That haunting and bewitching time of the year is upon us. Crypticon Minneapolis is here, and I'll be there slinging my books and talking about literary horror and all its admirable qualities. Crypticon Minneapolis is sort of the holy grail of horror cons in the Twin Cities, and every year I feel honored and happy to be a part of it.

Your lips are soft, elastic,easy to press. Our tongues collapsingtwo slimy stars colliding, searching for atomsto borrow, breathe, and bend.Your hips are snowy cityscapes. I’ll climb them.We’ll sweat, folded, then sit on our sides,naked, the sheets vandalizedby our oils and skin. Wake up, you still have to travel.Pass them. Leap them. Dodge them.

Daily writing prompt Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself? View all responses A tornado that never seems to disappear. A shadow that never fully forms. A chase with no ending mark. A hall of mirrors expanding, turning, and twisting, so I'm always looking back at myself. Fatherhood is a forest fitted with endless fog and illusions. Sometimes you find the path through the trees.

Free book promo for today and tomorrow. On the Kindle. Free. Get a free book. Get a free good book, with intense and unique monsters from a variety of genres. Today and tomorrow, my book Monsters, Monsters, Everywhere, which is a collection of short stories spanning horror, science fiction, and fantasy is FREE on the Kindle. There are dragons, weird unnamed creatures that feed on emptiness, Selkie's, robots, and much more.

She’s beyond the black eye-socket windowoverlooking the November backyardhalf-dead with drifts of leavessurrounding the empty trunks and rootsa near-abandoned city waiting for the first snowfall. She’ll float to the clear glass pane. It's fog-warped from her ghoulish breath.Her tight, tattered-hood illuminatedwith twin-purple suns for eyes;jewels off some haunted, living sarcophagus. Her voice is ancient-book low and thin…

Well, Day 75 was the dramatic cut-off of sharing my book on my blog. For the last year I've been sharing the Greenland Diaries: Days 1 - 100 on here day by day. I've done this a few times. I decided to end this free preview at Day 75. I won't be sharing anymore days from this novel on my blog.

Hello all, just like the blog title said, I wanted to announce that my speculative fiction poem "The Broken Entrance" was published by Just Keep Up Magazine. I absolutely love this magazine, and I'm honored they would publish my work. You can read that poem right here. Also, explore the rest of this fantastic literary magazine…

My father’s hoarding heartis bending bricks in his garagecreasing the foundation, plunginghis house downward,closer to the pit of povertyhe barely clawed out from. At first, just artifacts and relicsleftovers of his past liferecovered from his dead family.Immortalized in tins, boxes,bins, stacks, and piles in his office,study, backroom, and garages. My mom would whisper to me…

Last night, the illusions were back and flowing through the hot darkness. It’s some sort of phantom train. Their false sounds and fake melodies kept me up most of the night, so I decided to just watch them. I know they're out there waiting for me, to cut me to pieces and empty my skin. I shouldn't dwell on the gore of it all.

My most popular book, and the entry point for my apocalyptic horror series the Greenland Diaries is FREE today and tomorrow on the Kindle. The price is going up soon, so I wanted to throw out this offer. This book series is incredible. The Greenland Diaries follows a bank teller who is working one evening in West Saint Paul when a Drum starts playing in the background.

If you've reading my book Beware the Ills broken down into blog posts for the last year, well, it is all finished. The whole book has been released on here, and you can read it in its entirety. I wrote Beware the Ills almost 15 years ago, and have revised, republished, and rereleased it more times than I can remember.

First off, I have a new book out. The Unnamed: A Collection of Stories from the Greenland Diaries is now available on Amazon and through my Square Store. If you're going to buy it, make it through my Square Store. This is a great way to support me. This is an amazing collection of tales. Over 30 different stories from multiple eras in this apocalyptic horror universe.

No ashes on my doorstep this morning. My dreams were uneven, sweaty, and full of lost images from the pre-drum world. I was staying in a hotel I traveled to when I was ten or eleven. My dad used to work in Honolulu at their mall when I was kid. He'd fly back and forth all the time and stay in a condo by himself with a Japanese VCR and old Star Trek movies.

I can feel the opening, a coolness spreading into my abdomen. It was in his sleeve. I have been stabbed, a dagger, rusty and covered with poison. It belonged to them, his people from long ago. He must’ve dug it up here in the graveyard one day. I’m on one knee. The poison’s working already. I need to leave here.

It was an old memory.In Norway, with unrestrained daylight,and slugs horned and black, wiggling out of the stalksof my great aunt’s garden.Behind her lemon house, with leafy siding,waxy with uncensored sunlight. We’re on the sea for lunch, it is black, fathomless,the inky water clinging to the cliffs.On a patio, the wind is flag-tight, whipping,

Daily writing prompt What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised? View all responses Reality is coming for you. It hunts. It stalks. Every nightmare hopes for this stamina. No AI model can predict or analyze it. No amount of preparation, training, and toughness can simulate it. No calluses are stout enough for its cuts, rips, and tears.

