I am pleased to announce that my story "The Well of Ghosts" was accepted into the flash fiction anthology Northern Haunts: 100 Terrifying New England Tales. Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the American Cancer Society. Table of contents to be announced shortly. Click on the cover to read all about it.

Click on the banner and place your order. You know you want to.

Coming in July from Coscom Entertainment!

They live. They die. They return. Zombies. 38 authors. 38 gut-wrenching tales.

I'm running a special promotion at the Horror Mall. Anyone who buys a copy of Life Among the Dream Merchants between now and July will have their copies signed by both Jeffrey Thomas and me. But wait, there's more... Come July I'll throw the names of all who bought copies into a hat and draw one lucky winner. The winner will receive a PC copy of my novel, The Wishnik. Jeffrey Thomas himself has something to say about this. Check out his thoughts on Life Among the Dream Merchants over at his blog.

Now available at the Horror Mall!

Talk about bipolar! Here's a spine-rattling clutch of dark, brooding poetry from the author who gave us the hilarious and raucously subversive collections perVERSEities and perVERSEities 2. With this collection, Mr. Newton kicks out the stops and shows us that he's definitely not a one-trick pony. These poems are as deep, thoughtful and nightmarish as anything conjured by Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Feverishly precise use of words compel the reader ever forward into black webs of horror that rise from the darkest subterrain of human experience. My favorite poem (and it was tough to choose, believe me) is "The Crows of Las Cruces", a chilling tale about the black-winged harbingers of All Hallow's Eve. Beautifully written and conceived, this homage to the masters of horror is thoroughly satisfying slice of the dark stuff that will delight horror fans. -- J.L. Comeau, The Tome.

Click here to see what's inside.

Space and Time Magazine (you know, the one that's been around for something like 40 years!) bought my short story, "The Way It Has Always Been, The Way It Will Always Be." It's a 4000-word holiday tale about believers and non-believers, light and dark, and the age old battle of good versus evil (with a couple meteors thrown in for good measure). It's scheduled to appear sometime this year. I would guess more towards the end of '08 when things get cold again.

Weird Tales has updated their website. Among the many new posts is the complete "corrected" version of my story, "The Release." Originally published in WT #344 and reprinted in Weird Tales: The Twenty-First Century, Vol. 1, readers now have the option of reading it online here.

Just in time for the holidays...

I kinda backed into this one. When the call for submissions went out, I liked the premise, sent a poem, then never heard from them for about two years...until I was contacted by one of the editors recently and asked where should they send payment! I'm sure an email acceptance is still floating around somewhere in cyberspace.

Midnight Lullabies is an anthology published by those fine folks who run the online literary magazine The Harrow. It's a benefit anthology (one of the reasons why I originally sent something their way). All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders. 29 different writers from around the world fill this 246-page trade paperback with enough fiction and poetry to choke a sock puppet. Those are my words. Here's some words by the people who put this together:

From the introduction:

"Midnight Lullabies is a delicious collection of blind groping, creaking floorboards, heavy whispers and unholy giggling. Many of these imaginings are feigned remembrances -- or real ones, for all I know -- of the darkness and aloneness and subsequent horror of childhood."

"We wanted to create a collection to remind everybody that being a child may be a frightening occupation. We, the grown-ups, must pay attention to what our children try to tell us when something haunts them. We hope that Midnight Lullabies will help parents to be more receptive to scary things, whether real or imaginary, that may lurk in their children's bedroom."

In order to enhance the eeriness of these childish yet terrifyingly mature writings, -- which smack of a current-day "Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales," but scarier -- the anthology's editors have included illustrations culled from the vaults of the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books. These tomes, mostly from the late 19th century, abound with images drawn from the seemingly repressed and conflicted aesthetic of Victorian England.

Well, finally finished The Brainpan Concerto... about a month late and still pretty rough. It weighs in at just under 25K. This one's going to need some major revision. Not due to sloppy writing, but due to discovering more about the characters toward the end and needing to go back and fill in where things are sketchy. Here's the gist of it:

Detective Saul Spencer and Detective Gwen Martel have just been handed a case, a string of homicides dubbed The Trepanation Murders. It appears there's a serial killer operating in rural Connecticut. The killer's M.O.: the victim's skullcaps have been removed and their brains have been violated by a series of electrical probes.

Cody Miller is a fourteen-year-old bass player. He scours the internet for avant-garde music to sample, laying down his own bass tracks over the "found" music. Several pieces in particular catch his attention. The numbered pieces are called Brainpan Concertos, submitted by an anonymous composer.

As the killer stalks his next victim, Detectives Spencer and Martel are narrowing their leads, and growing closer in the process. Meanwhile, Cody finds out where the composer lives and is determined to meet him.

In the small town of Woodfield, orchestrated by chance and circumstance, all parties will converge in a climax that is both brutal and revealing.

