I plan on taking as much of the weekend off from the real horror show in Washington, D.C. as possible, so I thought I’d keep my readers busy with some of the horror stuff I’ve almost inadvertently written during the last few years.
I say “ almost inadvertently” because I don’t consider myself a “horror” writer, yet here we are, with a bigger list than I was expecting.
I don’t know what happened. Maybe Chucky the Doll ate my face.
Can you believe they actually sell this doll to kids? What a world. And it talks!!!! Somebody send one to the West Wing. Maybe it’ll come alive and give Natalie a serious startle in the Presidential Bedroom.
Oh well, maybe I ended up writing horror because it’s actually pretty easy to write.
Here’s my list:
Psalm of Vampires
This one just flowed out while I was working on a bigger project, Restive Souls, which still awaits publication. I took three months off that novel to write this, and I had a blast. I’ve had people tell me that Jade, the vampire protagonist, is an extremely memorable (and likable) character.
It’s a dark comedy about a streaming vampire who is a bit depressed, but finds himself in a police procedural buddy cop situation while balancing a weird love life. There is much loss of life during the process.
There are a lot of ways to dig in, including free samples here on Substack:
Psalm of Vampires — Chapter 1: White Violin
You can find a link to the next two chapters at the end of this post.
From there, if you like what you read, you can pretty easily figure out your next move.
Psalm of Vampires short stories or related content
The following short stories are adjacent to Psalm of Vampires. Short stories, etc.
A noir vampire love story based on a “A Psalm of Vampires” character. I really like this one, but it hasn’t caught on. Proof that I have no idea what people like. But I keep pushing it anyway, because I’m stubborn.
The Vampires of Bodie
This short story focuses on minor characters from my novel, Psalm of Vampires. The Mouras Encantada is a house of Vampires based in Goa, India. This vampire house abandoned the concept of procreation long ago and is thus guaranteed to eventually die out.
The Mouras Encantadas discover the American West. Who are the Mouras Encantadas? Scary, mean female vampires with very strong appetites who appeared in the novel but have their own tale here.
Vampire Santa
Warnings: Language, Mature Sexual Subject Matter, Threats of Violence, possible War on Christmas connotations
A Psalm of Vampires short story for the holidaze. More amusement than horror.
Breakfast with a Vampire
My new friend Jade Mourning, who often interrupts me when I’m doing important things, asked me not so long ago how I plan to classify my first novel about him.
Why can’t I have normal imaginary friends? Again, not horror, really. It just features Jade, the narrator of Psalm of Vampires. Very light reading.
The sequel to Psalm of Vampires, tentatively titled Vampire Elegy, is now taking flight.
You can start here, with the Prologue.
So far, only three chapters plus the prologue.
As always, everything is free, but I’ve created a Substack paid subscriber perk:
Paid subscribers can find the PDF version here:
That PDF contains all the current chapters in one place. It will be updated as each chapter is released.
This project has been on a hiatus, but I’ll be re-engaging soon.
Short Stories
My latest short story, dropped yesterday, is a bit of a horror story. Or maybe fully. I don’t even know. One of my Medium readers called it very disturbing, which gave me good feelies.
The Ghosts in My Eyes
Stuart Miller was not a complicated man, in his opinion, during what he suspected, sometimes even hoped, were the last of his twilight moments.
Don’t read this MagicLand story if you hate gore:
The Cutting
1 Charon grabbed Gabby’s small wrist like it was about to fly away. “That’s not for you. Let go of that.”
A much less gory, but still somewhat “descriptive,” at times, MagicLand horror story:
The Wanderer
Nothing remains of Pittman. As we watch its remnants smolder, I know deep in my soul that every one of us has the same picture in our mind, that of the grand and stately old hall, a stubborn old man of a building that frowns at its more modern surrounding university upstarts.
Another MagicLand story. Scarlett is fun. I would call this sort of gothic horror-adjacent meets dystopia.
Scarlett’s Kitchen
Scarlett’s an old Black lady who ain’t never worn a stitch of red clothing in her life, far as I know. She don’t even like that color. Red.
As always, thanks for reading, and have a happy and safe Halloween.
