FANTASTIC FEST GETS GHOULISH

We're hosting a spooky book fair at Fantastic Fest!

Hello, my beautiful creeps and ghouls. My name is Max Booth III and today I am excited to share more information about the spooky book fair we are hosting at Fantastic Fest next week.

First, let’s talk about Fantastic Fest. If you’re unfamiliar with the event, here’s everything you need to know:

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the US, championing challenging and thought-provoking cinema while celebrating new voices and new stories from filmmakers around the world. We collaborate with other festivals, archives, cinematheques, and individuals to spotlight lesser-known film regions and luminaries in an ongoing effort to expand the general knowledge and appreciation of cinema. Supporting film in its most provocative, ground-breaking, and underseen forms is our all-consuming passion, giving audiences a chance to find new favorites and future genre classics in the process.

I’ve only been lucky enough to attend FF once—back in 2016—and it was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. So, it might be an understatement here to tell you how goddamn excited I am that we are hosting (along with Rob Saucedo) a freakin’ spooky BOOK FAIR at this year’s Fantastic Fest.

If you cannot read the date & time in the above graphic, our book fair will take place in The Highball on Monday, September 25th at 2pmCST. It will only last two hours.

Just who, exactly, will be vendoring at this event? I’m so glad you asked! Let’s get into it…

GHOULISH BOOKS will, of course, have a vendor table selling all of the spooky books we’ve recently published. If you’re new to this newsletter and unfamiliar with Ghoulish — we are a small press and bookstore located in the Greater San Antonio Area. It is operated by myself and my partner Lori. Some of our bestselling titles include Below by Laurel Hightower, Scanlines by Todd Keisling, Antioch by Jessica Leonard, and my own novella We Need to Do Something (which I later helped adapt into a feature film starring Pat Healy, Vinessa Shaw, and Sierra McCormick).

We will have an additional table for our bookstore, which will have some books related to the film fest for sale, such as Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, Lloyd Kaufman’s Make Your Own Damn Movie!, C. Robert Cargill’s We Are Where the Nightmares Go, and Haunted Reels: Stories from the Minds of Professional Filmmakers, among a few other fun surprises. This table will also have Ghoulish t-shirts, tote bags, and stickers for sale.

Other vendors will include Rob Saucedo, Zach Chapman, Miguel Myers, Andrew Hilbert, L.P. Hernandez, Tonia Ransom, Preston Fassel, Lucas Mangum, Madness Heart Press, Grace Reynolds, Leticia Urieta, Johnny Compton, Celso Hurtado, Kelby Losack, and FANGORIA magazine.

If you’d like to learn more about these vendors, keep scrolling:

ROB SAUCEDO is the writer of WHERE WOLF, a graphic novel set in Texas about a reporter who must go undercover to stop a werewolf from turning a furry convention into an all-you-can-eat buffet. Saucedo has written for FANGORIA, Birth. Movies. Death., and the Bryan/College Station Eagle. 

KELBY LOSACK has worked as a custom cabinet maker, painter, dope and arms dealer, and pipefitter. He is the co-host of hit podcast Agitator and the author of Mercy, God Is Wearing Black, Letting Out the Devils, and several other hoodrat noir and gutter cyberpunk titles. He lives with his wife and kids in Gulf Coast Texas. 

ANDREW HILBERT is the author of Dreamcast 2, XCRMNTMNTN, Inner Space, Invasion of the Weirdos, Bangface, and Death Thing. He believes 5G killed God. 5gkilledgod.com

JOHNNY COMPTON is a San Antonio based author whose short stories have appeared in several publications since 2006, including Pseudopod, Strange Horizons and The No Sleep Podcast. His fascination with frightening fiction started when his kindergarten teacher played a record of the classic ghost story “The Golden Arm” for her class. The Spite House is his debut novel through Tor Nightfire.

ZACH CHAPMAN is the creator of the horror comic book series House of Blood and A Haunting on Mars. House of Blood was successfully kickstarted last year, while A Haunting on Mars will be available at your local comic shop starting in October (order code AUG232211).

