I am thrilled to announce that I will be a Special Guest at this year’s Mo*Con, the annual gathering of talented and mighty folks hosted by writer, Afrofuturist, and general man about town Maurice Broaddus. Details of the show can be found here, if you’re interested in attending!
Incredibly happy to announce that I have started a new job at Romero Games as Narrative Director! As much fun as my time at Crytek was, sometimes a story just reaches its natural endpoint and it’s time to move on. I was lucky enough to be able to start a new story with some amazingly talented people, and I am really looking forward to be part of of a team that’s making some magic!
This….was a very busy year. A lot of stuff happened that was very important and yet utterly not germane to this discussion, so I’m going to skip on over it. I do, however, want to do a rundown of all the writing-related stuff that happened, largely for my own sake so I can convince myself it really went down. To wit:
And there’s probably some other stuff that I am forgetting, but still, that’s a pretty full year.
Now, onward to 2025!
Not one but two podcasts were foolish enough to have me on as a guest recently!
There was the Retro Ridoctopus Podcast, hosted by Steve Von Sansom, and they covered all sorts of stuff with me here.
And then there was my third(?!) appearance on The Corner of Story and Game, hosted by Gerald Ford, where we talked about the tension between wanting things to be perfect and needing things to get done. Check it out here.
And, looking ahead, on December 7th I’ll be doing another Noir at the Bar at Larema Coffeehouse in beautiful Wilson, NC, home of the epic Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. (Wilson, not the coffee shop). I’ll be reading with some mighty fine folks like Rachel Brune and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, along with warhorse Robert Creekmore and more. Hope to see you there!
…things remain busy as all heck.
Sunday you can find me at the Triangle Terror Con in downtown Durham in the Armory building. I’ll be there slinging books and telling stories about real-life zombie frogs and the like. Come on out and explore the ghoulish festivities!
Tuesday night the 29th, the North Carolina Chapter of the HWA presents, in conjunction with the Durham Public Library and Moon Dog Meadery, MORBID TALES II: A NIGHT OF HORROR AND HEAVY METAL. I won’t be reading, but a lot of great North Carolina authors will be, and I will be there cheering them on. Check it out – come on in, the mead is fine and the metal is finer!
And November 9th, the HWA Chapter will be at the Orange County Library doing a combination lecture and workshop series on writing horror. I’ll be a part of that line up. Hope to see you there!
I’ve been talking about a project like this for a while, but it has finally come to fruition. I am beyond pleased to announce that I have signed a contract with Charles River to produce my long-gestating book on being a game writer – not on game writing, because they are NOT the same thing – The Game Writer’s Guide To Surviving An Industry That Hates You.
Yes, you read that right.
It’s going to be a distilled version of my thoughts on what it takes to actually do and thrive in the role of game writer in the video game industry, one which has historically been hostile to writers of all stripes. I have 25 years’ experience on games big and small, successful and otherwise, and to say that I have seen things beyond the ridiculous along the way would be an understatement. It is time for me to share all that I have learned.
The book should be out next year. I’ll keep folks posted, and I look forward to you checking it out and taking that journey with me.
I am happy bey0nd words to announce that Falstaff Dread has picked up my new novel NIGHTMARE LOGIC for publication next year! This is the scariest, most horrific novel I have written, and I am thrilled that the fine folks at Falstaff believe in it and want to bring it to you. Keep watching this space for updates!
I had a great time yesterday at Pop! Con in Sanford, NC. The show is put on annually by the Lee County Public Libraries and it’s a great time, with everything from cosplay to raptor shows to food trucks to little old me with my books sitting there telling the true story of the zombie frogs, Satchel and Nancy.
Bonus points if you can ID the reference.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that as much fun as the big cons are, I highly encourage folks to go out and support their local shows, too. You might not get the rock star guests, but you’ll probably get exposed to folks in your community who are doing cool stuff, and that’s worth a whole lot in and of itself.
I am back from GenCon, wiped out but energized after an immersive dunking in game and writing space with cool people whose orbits and mine don’t always intersect.
Big thanks to the folks who put the Writers Symposium together and for inviting me, to all the folks I paneled with on everything from portfolio reviews to writing with kindness, to the old friends at Green Ronin who helped me with housing and who continue to put out fabulous RPG products, to Toiya K. Finley for spearheading the Interdimensions anthology I’m a part of, and to all the Maurice Broadduses, Matt Forbecks, Jennifer Allaways, Jessica Goldstein Blairs, Jeremy Bernsteins, Justin Achillis and all the rest who make the experience so wonderful.
But I’m home now, and that means time to go onward. And onward indeed happens this Tuesday the 13th with the Monsters in the Mead Hall reading, put together as a cooperative effort between the Durham Public Library and the NC Chapter of the Horror Writers Association. Join me and four other esteemed writers at Moon Dog Meadery at 7 for some good old fashioned rollicking horror straight from the source.
