A Few Things

First, a special important reminder that I'll be speaking at Elizabethtown College this Saturday at noon. You should come. Second, it seems every time I speak in public, I come down with a cold beforehand. So yeah, not feeling too well today. Hoping it's just allergies. Either way, you should totally come Saturday.

Third, today is the last day to get in on the giveaway Steve Umstead has over at his website. Free stuff!

Fourth, last week Joseph Nassise kindly singled out The Dishonored Dead (along with John Hornor Jacobs' This Dark Earth) over at the Kobo Writing Life blog, where he's counting down the days until Halloween. About the two novels he says "Every now and then, however, you come upon a novel about the walking dead that restores your faith in the subgenre by delivering something new, something fresh." As for The Dishonored Dead, he says: "Swartwood’s writing is solid and he does a nice job of ratcheting up the tension and stakes throughout. The book would be worth reading just for the unique take on zombies alone, but thankfully Swartwood delivers a well-written tale that makes the experience all the more valuable." Read the rest here.

The Tale Of Two Manuscripts

My wife and I moved this month, and in the process we've been going through some old stuff, and I came across the two manuscripts seen above. They are for two different novels written many years ago, and in need of a lot of work. In fact, I don't even know if either of these two will ever see the light of day. I will say, though, that despite the fact they look the same length, they're really not. The font for one of them is Times New Roman, the font for the other Courier New. Which means there is probably a 60,000-80,000 word count difference between the two. The one novel? Over 200,000 words!

New Interview And Review

Steve Umstead -- with whom I did a podcast once upon a time -- kindly interviewed me about Man of Wax and The Inner Circle. And hey, chance to win free stuff! Speaking of Man of Wax, the book is still getting reviews nearly a year later, this time by the Parents' Little Black Book of Books. The reviewer calls the novel "one of the best 'scary' stories I have read this year" and "great job, I loved it." You can read the rest of the review here.

In Which Maurice Broaddus And I Talk About Dark Faith (And Politics)

Maurice Broaddus is a very busy man. Not only is he the author of The Knights of Breton Court novels (the omnibus newly released and cheap on Kindle -- grab it!), but every year he hosts Mo*Con, a great convention focused on conversations revolving around horror literature and spirituality. Oh, and with Jerry Gordon he edited the anthology Dark Faith in 2010, and both men just released a follow-up called Dark Faith: Invocations. Today Maurice and I talk about his novels, his convention, and the latest Dark Faith anthology -- all before getting to the really juicy stuff, like this blog post and this blog post. Even better, Maurice has been kind enough to offer up two (2) copies of Dark Faith: Invocations to give away. To learn how to win a copy, listen and enjoy.

In Which Maurice Broaddus And I Talk About Dark Faith (And Politics)