I don’t know how I missed this, but back on January 14, Peter Tennant had some extremely kind words to say about my zombie collection What Will Come After (which is now also available as an ebook).

Over at Black Static, Tennant wrote of the book:

A collection of zombie stories, with Edelman injecting new life into an old archetype and giving a kick in the pants to those who think zombies are good for nothing except shoot ’em ups (though those are fun too). What delighted me about this collection was the sheer variety, both thematically and in terms of technical virtuosity, with verse plays, stories within stories, grue playing off against a metaphysical dimension, and reifications of classic literature.

Thank you, Peter! Why, that’s almost enough to make my zombie heart start beating again.

Two weeks ago, I told you that my collection of zombie short stories What Will Come After (now a Shirley Jackson Awards nominee!) was available as an ebook.

But that’s no longer my only ebook, for those of you who’d prefer reading me via pixels as opposed to dead trees. Because The Hunger of Empty Vessels, which was a 2009 Stoker Awards finalist in the category of Best Long Fiction, can now be purchased electronically, too.

Why should you buy my novella? If you don’t trust me, trust David Mack, who wrote:

“The Hunger of Empty Vessels is an unnerving work that peers into the darkest corner of the human soul and makes one fear what lurks at the bottom of that abyss—but also makes it impossible to look away. I dare you to try.”

Plus it’s only $2.99. Cheap! What a deal!

Remember those four late-’70s rejection notes I shared that were written to me by DC editor Paul Levitz for stories I’d submitted to the company’s horror books such as House of Mystery and House of Secrets? At the time, I said I had no memory of which four plots had been rejected, and no way of finding out.

Turns out I was wrong. Because all I had to do was turn those notes over, which I discovered by accident.

This afternoon, I happened to glance toward a far corner of my desk, and noticed some scribbled blue pencil marks on a small sheet of paper. When I picked up the page and looked at it, I realized—this was one of the rejects face down, and what I’d scrawled was the name of the story being rejected.

Here’s what I discovered.

The story that Paul described as “too light-hearted” was called “Gingerbread Witch,” and I’m fairly confident that I eventually sold my concept to the TV series Tales from the Darkside as the episode titled “Baker’s Dozen.” Though somewhere along the way it became much less light-hearted. (more…)

My birthday isn’t until Thursday, but I got my best possible present two days early, in the form of an email this morning from Steve Jones, letting me know that my story “What Will Come After,” which appeared for the first time in my zombie collection called, well, What Will Come After, had been chosen to appear in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #22.

And what’s more, Steve had decided to open the book with it!

This will mark my third appearance in one of Steve’s Best New Horror anthologies, and it occurs to me that all of my reprint sales to him were originally published in somewhat unusual sources, that is, not in traditional magazines or anthologies. (more…)