Stephen King.

Currently Listening: Rod Stewart, Type O Negative, and Waylon Jennings were in heavy rotation this week.

The Thicket may very well be my favorite Joe R. Lansdale adaptation, and yes, I remember how excellent Bubba Ho-Tep, Cold In July, and Hap and Leonard were. But this? This takes it to a whole other level, in terms of respect for the source material. We should all be so lucky to have one of our books adapted with this much faith and heart and grace and appreciation. Absolutely wonderful movie. Don’t miss out on it.

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And that does it for this week. Thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll see you back here again next Sunday.

— Brian Keene