August Horror!

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally August. My birthday month! Best time of the year!

And in the midst of the summer heat, what better time to cool off with a nice horror story? If you remember, back in January, I was selected to be part of Twelve Months of Horror, a twelve-story collection of some of the wildest, goriest, funniest, steamiest stories around. The idea is to have a new horror story for every month, a way to honor the passing of time by scaring yourself sh*tless.

(I told you all about this back in the winter, in case you don't remember.)

And guess what? August is MY month. A little bit about my story: It's called "Desert People." It's a creature feature with some political vibes mixed in. It takes place on a desert road. It's pretty sweaty. A lot of people dig it so far.

And now's the time to check it out. Happy August, everybody!

My Adventures in Student Writing

Take a look at those five covers up there. These are the five anthologies I worked on while living abroad. Two of them are from Bhutan and three are from Kazakhstan. I've worked on a lot of projects in my life, but these are the five books I'm most proud of, and I didn't even write them!

These books were completely written by my teen and pre-teen students in Kazakhstan and Bhutan. (For the first two, I even went on a country-wide book tour with my students, selling most of our books at Buddhist temples. But you can read about all that craziness on my Medium page.)

Anyway, I wanted to introduce each one in case anyone's interested. You'd be amazed at the amount of creativity (and weirdness) on display in these stories!

The first is We Are Bhutan, the result of my first teen creative-writing group. We even designed a little mascot to appear throughout the book, a Himalayan black bear.

Very quickly after that, my students released Scary Stories from Bhutan, a direct result of how many spooky stories I got during the first round. It was a genre that a lot of my students were interested in, which makes the (mostly-family-friendly) all-horror collection extra fun!

(We used a crane for the mascot in that one. I loved illustrating him in his various Daffy Duck-style freak-out poses.)

After those two books were out, my travels in Bhutan came to an end and I relocated to Kazakhstan. Once again, my students were giant globs of creativity, so of course I had to continue these anthologies.

This time, the participating writers were given pictures for inspiration, along with a one-hour time limit. It was structured as more of a competition, with various prizes for the winners, but the resultant stories were just as wild as before, if not more so.

The first was Crazy Stories from Kazakhstan, which had a couple stories that were surprisingly emotional. I was really impressed.

(A snow leopard as the mascot.)

We ditched the mascot for the next outing, Writers of Kazakhstan 2022, which included some really cool stuff. A lot of our writers used their stories to grapple with their post-pandemic traumas, resulting in a memorable collection.

And finally, our latest collection, Writers of Kazakhstan 2024. After being out of the country for nearly two years, I came back to attend this event. Such a great time, and even though the participating writers were no longer MY students, I think they did an awesome job.

I hope you check out these books. They were a ton of fun to make, and it's so cool that over 200 kids are now published authors! They worked hard and they earned it.

Romancing the Rainbow

I’m really excited to announce the release of Romancing the Rainbow, a short story collection about queer couples meeting for the first time. This is a whole series of meet-cutes, basically, and it’s really fun and romantic. 

My story is called “Barley.” It changed a lot in the months before publication, but I’m really happy with it. Honestly, this collection is an absolute blast.

Writers of Kazakhstan 2024

Flying pigs. Alien words. Mayhem. Superheroes. Armageddon. Romance.

This is Writers of Kazakhstan 2024.

In December 2023, dozens of young writers participated in StudyRoom Language Center's annual writing competition. They were each given four photos and had to create an original story in under an hour. This collection gathers together the best stories for their first time in print.

This collection is for anyone who wants to see the world through the eyes of another culture. Kazakhstan is a massive country full of unique customs and history that most outsiders don't know much about. In many ways, the authors in this collection share the same interests and concerns as anyone else. In other ways, though, their perspectives are wildly unique. This book offers a taste of Kazakhstan's amazing creativity and specific sense of humor.

Plus, there's a bunch of flying pigs. Everyone loves flying pigs.

Women on the Run

 

I'm someone who loves talking about the latest books I've read (even the bad ones... Well, especially the bad ones). That's why I'm so excited to contribute to 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐝, a really cool new resource for book recommendations that come from people, not algorithms.

For 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐝, I compiled a list of five recent recommendations under the topic "women on the run." It's a nice tie-in to my new romance novel 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐫 and a great way for me to share my latest reads.

And while you're on the site, look for other personalized recommendation lists. I'm sure you'll stumble onto something great.

Twelve Months of Horror

 

Here it is! Today's the day that Dark Village Pub releases its new anthology Twelve Months of Horror. (And a steamier companion book that I'm sadly not a part of.)

This anthology has a pretty cool hook. One horror story for every month of the year. I wrote "Desert People," a sweaty trek through the desert with some nice bits of creature feature violence. Obviously, my story is saved for August.

Honestly, I think this whole project is very cool. It's a nice way to track the passing of 2024 (which may or may not turn into a horror show all its own. We'll find out in November). Tell your friends.