Hey everybody, M. here,

With so many announcements in the last few weeks it seemed like a good idea to give a full rundown of everything publishing-wise that should be on the way this spring, summer, and early part of fall, and also recap what has happened this year so far. So without further ado, let’s get started:

Walpurgis Witcheries arrives at the end of April
As was announced last week, Walpurgis Witcheries is on the way on its titular day (April 30) from DMR Books, and my story The Wandering One and the Witchdance will be appearing alongside eight other tales of blood and thunder set in and around Germany’s Harz Mountains in Saxony’s pagan past.

And I’ve got some exciting company on the table of contents! Among the excellent authors slated to appear in the book, you will find the author of the classic Bard series from the ’80s Keith Taylor, author Ethan Sabatella who I appeared alongside in Die By The Sword I and II, and Justin Young, who is both an author and the host of the great Monsters, Madness and Magic podcast. And that’s only a few! You can see the full table of contents over on the DMR blog.

I’m happy to be appearing in this followup to the very well received Samhain Sorceries, and some other news about this book just broke: DMR is going to be releasing a special, limited-edition chapbook titled Two Tales of Witchery alongside Walpurgis Witcheries, featuring two additional authors.

Chthonic Matter Quarterly, Summer 2026 issue on the way this summer
Early in the summer (I think in June but I’m not entirely sure) my story What’s Behind The Walls is slated to appear in the Summer 2026 issue of Chthonic Matter Quarterly. The story is a thematic followup to my story Sticky, which appeared in the Winter 2024 issue.

As I always mention when talking about this one, you can still pick up that issue if you want to get a feel for what you’re in for when the new one arrives! And as I also always mention, you can grab a subscription for a full year’s worth of CMQ over on the publisher website, so you don’t miss out on my upcoming story or any of the other fascinating, thought-provoking, and of course fear-inducing horror to be found within its pages.

My first sword & sorcery collection, Kingdoms Trembling, coming in June!
June is the month, everyone, when my collection of all-new sword & sorcery stories Kingdoms Trembling should be hitting the shelves. Featuring 12 previously unpublished tales set in the world that I first introduced in the Die By The Sword anthologies. We’re still a ways out, so there’s a bunch of stuff I still can’t reveal but suffice it to say you’ll have some amazing stuff to feast your eyes on as the release date gets closer!

Appearing in Nyctalocos: A Collection of Night Terrors in August
As I announced just a few weeks ago, I happy to say that in addition to appearing in CMQ later this year, I will also have a story in the upcoming themed anthology edited by CMQ editor and publisher C.M. Muller, The collection is called Nyctalocos: A Collection of Night Terrors, and my story is titled Sherman Dismantled And Afloat. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that this one has all the paranoia, anxiety, body horror, and human drama you can expect from my work in CMQ, with only a fraction of the sleep!

You can see the full table of contents and pre-order the book over on the Chthonic Matter website.

Kayfabe makes it way to the squared circle in September
Get ready to rumble, because my science fiction comedy Kayfabe is going to be busting loose from the pages of the Burial Books science fiction anthology Strange Tales of Space and Time in September.

The anthology release was rescheduled from the summer but it looks like everything is on schedule for the fall. You can visit the Burial Books website to see the full table of contents for this one and some of Burial’s other upcoming projects. Pre-order for the book should be kicking off in May!

And don’t forget to grab a copy of Weird Tales to Haunt Your Reptilian Brain from last year while you’re over there, the horror anthology containing my short story #FireOfLove and a bunch of other great and disturbing tales.

So that is everything that is on the way at the moment, any new developments will, of course, be shared as soon as I can share them! There’s plenty in the offing, but in case you’re looking for stuff that you can read right this second, here’s a recap of what’s been happening this year so far.

Read The Tears of Blood for free in The Battle Rages On e-book
In March, I was excited to have my short story The Tears of Blood reprinted in DMR’s free digital sampler The Battle Rages On. The story, which originally appeared in Die By The Sword Volume I, introduces Ulxedomus the exiled Crown Prince of K’Zal and a whole world of characters, deadly threats, and weird phenomena that will be revisited in Kingdoms Trembling. If you want to get ready for the collection this summer, and you want to see what DMR Books is all about, you can download The Battle Rages On for free!

Find me on Substack!
After eons of having my only authorial social media presence be on Facebook, I have launched a Substack newsletter which you can subscribe to and/or find on-site at The Sternstack. It’s only been about a week, but I have to say I am having a lot of fun with it. I sort of surprised myself by starting to do reviews of old issues of Dr. Strange that I unearthed as I have been going through my boxes of comic books from when I was a kid, and I have more, different kinds of content planned for the near future.

I am still just figuring stuff out about the platform and I barely have anyone looking at my stuff right now (which hopefully will change), but I’m enjoying doing the kind of writing I do there a lot. It’s something I used to do quite a bit years ago, usually in venues where I felt like I was wasting my time because of the limited reach. Hopefully this will prove to be the right place to do it, and I’ll be able to both spread the word about my fiction there and entertain people further with the Substack exclusive stuff. We’ll see! So if you’re over there or just like newsletters, follow and/or subscribe to The Sternstack!

Knot on Tree, Fire on Stone anthology still available for purchase
And finally, if you don’t want to wait to read some of my most recent work, and particularly if you like period pieces, you can still pick up my short cosmic horror story set in Julio-Claudian Rome, The Magician in the Knot on Tree, Fire on Stone anthology from UK indie publisher Harvey Duckman Presents. I love the story, so check it out!

I think that about wraps it up for the moment, should have more news coming soon on all of the items mentioned above and hopefully even more! Take care everyone!
-M.