Bound For Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad


How often does one get to rub inky elbows with the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, M.R. James, and H.P. Lovecraft? Not often. How about Ramsey Campbell? Not in the wildest of my nightmarish dreams. That's why I'm psyched to have my story, "Trunk Story," appearing in this anthology. Other dead contributors include Saki, Robert W. Chambers, and Montague Summers. Among the living there's Jeffrey Thomas, Mark McLaughlin, Gary McMahon, Gary Fry, and too many more to list here. 59 writers, 64 tales, 768 leather bound pages (well, imitation leather). It's a bibliographic bonanza, a tome for the ages. It can flatten cans, drive nails, take care of that nosey neighbor who's always snooping at the edge of the yard. It's an $80.00 collector's item on sale now for a mere $50.00. (Until midnight October 31st, that is.) That's less than 79 cents per story! Only 500 copies of the book will be printed, of which only 375 will be available for sale. Oh, yeah, add cover design stamped in gold leaf by none other than Allen Koszowski! Break open that piggy bank. Remember Christmas is coming. Make that special someone look at you like you've just raised the dead. Preorder here.

The Twisted Twins -- Daily Chills Calendar


I've got seven flash pieces accepted for this project, joining the likes of Mike Arnzen, John Lawson, Kevin Donihe, and about 48 others. Actually I don't know how many others. It's art and flash fiction, so art could take up half the year, who knows. This project does not have a publisher. The editor is currently shopping it around. More on this as news comes in.

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Stephen H. Segal
"The Man Who Carved Skulls" by Richard Parks
"Six Scents" by Lisa Mantchev
"Working Out Our Salvation" by Trent Hergenrader
"Bob Bodey's Body Parts" by William Markly O'Neal
"Ravenous" by Phil Brucato
"Spider Comes Home" by Gerard Houarner
"The Past Never Dies" by Holly Phillips
"For Fear of Dragons" by Carrie Vaughn
"What Happened When Tammy Brookmeyer Sold Her House" by Paul E. Martens
"The Drain" by Peadar O Guilin
"The Furious Host" by Barth Anderson
"The Release" by Kurt Newton

For those readers who start at the back and work their way forward, my story appears first.

In time for the holidays. It'll feature twelve of the best stories from the past year of the magazine, and will be available in bookstores nationally. Table of contents have yet to be posted, but I was informed my story, "The Release," is one of the twelve. Virtual drinks for everyone!

The fourth installment of my irregular column is now appearing at the Delirium Insider.

A 6000-word story called "Pickin' and Grinnin'" will appear in Bare Bone #11. Remember a show called Hee Haw? Well, for one guy (a convicted serial killer in the process of being put to death) being on the Hee Haw set is synonymous with being in Hell in this no holes barred tale. Coming soon from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

The Brainpan Concerto progress report... It's a novella. It's three-quarters finished. I should have it completed by the end of this month.

I spun the Wheel of Markets and found surprisingly many open ones to submit my unpublished stories to: Clarkesworld Magazine, Weird Tales, and Dark Wisdom, to name a few. In total, eight stories, five poems subbed.

When I received my copy of Weird Tales #344 this morning, I immediately thumbed to my story, letting my eyes cruise over the professional layout, the names of the company I was in, aware of the legacy I was holding in my hands, my proudest and most high-profile story writing achievement to date, and nearly had an aneurysm. My story began with words I didn't write. A whole paragraph full of them. The furrow in my brow was the size of the Grand Canyon. No, they didn't. They didn't rewrite my story, did they? They better not have. Not only were the words not of the same tone, they didn't make a bit of sense.

My eyes moved beyond the first paragraph and...things got better. In fact, aside from the first paragraph, the story read as I had written it. Hmmmm, something's fish (as my Korean boss used to say).

I thumbed through again, checking first paragraphs of each story, looking for a match...and wouldn't you know, there it was, its twin, sitting at the beginning of the story right before mine. I was somewhat relieved.

I'm still a bit bummed that my first appearance in such a highly regarded publication is marred by the misprint, but it could have been worse. The story could have been rejected!

	Another Horror D'Oeuvre being served up at the Delirium Insider. Eat it while it's still warm. (Need to be a member to view it, so why not sign up? It's free.)

The Blue Lady is back! After how many years? 10? Like the saying goes, everything old is new again. The Blue Lady went away, had a facelift, tummy tuck, breast augmentation, and a nose job. She's no longer blue, she's cerulean! What once was a saddle-stapled digest is now a full-size magazine with an amazing full-color cover! Donna Taylor Burgess has assembled a cast of old and new faces. Bruce Boston, Kevin L. Donihe, John Grey, Bobbi Sinha-Morey, Uncle River, and Scott Urban carry the torch from the past, while David Bain, Eric S. Brown, Kristine Ong Muslim, and a host of others, bring new light to an old flame. I contribute "Periphery", a disturbing story about a man left on the fringes of a life he once knew, and the dark things he finds there. Fiction and poetry, an interview with Stoker winning poet Corrine DeWinter, and more. Click here to visit Naked Snake Press's order page. Available in July.