Okay, so the title of this post probably warrants some explanation.
For the first time ever, I’ve been remiss in updating my site. As such, I have a whole bunch of piled-up news to announce. I tried to squeeze a preview of most of it into the headline here, but I only did a so-so job. On the plus side, I might have just given myself a prompt (and title) for a new story, so at least this wasn’t a total disaster.
As far as the news goes, I’ll start with the thing that probably brought some of you here today (August 1st, 2026): I sold another story to the Flame Tree Fiction newsletter! The theme this time around was “Ghost Code,” and my story’s called “We Haunt.” The original idea was for something called “Oui Haunt,” but I got stuck on that one because I realized I don’t know if French ghosts have accents, and there’s surprisingly little research on the subject.
In any case, if you read the story in the newsletter–thanks! (Or, as the French ghosts might say: “merci BOO-coup!”) If you didn’t read the story, that’s okay too. You have my permission to continue reading my announcements, which will now be in bullet-list form because it’s been several paragraphs and I’ve still hardly said anything relevant.
- I recently sold a story to the Cat Eye Press horror/bank-robbery anthology, Don’t Go for the Vault! This is my second time working with this publisher–and, according to editor A.C. Bauer (who’s great, by the way), I’m the first person to ever be in two Cat Eye Press books! (Which, I think, legally makes me their vice-mascot. Good thing I was already dressed up as a furry green blob-bomination of indeterminate species.) My story this time around is called “With Gaping Mouths We Swallow Ruin,” and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. The book should be released in November!
- I also sold (and had published!) a story to Third Flatiron’s SciFi to Go: Food for Thought anthology. It’s called “The Life and Times of Killbot 61-D: a Story of Revenge (and Also Cheese).” I’m not telling you anything else about it because everything you need to know is in the title.
- Flame Tree Publishing bought a story of mine for their upcoming Christmas Horror anthology, titled “We’re Crawling Under There.” Those who know me know I love Christmas, and would never sully its magic with aspects of horror. Except for just this once, apparently. In any case, I’m extremely pleased with this story, and can’t wait to see it in print on August 25, 2026!
- After writing that last paragraph, I started listening to Christmas music. This is not one of my scheduled news items, but I wanted you to know anyway. (For those curious, it’s a Bing Crosby medley. And it’s freakin’ awesome.)
- A few things I’d previously announced have since been published! “Stupid Cupid” in Unidentified Funny Objects 10, and my romantic fantasy “Rising Mountain, Made of Glass” in Flame Tree’s A Breath of Time. I really like both of those stories, which can only mean one thing: therapy is winning the grappling contest against my low self-esteem! (Don’t worry, though–there’s still plenty of time left on the clock for therapy to get judo-tossed through a Ping-Pong table.)
- 100-Foot Crow released their The First Two Years anthology, which includes my 100-word drabble “Now to Eric.” If I write too much about it, the commentary will be longer than the story itself. MOVING ON.
- Two of the Flame Tree anthologies I’m in–Medusa and Circe–got licensed to the Mexican publisher Editores Mexicanos Unidos, to be translated into Spanish! I don’t actually speak Spanish, but it’ll be nice to have my stories in that language, so I can present them to some soon-to-be-confused French ghosts.
And that’s it for now. Thanks for reading!
-Z