{"id":7431,"date":"2024-12-11T18:02:41","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T18:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/?p=7431"},"modified":"2024-12-11T18:02:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T18:02:41","slug":"a-dose-of-wintry-terror-updates-from-my-weird-writing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/a-dose-of-wintry-terror-updates-from-my-weird-writing-world\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dose of Wintry Terror: Updates from My Weird, Writing World"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I can’t believe this year is almost over. And what a year it’s been. Seriously. There have been great things about 2024, but wow, oh wow, have there been some terrible things too.<\/p>\n

But for today, let’s focus on the positive, shall we? And in that vein, let’s talk about The Haunting of Velkwood<\/em> for a moment. Yes, I know I’ve discussed this book a lot already this year, but since this is my most personal book to date, that obviously means it’s very close to my little horror heart.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, The Haunting of Velkwood<\/em> has been named a best horror book of 2024 at not one but two major outlets! First up, Neil McRobert’s Esquire list of Best Horror Books of 2024<\/a> is complete, and The Haunting of Velkwood<\/em> joins an incredible group of books! Truly, to be named one of Esquire’s best horror books of the year is such a huge honor! Eeeeee!!!<\/p>\n

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Last week, Library Journal announced their best books of the year<\/a>, and The Haunting of Velkwood<\/em> appeared among nine other illustrious horror titles from 2024. Seriously, I couldn’t be more thrilled to see my ghosts in such wonderful company! Tremendous thanks to Becky Spratford and Melissa DeWild for this!<\/p>\n

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I’m also so delighted to see that The Haunting of Velkwood<\/em> has appeared on not one<\/a> but two recent<\/a> Book Riot articles! I’m such a big fan of Book Riot, so I was so happy to see it get some love there. The novel was also recently reviewed at The Lesbrary<\/a>, which focuses on sapphic literature. Needless to say, I couldn’t be more grateful that more than nine months after the book’s release, it’s still making the rounds! Thank you to everyone who’s read it so far! I appreciate it more than you know!<\/p>\n

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In other book news, I’m also absolutely thrilled to announce the release of the Spanish version of Pretty Marys All in a Row<\/em><\/a>! It’s always an absolute joy to work with Dilatando Mentes, and once again, they’ve hit it right out of the park with this beautiful edition of my folklore Marys!<\/p>\n

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Looking ahead, I’m working on finishing up my next novel as well as my second short fiction collection. It’s super exciting to finally be moving forward with some of my longer work. There are a couple other projects simmering as well, so hopefully in the coming months, I’ll have more concrete news as to what’s next.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, I certainly have new work making its way into the world. In fact, I’m super excited that several short stories of mine have been recently released or are forthcoming. So let’s talk about them, because truly, each one of these tables of contents is out of this world!<\/p>\n

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So let’s start with the anthologies! Back in the fall, Elemental Forces<\/em><\/a> was released through Flame Tree Press, and the table of contents includes my story, “The Only Face You Ever Knew.” Even though the setup for this one is pretty fantastical, this story is strangely personal to me, and it was a deeply painful one to write, but I’m so incredibly proud of it. So many thanks to editor Mark Morris for including it!<\/p>\n

September also saw the release of The Darkest Night: 22 Winter Horror Stories<\/em><\/a>, which features my weird body horror story, “The Mouthless Body in the Lake.” The fantastic Lindy Ryan was the editor of this one, and after being part of several of her anthologies, it practically goes without saying that I adore working with her and I very much hope to do it again many more times down the road! Gigantic thanks to Lindy for featuring my work in this fabulous book!<\/p>\n

On Halloween, the Enter Boogeyman<\/em><\/a> anthology went into wide release, which includes my creepy childhood tale, “The Maiden and the Monster.” This is such a massive table of contents, including everyone from Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell to Linda D. Addison and Gemma Files, so I’m of course so wildly honored to be part of the lineup! Big thanks to editor Alessandro Manzetti for including my story!<\/p>\n

Just earlier this week, my story, “Cleveland,” appeared in Winter in the City: A Collection of Dark Speculative Fiction<\/em><\/a>. This is the first time I’ve written about the city of Cleveland since I finished my novel, The Rust Maidens<\/em>, so it was a lot of fun returning to the proverbial scene of the crime for this creepy wintry tale. Huge thanks to editors R.B. Wood and Anna Koon!<\/p>\n

And looking ahead, I’m absolutely giddy that my strange little story, “Flesh, Fungi, & Farewell,” will be part of the Dark Spores<\/em> anthology, edited by the amazing Carol Gyzander and Rachel Brune. This is another fabulous table of contents, and I absolutely love the theme of spooky mushrooms and fungus. I mean, really, what’s spookier than that?<\/p>\n

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So that’s all the anthology news I have for the moment. But I’m not done quite yet! In terms of magazines, I’m absolutely over the moon that my work will be appearing in Weird Tales<\/a>. Weird Tales! Seriously! I’ve been reading short horror fiction since I was a kid, and it seemed like every anthology I picked up had stories that were originally published in Weird Tales. Now I’m one of the authors to be among them. That seems too good to be true, but since my name is splashed on the cover, I guess it is indeed real!<\/p>\n

Also, I couldn’t be happier with the story that’s included. “Riddle” is my weird fiction tale about a group of middle-aged friends in Detroit who devote their free time to finding the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa. Things only get stranger from there. I’ve been wanting to write a Jimmy Hoffa story for years, and I can’t believe that I finally not only finished it but that it ended up finding such an incredible home. Tremendous thanks to editor Jonathan Maberry for including it!<\/p>\n

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Last but in no way least, my Bram Stoker Award-nominated novelette, The Invention of Ghosts<\/em>, has found a second life at Cemetery Dance! It appears as part of their publication, Bloodlines<\/em><\/a>, alongside some very talented writers. It’s been almost five years since this novelette made its debut in the world, so it’s beyond exciting to see it back out there for new readers to find!<\/p>\n

At any rate, that’s been the second half of my year. I’m definitely looking (cautiously) forward to what 2025 has in store. After all, there’s no shame in hoping for the best!<\/p>\n

Happy reading, and happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I can’t believe this year is almost over. And what a year it’s been. Seriously. There have been great things about 2024, but wow, oh wow, have there been some terrible things too. But for today, let’s focus on the positive, shall we? And in that vein, let’s talk about The Haunting of Velkwood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7431"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7506,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7431\/revisions\/7506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}