LUCAS MANGUM is a two-time Splatterpunk Award Finalist. He's authored over a dozen books, most recently Bladejob, Snow Angels, and The Final Gate. With Jeff Burk, he co-hosts Make Your Own Damn Podcast, a show celebrating DIY, exploitation, and grindhouse films. You can subscribe to his newsletter at LucasMangum.com and follow him on Instagram or TikTok at LMHorror.

PRESTON FASSEL is an award-winning novelist and journalist whose work has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue, and Screem Magazine. His debut novel Our Lady of the Inferno was the winner of the 2019 Independent Publishers’ Award for Horror. His book Landis: The Story of a Real Man on 42nd Street, the first published biography of Sleazoid Express founder Bill Landis, was nominated for the 2022 Rondo Hatton Award for Book of the Year.

MADNESS HEART PRESS is a small indie horror publisher that focuses on experimental and transgressive literature. Established in 2019, Madness Heart Press has published over 80 books from over 30 different authors. Madness Heart Press also encompasses Aggadah Try It, an imprint that publishes Jewish genre fiction and Madness Heart Games, which publishes tabletop role playing Games. Madness Heart Press is proud to represent both new and established authors such as Edward Lee, Susan Snyder, Wrath James White, Douglas Ford, and Shane McKenzie.

MIGUEL MYERS is the host of the My Horror Confessional, Decayed Tapes (with Max Booth III) and Sunday School Sessions (Patreon Exclusive) podcasts. Every last Saturday of the month you can catch him hosting Saturday Night Spookies, a free mystery horror movie at Ghoulish Books. He was born in Chicago and currently resides in the hellhole that is Texas.

TONIA RANSOM is the World Fantasy Award-winning creator and executive producer of “NIGHTLIGHT”, an IGNYTE Best Fiction Podcast featuring creepy tales written by Black writers, and “Afflicted”, a horror thriller best described as Lovecraft Country meets True Blood. Tonia has been scaring people since the second grade, when she wrote her first story based on Michael Myers. She successfully scared her teacher—just not in the way she intended, but she got hooked on that feeling and the rest is history. She lives in Austin, Texas. You can follow Tonia at missdefying on all the socials. Risen is her debut book.

GRACE R. REYNOLDS (she/her) is a native of the great state of New Jersey, where she was first introduced to the eerie and strange thanks to local urban legends of a devil creeping through the Pine Barrens. Since then, her curiosity with things that go bump in the night bloomed into creative expression as a dark poet, horror, and thriller fiction writer. Her short fiction and poetry has been published by various presses. She is the author of two poetry collections, Lady of The House and The Lies We Weave. Connect with her on social media @spillinggrace or visit her website www.spillinggrace.com

LETICIA URIETA is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. Leticia is a graduate of Agnes Scott College with a BA in English/Creative Writing and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. She works a teaching artist in the Austin community with a focus on the pedagogy of equity in creative writing. She is the Regional Program Manager for Austin Bat Cave and is the director of Barrio Writers in Austin, a free college level youth writers workshop founded by author and activist Sarah Rafael Garcia in Santa Ana, CA. Her creative work appears in PANK, Chicon Street Poets, Lumina and many others. Her fiction explores the intersections of Latinx identity with the folklore, traditional stories and the supernatural or speculative. Her mixed genre collection of poetry and prose, Las Criaturas, is forthcoming from FlowerSong Press. Leticia loves living in Austin with her husband and two dogs who are terrible work distractions. Despite all, she is fueled by sushi and breaks to watch pug videos on Instagram.

Since 1979, FANGORIA has lived in print and on-screen as one of the most influential horror brands in the industry. FANGORIA, the authority in horror, thrives as an iconic genre media destination, honoring a 40+ year legacy through exciting, inclusive, and generation-spanning content, including print and digital magazines, film, TV, podcasts, and more.

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That’s really all I have to share for now! I am PUMPED UP to watch some excellent movies and sell some spooky books to y’all. I’ll be floating around the fest all weekend, so if you see me before the book fair on Monday please don’t hesitate to say hi.

Until then…stay spooky, ghouls.