It’s time for you to join me at the table for my final StokerCon conversation, following the ones with my mid-’70s Marvel Comics Bullpen pal Howard Bender and screenwriter, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert Lisa Morton. And this might be my most horrific conversation yet! Not merely because of my guest — but because certain scenes from Night of the Living Dead were shot in the basement of our chosen venue, The Original Oyster House!

Michael Bailey is an award-winning writer and editor, having been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award nine times, winning once for the anthology The Library of the Dead, and a four-time Shirley Jackson Award nominee. His novels include Palindrome Hannah (2005) and Phoenix Rose (2009). His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Birthing Monsters: Frankenstein’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Cruelties, Lost Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road, Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification, and most recently Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena.

Many of these stories have been gathered in the collections Scales and Petals (2010), Inkblots and Blood Spots (2014), Oversight (2018), and The Impossible Weight of Life (2020). He’s the owner of the small press Written Backwards, which has published many excellent anthologies, and I’m not calling them excellent simply because my own short stories have appeared in many of them. He’s currently the screenwriter for the documentary series Madness and Writers: The Untold Truth. Maybe?, which all of us in the horror community are looking forward to seeing.

We discussed his Stoker Award-nominated poetry collaboration with Marge Simon (and how they managed not to kill each other during the writing of it), how he knows when a poem is a poem and not a short story, what reading other anthologies taught him that made his own anthologies better, the economics of small press publishing, how to lose awards gracefully, the way getting an early story torn apart by Douglas E. Winter at Borderlands Boot Camp gave him the boost he needed, why his novel Psychotropic Dragon took 16 years to transform from an idea into a book, how one of the joys of writing is never knowing the end until you get there, his new obsession of making chocolate from fruit to bar, our shared love of revising continually, and so much more.

Here’s how you can join us at The Oyster House — (more…)

Regular listeners to Eating the Fantastic know that once a year, instead of serving up the usual well-researched one-on-one conversations which make up most of this podcast’s ear candy, I opt for total anarchy, plopping myself down in a heavily trafficked area of a con with a dozen donuts and chatting with anybody who’s game to trade talk for sugar and grease. It’s totally spontaneous, as I never know to whom I’ll speak until they pass by and their eyes light up at the sight of a free donut.

In 2016, you were invited to eavesdrop on the Readercon Donut Spectacular, in 2017 the Balticon Donut Extravaganza, and last year the Nebula Awards Donut Jamboree. Now it’s time for the StokerCon Donut Spooktacular!

Late Saturday night, I sat down with an assorted dozen from The Donut Conspiracy in Grand Rapids accompanied by the usual sign explaining the setup, and found no shortage of willing guests.

Join us as Michael Bailey describes his novel inspired by a fire which turned his home to ashes in seven minutes, Geoffrey A. Landis shares about the Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper horror story he published in the science fiction magazine Analog, Brian Keene explains why he chose last weekend to finally reappear at an HWA event, Wile E. Young tells why he thinks of the Road Runner whenever a story gets rejected, Anton Cancre reveals which guest that weekend earned most of his squee, and Wesley Southard offers his schtick for selling books when stuck behind a dealers table at a con.

Plus Erik T. Johnson gives an unexpected (but perfectly logical) answer when asked about one of the perks of StokerCon, Patrick Freivald looks back on how his horror career began via a collaboration with his twin brother, Josh Malerman recounts how he replaced readings with full blown Bird Box interactive performances and how an audience of 85-year-olds reacted, Asher Ellis shares how the Stonecoast MFA program made him a better writer, Kennikki Jones-Jones discusses her Final Frame award-winning short film Knock Knock, Eugene Johnson celebrates his Bram Stoker Award win that night for It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life, and much, much more!

Here’s how you can dig into those donuts with us— (more…)

Michael Bailey just announced the names of two more contributors to Adam’s Ladder, an anthology he’s co-editing with Darren Speegle for Dark Regions Press—and one of those two names is mine!

Michael’s a fan of the slow reveal, and so plans to spill two new names each week until the full table of contents has been released. As you can see from the latest iteration of the cover, my co-conspirators so far include Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Roberta Lannes, Tim Lebbon, Erinn L. Kemper, Laird Barron, and Brian Evenson. I am honored to be among them … as well as those still to come. Keep checking Michael’s Facebook page for future updates.

The title of my 6,425-word short story, as you might have already figured out by matching up the list on the front cover with the one on the back, is “Pity This Busy Monster Not.”

Adam’s Ladder will be published later this year.

Last month, I revealed the title of my story which would be appearing in the upcoming science fiction anthology You, Human—

“101 Things to Do Before You’re Downloaded”

—which is a title I love so much it’ll probably end up also being the title of my next science fiction collection, whenever that comes together.

Now I can reveal the art which has been commissioned to accompany my story, drawn by L.A. Spooner.

To learn who that is—and what’s in the hand of the small figure on the left—you’re going to have to pick up a copy of You, Human, which should go on sale no later than the early Fall.

To make sure you learn when the book is available, keep checking back here, or over at the Written Backwards blog. I feel inordinately proud of this piece, so I look forward to learning how you feel about it.

Late last year, when I told you about the sale I’d made to the science fiction anthology You, Human, I failed to tell you the title of the story. That was deliberate.

Michael Bailey, the book’s editor, wanted to reveal the full Table of Contents at once. So I held off. Until now.

Because Michael has shared all.

And the title of the story you’ll be able to read later this year in You, Human is …

“101 Things to Do Before You’re Downloaded”

Check out the full list of authors—and the titles of their stories—over on the Written Backwards blog.