The Ghoulish Times | 10/09/21
The Ghoulish Times | 10/09/21
Texas Road Trip - Ghoulish Book Festival - The Forest
Hello and welcome to the 4th issue of The Ghoulish Times. I have written exactly one sentence of this week’s newsletter so far and I am already exhausted. There’s a second sentence, which only made me more tired. I do not see this going well. But let’s try anyway and see what happens. It’s been an incredibly busy week, for reasons that you’re about to hear about, such as…
ANNOUNCING THE GHOULISH BOOK FESTIVAL
We are stoked to finally announce the inaugural Ghoulish Book Festival, which will occur on April 30th and May 1st, 2022 (exactly halfway to Halloween) in San Antonio, TX.
What: Ghoulish Book Festival is a weekend-long event celebrating everything spooky. Badge holders will have access to exclusive panels, scary campfire readings, and horror contests with fun prizes. Our building will consist of three floors: the top two floors containing our special events will be reserved for badge holders only, while the bottom floor will be a book vendors’ area available to both badge holders and the general public without any entrance fee required. Horror creators and fans of the genre are equally encouraged to attend. If you like horror, then we welcome you with open tentacles.
Cynthia Pelayo, author of CHILDREN OF CHICAGO, is our first announced guest of honor.
Who: Ghoulish Book Festival was founded by Max Booth III and Lori Michelle, who are the owners of Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, the editors of Dark Moon Digest, and the creators of the GHOULISH podcast. We hope to make this an annual festival.
When: April 30th and May 1st, 2022
Where: The Hermann Sons Home Association Building located at 525 S. St Marys, San Antonio 78205
How: Badges are on sale HERE. Vendor tables are on sale HERE. Note: as of the time of this newsletter, only six (6) vendor tables remain available. I cannot believe we’ve sold so many already. I did not expect this kind of interest and I am extremely grateful for it! There are plenty of badges left, however. It’s just the vendor tables that are nearly sold out.
Official GHOULISH BOOK FESTIVAL T-shirts are also available HERE.
THE FOREST HAS ARRIVED
It's been a wild, crazy week over here at PMMP HQ, but we are very excited to announce Lisa Quigley's debut novel, The Forest, is finally available for your reading pleasure. Check out the trailer, plot synopsis, and order details below!
Everyone in Edgewood believes their annual tithes at the fall festival are what purchase Edgewood’s safety, but as Faye and her husband prepare to take over as town stewards—a long tradition carried out by her family for generations—they learn the terrible truth: in order to guarantee the town’s safety, the forest demands an unthinkable sacrifice.
In the midst of everything, Faye is secretly battling debilitating postpartum anxiety that makes her all the more terrified to leave the safe cocoon of her enchanted town.
When everyone turns against her—including her own husband—Faye is forced to flee with her infant son into the forest. She must face whatever lurks there and, perhaps most frightening of all, the dark torments of her own mind.
The Forest is an adult folk horror novel appealing to fans of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and Bird Box by Josh Malerman, with a hint of The Changeling by Victor LaValle. It is Quigley’s debut novel.
Order The Forest directly through our webstore and receive a signed bookplate from the author (while supplies last!).
Also available at Indiebound | B&N | Amazon
TEXAS ROAD TRIP
Recently I was invited by the Alamo Drafthouse in Katy, TX to do a Q&A following a special screening of WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING, so I convinced my friend Miguel Myers to tag along on a road trip from Austin to Houston. Along the way we ate barbecue in Lockhart, breakfast at Snappy’s, and explored The Gas Station from the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. I also felt compelled to bring a voice recorder for our entire journey and created a fun little podcast experience out of the trip.
The podcast ended up being so long that I could not upload it as a single episode without crashing my host, so I had to split the file in half. So, episode 113 is “Day One” of the road trip, and episode 114 is “Day Two”.
Both episodes can be found HERE.
But, anyway, to talk a bit more about The Gas Station in Bastrop…holy cow, folks, what an amazing little place. Every fan of horror should make it their duty to stop there at least once in their life. Here is their website.
And, before I go, as promised in the podcast, I took a ton of photos while exploring outside the Gas Station, which I will now post below:
And here is a picture of me at the Alamo Drafthouse Q&A in Katy, TX:
After the screening, we had a book signing outside the theater. I was pretty surprised to find the hallway overwhelmed with people eager to buy a copy and talk to me about horror. Here’s a pic Miguel snapped of me in the middle of signing books:
It was a great couple of days. I hope the 5-hour-long podcast I recorded (originally 7 hours before edits) demonstrates exactly that.
Also look at this goddamn omelette I had for breakfast at Snappy’s in Katy, TX. Holy crap, it was amazing.
FRANK UPDATE
Okay, that’s it for this week. You can support us on Patreon, browse the books in our webstore, and follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter [PMMP | DMD | Ghoulish | personal). You can also join us on the Ghoulish Discord.
See you next Saturday, ghouls.