The Ghoulish Times | 04/04/22
The Ghoulish Times | 04/04/22
Keep San Antonio Ghoulish
NOTE: SUBSTACK ADDED A SNEAKY NEW SETTING THAT REQUIRES ME TO CHECK A BOX IF I WANT SUBSCRIBERS TO BE EMAILED NEW POSTS…SO IF YOU’RE RECEIVING THIS A DAY LATER THAN INTENDED, THAT IS WHY. SORRY ABOUT THAT.
Hello and welcome to a new issue of The Ghoulish Times.
Typically these newsletter come out on weekends, but I’m posting this today since we recently uploaded some new shirt designs to our TeePublic page and their discount expires…like, tomorrow. And I think some of you are gonna want to take advantage of this sale, because holy crap these shirts look badass. Check ’em out…
Like what you see? Of course you do! Check out our TeePublic shop HERE. Like I said, the discount won’t last much longer, so act quickly! Also, please tag me on twitter or instagram with whatever shirt you decide to get. I can’t wait to see people wearing these things!
If that “Keep San Antonio Ghoulish” shirt caught your attention, and you thought, Man, I sure wish a bumper sticker existed with this slogan, then I have some good news for you. Over the weekend we ordered 250 bumper stickers with that exact slogan and we are selling them on our website.
Order them HERE.
We will also have these bumper stickers for sale at the Ghoulish Book Festival at the…*checks calendar*…end of the month. Oh. Oh holy crap.
If you want to attend the festival in San Antonio, the book vendor room will be free to the public, but badges are required to attend panels and live readings and other events. Click HERE for more information. I hope to see you there!
In case you missed them, here are the most recent episodes of the GHOULISH podcast:
138. Mothman with Laurel Hightower!
Laurel Hightower is the author of Below, a new mothman creature feature novella from Ghoulish Books. On today’s GHOULISH, we dug deep into mothman mythology—including The Mothman Prophecies, the Silver Bridge collapse of 1967, mothman as a nonbinary icon, and much more!
Order BELOW: https://perpetualpublishing.com/product/below/
139. Tabletop Role-Playing Games with John Baltisberger!
John Baltisberger runs Madness Heart Press and writes novels, poetry, and tabletop role-playing games. On today’s GHOULISH, John introduced me to the world of TTRPGs with MORK BORG—specifically, Philip Reed’s “The Broken Sword of Vile Souls” third-party brochure.
Get the brochure here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/361008/The-Broken-Sword-of-Vile-Souls-A-ThirdParty-Mork-Borg-Brochure
Learn more about Madness Heart Games: https://itch.io/profile/madness-heart-games
Future GHOULISH guests (most of them already recorded) to get excited about: Tade Thompson, Shane Hawk, Eric Williams, Elford Alley, Ryan C. Bradley, Gerardo Preciado, and Matt Brandenburg. Whoa, that’s a lot of dudes. Only just now realizing that. Still fun episodes! But whoops. Better start recording some new episodes soon...
WHAT I’M READING
I just finished an ARC of Jennifer Hillier’s Things We Do in the Dark. My first book by her. I thought it was pretty okay! I’m reading Tade Thompson’s incredible Molly Southbourne trilogy for an episode of the podcast. I’m getting ready to start Silje Ulstein’s Reptile Memoirs which I purchased at the Nowhere Bookstore in San Antonio. Never heard a thing about the book before (it’s brand new!) but something about the cover stood out to me and I was left with no choice.
I’m also trying desperately to catch up on the near-1000 unread stories in the Dark Moon Digest slushpile. I’m also trying to read novellas for our current open call (which closes May 8th).
WHAT I’M WATCHING
Not a lot of movies lately. I saw Ti West’s X in the theater and thought it was great, probably his best movie so far. Loved it. Dying to see Everything Everywhere All At Once but none of my local theaters are playing it for some reason.
Some TV stuff we’ve been enjoying: Search Party (look up nothing about this and go in blind, is my recommendation), Winning Time (was never a big Lakers fan but goddamn this show is great), and Severance (it’s been a while since I’ve encountered corporate horror done so well). Oh and we started King of the Hill. I first saw that show back in Indiana when I was a kid and thought it was amusing enough. But revisiting it after living in Texas for a decade? Oh my god.
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO
Mostly this song on repeat:
WHAT I’M WORKING ON
I already mentioned the book festival happening at the end of the month, but that’s pretty much taken up all of my time lately (if I owe you an email, please forgive me, I’ll get to it soon). We printed up 10,000 post cards and 250 flyers and have been traveling around San Antonio spreading the good spooky word.
Honestly, I’ve been loving this process (minus the insane, aggravating traffic). I have probably seen more of San Antonio the past week than I have the past ten years. This city rules.
I think we finally have the schedule finalized for the festival, too, so we’ll begin getting that formatted into our program and printed in time for April 30th (I hope!). 23 panelists, 10 panels, 18 live readings…it’s gonna be a lot of fun! Come on down.
No personal writing on this end lately. I finished the latest big draft of The Nightly Disease screenplay adaptation and sent it off to my manager. Waiting for him to go over it and give me some notes. I have a novella halfway finished (Indiana Death Song). I have a collection (Six Sick) I’m trying to touch up for a potential small press that I think is pretty cool. I have a baseball body horror novel (Knocked the Skin Off) in the very early stages of development. I’m getting ready to start a Maggots Screaming! screenplay (on spec). I’m also in the early stages of co-writing a screenplay with a friend, based on his own novella—which you almost definitely have read, if you’re a loyal reader of the books we publish. I just finished the TV bible for a potential show I was hired to help with (I wrote the pilot and expanded the project into a bible based on a premise assigned to me). I have zero idea what’s going to happen with that. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. At least I was paid to write a television pilot, so that’s pretty cool.
I’m waiting for a possible option deal to finalize on another screenplay I wrote. I’m waiting on a major streamer to move forward with the television adaptation of Touch the Night (the pilot is currently being written by the showrunner and writing team attached to the project).
One good thing about having a ton on my plate is I don’t have a lot of time to sit around dwelling all the other projects out of my control. If they’re going to happen, then that’s great. If not…well, that’s a bummer, but I’m not depending on any one thing.
Honestly, any non-festival work right now is dedicated to editing various books on our roster. And also my podcast. And also this newsletter. And also my other newsletter.
RECENTLY, ON DOG EARS…
Dog Ears is a writing and publishing newsletter I do in addition to The Ghoulish Times. Most of it is free, except for the craft essays. It costs $5 a month. If you can afford to throw that my way, awesome, but no hard feelings if not. Here’s what you might have missed on it lately:
HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU
THE FELLAS
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 podcast | Ghoulish Books | personal). Reserve your ticket for the first annual Ghoulish Book Fest. You can also join us on the Ghoulish Discord.
See you next weekend, ghouls.