The old world’s still as powerful as ever in my memories. I think about it every day. Usually, it's the first thought pulling apart my sweaty eyes inside the shed. Ling, my family, the glide of normal cars on sunny pavement, or the sweet sounds of airplanes booming across the sky, all of it feels so distant and gone. Only in my dreams do they still have shapes and lines, and everything else.

Alrighty, it is here. My eyes are pulpy messes from editing, but it is done. My new book is out in all the places. Kindle. Amazon. My Square Store. The Unnamed: A Collection of Stories from the Greenland Diaries is now available in all its monster glory. There are so many stories in this collection from this universe.

The machines are all around us now, giants watching us nearly. He’s stabbing with the cleaver now, and it’s getting harder for me to knock the blade away. I leap between two machines, and the butcher cleaver splits them apart. I guess it was only a temporary wall. The power of pure rage, I can’t contend with it in my withered state.

We’re always on that knuckle of starlight,tucked between life and death,but another scythe was swingingthat adult-edged air whistling,ready to hew and severcartoons, stickers, and action figuresat a sleepover in eighth gradeat Frank Erickson’s house. It was the late 90’s dream,the wonderland was a three-tiered pixel cake.Upstairs, Knights on the Saturn,in the kitchen Mario Kart on the 64,

Daily writing prompt Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation in? View all responses This question had too many answers, but I had to settle on one that has haunted me throughout my life. Since I first tried Mario Sunshine back in 2009, when my ex-girlfriend's little brother left a GameCube disk of it in my Wii when he came to visit, I have been obsessed with Delfino Plaza.

Gerald was a fool, and I cared for him, but he couldn't listen to me. I've killed and survived these beasts, but he couldn't listen to me. He couldn't give me any credit or any dignity with the situation. It might've been because he was older, and supposedly wiser, but I don't really know. I know I say it all the time, but there are so few of us left in this green, warped world.

I haven’t fought like this for a while, where not a hint of error is allowed. Haukter reaches behind his left shoulder into his back. I take a stance pointing my blade diagonally at his hulking form. I see his hand for the first time as he reaches. It’s white and callused. It glows against his dark brown hides. Haukter reaches into an opening in one of his hides and pulls something out.

Trigger warning: Suicide, self-multilation, and depression. I wish it hadn’t been youmy beautiful sonsto wake me up. It should have beenthe self-carved stripdangling red off my wrist,or the catfish water hiding the sirenbelow the High Bridge, crafting that suicidal lullaby so perfectlyI could picture the river bottomand it was Camelot, Shangri-La, a muddy paradise of…

My new short story collection is up and available for preorder on my Square Store. I'm opening preorders pretty early since I don't know how many copies I'll have for my first run and this is the best way for you to get a paperback before I go through them at my six different October events. So yeah, supply will be very limited.

Daily writing prompt How do you deal with uncertainty? View all responses I don't deal with it well whatsoever. The amount of pain I've gone through, both self-inflicted and at the hands of many others, has left my identity with a very activated nervous system. Fireworks suspended by a rupture in spacetime. A dozen vipers sitting beneath some shadowy jungle ferns.

I knew Gerald wouldn't be able to handle the illusions for very long. Last night, the images came back in renewed power, like those phantom artists had been locked away with their stifled creativity. Cars were buzzing around. Streetlights flickered along the alleyways in electric suns. Bugs drifted past them in disoriented clouds. It was too much for Gerald. The sounds, the old music playing about the lit windows in piano-heavy melodies, pulled Gerald's eyes out of the shed and into the darkness.

He throws the brambly chain at me. I leap away to my left, keeping my eyes on the hidden weapon. I have little or no idea what to expect. Something in my gut told me not to duck. How fortunate I didn’t, since the bundle isn’t just some muddled mass, but a narrow sheet of thorny branches bound together. No doubt it’s covered in poison.

Keep resurrecting and rebuildingold graphics, pixels, theme songs, and art styles.Once exiled, dead, against a backdropof change, licensing, and technology. I’m old now, my skin is dry.My friends look more akin to their parents,and my memories pick andchoose when to reappear. I want that dream-kiss.The wonder-bite of happy and suspenseI had on Saturday mornings when the X-Men roared…

Daily writing prompt What’s a moment when a stranger completely restored your faith in people? View all responses Looking at this particular writing prompt and scanning the various levels of memory featuring strangers helping or being kind to me, I can't help but think of the night my grandmother died. The event was dramatic (borderline operatic knowing how my family reacts to crisis).

They were everywhere last night. They practically devoured the gloom and darkness with their spiked clouds. Gerald and I watched them all night. We were waiting for the Unnamed to tear into our tin box. To shake us loose from these flimsy walls and take us outside in flailing chunks of screaming meat. I can't help but think we're tuna inside this shed, waiting to be peeled out and torn to pieces by a thousand clawed arms of unknown monsters.

