Hey everybody, M. here,

I’ve had quite a bit going on since the other week at the Detroit Festival of Books with D.M. Ritzlin, so much so that I’ve been losing track of what I need to post and where.

So I’ll start with the most recent news, which is that I had the pleasure of appearing on the always excellent Rogues in the House podcast the other day, where I discussed the inspiration behind a few of the weird ideas on display in Kingdoms Trembling and my stories in the Die By The Sword anthologies, the art and craft of writing weird stories, and a bunch of other good stuff.

Had an excellent time on the podcast talking with James D. Mills (the mind behind The Arcanist: Fantasy Publishing and the author of Ashen Rider) and L.D. Whitney (author of the Jangar series and publisher of CLIFFHANGER!) Watch the episode of the podcast on YouTube and see for yourself!

Recent reviews of Kingdoms Trembling
I’ve been kicking around the idea of revamping the rarely-updated “Press” section of my webpage for a while, but since some excellent reviews of Kingdoms Trembling have been appearing since the book came out, I figured I’ll worry about the Press page later.

So if you have been hearing about Kingdoms Trembling and want some insightful critical perspectives on it (or stumbled onto this website by accident and have read this far and still want to know what it’s all about) here are a few recent, excellent reviews.

Earlier this month the aforementioned James D. Mills reviewed Kingdoms Trembling on his Letters from the Arcanist Substack, in which he calls it:

“…an excellent read and breath of fresh air for folks looking for something different. It’s a masterclass performance of composition and imagination… It cherishes its Sword & Sorcery blood, but isn’t afraid to branch out to serve the immersion. There isn’t a weak story in the contents.“

And that’s just a small snippet, so check out the full review and subscribe to his Substack while you’re at it.

And in June, author and musician John Zaremba likewise did an incisive deep-dive into the book with his video review on YouTube, exploring highlights from his favorite tales therein, themes he detected throughout, and lots more (including the perennial mystery of my first initial). Well worth a watch!

After you check out those two, very thoughtful and thought-provoking explorations of Kingdoms Trembling, grab yourself a copy of the book from DMR Books, give it a read, and see what you think!

More news to come
One of the reasons I wanted to get this blog entry up today is because I’ve got some more announcements coming up pertaining both to horror and sword & sorcery stories pretty quick here, and I didn’t want to get too far behind.

So I should be back once or twice in the coming weeks with more updates. As always, you can check me out on Facebook and on my relatively brand-new Substack.

Take care everyone!
-M.