So, those big announcements....

If you were not among the crew in tonight's author chat...




Just kidding.

You lost the chance for awesome freebies! But you still get to find out my current shenanigans.

• If you haven't heard, I'm going to be editor guest of honor at Midsouthcon in a couple of months. This is quite an honor, especially since Midsouthcon has a special place in my heart. It wasn't my first con; that was Shore Leave 13, and since Shore Leave is coming up on No. 37, I'll just let you figure out the math all on your own. (Funny, I've never been back to Shore Leave since. Must rectify that.)

But I went to Midsouthcon with a handful of friends when I was in college. The guy I was dating vanished into the gaming room (story of my life) and I tried a LARP for the first time, which was awesome, and inspired a short story that became a novel which is still unpublished but probably the darkest thing I've ever written, up to and including Yellow Roses.

I also attended a handful of writing panels, which I recall because it launched the germ of an idea in my mind. I'd been writing stories since I could pick up a pen, but I never tried to get them published. Instead I wrote a science fiction novella for my friends, printed it off at Kinko's and gave it to them as Christmas presents. That was the most publishing I ever intended to do. But those panelists made it sound like you didn't actually have to a) live in New York, b) be the child of someone famous or c) have Dumbo's magic feather in order to get a book published. It would be nearly 10 years before I finally did it, but the idea started there.

So I'm honored beyond measure to be GoH for Midsouthcon, and I do hope you'll join us. It's a chance to talk about the editing side of my work, which I don't get to do nearly as often as the writing aspect. It also happens to coincide with my birthday, which is the four-.... um, 39-plus-tax. So we might possibly throw a shindig.

• What other reason might we have for said shindig? I will be premiering TWO (2) books at the show. Yes, TWO. And y'all thought I wasn't doin' nothing but gettin' hitched last year. (Diagram that sentence, boys.)

I am pleased to announce that our friends at Seventh Star Press have contracted the Nocturnal Urges vampire series. This is the series that really launched my career, consisting of three books: Nocturnal Urges, A More Perfect Union and Abaddon. We are currently editing them into one compendium volume, which will be released at Midsouthcon. And if I'm very good and work very hard, we might be able to take preorders by Conflation. If the compendium sells well, I'm hopeful to write more books in this series for Seventh Star.

The NU series was my breakout hit, winning awards and gaining me attention that has allowed me to build my career. It also let me play around with allegory; the laws and societal constructs that plague my Memphis vampires were drawn from the Jim Crow laws and the separatist attitudes prevalent in American culture. The demise of Cerridwen Press cut short the story only halfway through, and I would love to tell the rest of my tale. Here's hoping!

• The other book? At long last, Moonlight Sonata. This is the book I first announced several years ago, inspired in part by you. Yes, you. I have multiple universes running in my work, including NU, Blackfire, the Sanctuary books, and the as-yet-unpublished Yellow Roses world. Moonlight Sonata brings many of these together in a collection of short stories and two novellas, most of which are drawn from these universes. Some of these pieces have seen print, and others will be brand new to you.

Circumstances beyond all our control have delayed it time and again, but this time we're pretty sure it's going forward. I consider it a follow-up to Setting Suns, which introduced the Sanctuary series as well as my similar Twilight Zone-style creepy horror. I've always been more about the shadow behind the curtain than the snarling beast, and Moonlight Sonata reflects that.

The other day, someone said that reading Gethsemane made him sleep with the light on. That's the best compliment a horror writer can get.

• I intended to offer a promotion during the chat, and I forgot, because I'm all brilliant like that. We are kicking off Relay season, raising money for the American Cancer Society. For the rest of this weekend, anyone who donates to my Relay effort will receive a free ebook; for donations of $25 or more, you get a signed Gethsemane (limited edition chapbook!). Only while supplies last. Click here to donate! Then be sure to email me so that I know you want in on the promotion.

That's all for now! But I've got more on the way...

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