He snaps his body in a fur-filled twist and throws the blade at me. I’m too close to knock it away. I’ll have to bring the combat closer to him. I leap in the air and arch my back. I slam into the blade with both hands wrapped around my axe. The cleaver falls back into Haukter, who gets crushed against a few trees by my falling weight.

My dog knew it right away.She was inside your carsurrounded by boxes, bags, papers,clothes, and more boxes. A fortressof clutter, material, and belongings.So tight, she felt scared, and whined.The walls were closing, clawing, and tighteningphantom hands around our throats. We were broken before we knew we were.The cardboard was the beacon, the blazing fire-eye…

Daily writing prompt If you had to give one life-changing tip, what would it be? View all responses I'm scared for my sons in so many different ways. I'm scared that I can't provide for them. I'm scared that I've let my own trauma nest and thrive in their souls before they journeyed out into the world. I'm scared that we have so thoroughly obliterated the environment that they'll permanently have a horizon of ash and smoke for an evening sky.

Before I can talk about today and last night after our little skirmish with the Unnamed, I should elaborate about what occurred after we killed the daylight-walking fiend. The branches started to roar, like a hurricane had been shackled between their leafy arms and suddenly released. The gust howled around us, circling the playground and vines. We immediately jumped off the playground and ran towards home.

The snow is falling harder now, much harder, like it wants us to stop and remember the higher forces above our feuds. The forest looks bright and flourishing as I charge into it. It’s beautiful and endless. I could watch and witness it every day, knowing the end was near. I’m running out to him. I cannot meet him in direct combat right away.

Don’t worry my sons,you won’t be like me. In the DBT classevery tuesday night withother healing pincushionsrelearning how to think and feeleach basic reality, after life,the tornado, mangled youin its timeless wake. Or sitting on the High Bridgejealous of city lightsneon and edged along skyscraper spines,alive and brightmaking me ponder how long…

Daily writing prompt Do you think everything happens for a reason? View all responses I did not write that line. I directly quoted it from Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki. It is spoken by a leper, who talks fondly of the woman (a warrior/warlord named Lady Oboshi) who actually treats the lepers in this world and story like human beings. …

Nothing ever goes according to plan. I'll start again with last night. Not much actually changed. More darkness, drums, and illusions. More crying from Gerald, hushes by me, and whines out of Snowy. In the morning, we immediately started walking towards Crystal Lake, which was the earlier site of the daylight Unnamed. We moved carefully and slowly, just in case the monster was waiting for us in some sort of bizarre ambush.

My second to last event of the summer is here. Now that CONvergence is done, I'll be heading towards Circle Pines and the Curious Crow for their summer bazaar and vendor market. What is the Curious Crow? Well, it is an awesome gaming store and event space in the north loop of the Twin Cities. You can learn about the Curious Crow right here…

“I want you to leave,” I say quickly. She stares at me. “I want you to tell whoever sent you there is nothing here, but monsters and killers. There is no treasure, no magic, no sacred city, just timeless devils.” She stares at me some more. She’s confused by me. “You’d think someone who has been physically altered to become a war weapon would have some incentive.”

This week on my free book giveaway it is my short story collection Monsters, Monsters, Everywhere. This is a recently updated, revised, and rereleased. There are a variety of genres, monsters, and parallel emotions in this collection. Each story stands on its own. Free today through Sunday on the Kindle. Get. It. Now. Description below: An ancient werewolf laments his annual, blood-soaked pilgrimage.

The stoplight, tall and ivy-wrappedbeside the solemn intersectionpierced with headlight spears and glitter.The nearby overpass a floating slabmarked by howling trucks we’ddream of buying when we got older. Further up by Joe’s house,the streetlight dangled an orange crownperfect for us to wrestle, throw baseballsyell at semis, and occasionally talkas if nobody were listening…

Daily writing prompt What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years? View all responses I wanted to go with floating cars, cities built on clouds, and random zeppelins cruising over jet-black downtowns with endless rain like in Bladerunner. I couldn't fully commit to that idea since I worked at a bank for many years and people fought debit cards and online banking tooth and nail.

I wish I could think of one single thing to say to Gerald to help ease his mind about what's happened in the last twelve hours. In just one day, the entire colony was destroyed and hopelessness returned. I just don't know what to say. Last night was sad and awkward. I wanted to tell him in the thick air of my shed it was going to be okay, and more colonies would get established.

They’re all taken down except for her. She is the only one left. She is the only one left. I run. I’ll have to jump at him for leverage. I admit, I’m a bit intimidated by Haukter. I break from the forest and the hill overlooking the river. He doesn’t see me sprinting. I think, humorously enough, he’s captivated by the woman.

For this week, the second book in my popular apocalyptic horror series The Greenland Diaries: Days 101 - 140 is free on the Kindle. The book is available for the cheap price of NOTHING, today through Sunday. Out of the whole series, this is the most horror-max book. It is not for the faint of heart. The monsters really push it.