Elizabeth Broadbent's Blog

Mary SanGiovanni wasn’t there, as Brian Keene mentioned over and over, so we were treated to his adorably careful man-handwriting.

For the third week in a row, I sold books—this time, all the way up in Pennsylvania at Brian Keene’s Vortex Books and Comics, where I had a signing event with Sonora Taylor, R.J. Joseph, and Somer Canon. Sonora just released Errant Roots, a fabulous novella in the “Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomenon” novella series from Raw Dog Screaming Press, which Rhonda (R.J.) is editing; the next release in the series is my novella, Blood Cypress. Rhonda came all the way up from San Antonio to sign her book, Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted, and RDSP publisher Jennifer Barnes showed up with John Edward Lawson—two of my favorite people in horror. Add Brian Keene, and it was like an episode of Horror All-Stars.

Plus me and Chris, and we got to fan girl/boy and shop for books at the same time.

The shelves in Vortex Books (sorry, I was too dazzled to take pics) were like a print reunion of all my favorite people, past and present. Not only were all my author friends represented, but Vortex has a killer Tom Piccarilli shelf. Brian, Jennifer, and John all told me how awesome Pic was, which made me even sadder I never met him.

Jennifer Barnes in the back, then Somer Canon, me, Rhonda, and Sonora

Rhonda and I spent most of the signing laughing, because she’s not only brilliant, she’s hilarious (between her and Rebecca Cuthbert, I have the best editors in horror). I had been nervous for my first bookstore event, but it’s impossible be nervous around Rhonda, who kept me giggling about everything from her kids texting her a grocery list mid-signing to the Eastern PA restaurant serving brisket and BBQ (A Texan, she simply eyed the brisket item, shook her head, and murmured, “Uh-uh.” I nearly fell out of my chair).

Brian Keene has an amazing bookstore, and his patrons are awesome. A year and a half ago, I met him for the first time at a signing at Barnes and Noble Libbie; I told him and his wife Mary that I’d subbed a novella to RDSP, and they wished me luck. Last weekend, he sold the very first copy of the first novel published under my own name at his bookstore: Ninety-Eight Sabers.

It was only sheer luck that I managed to have Sabers at all. I had ordered some for Grimoire Academy in Fredricksburg coming up in November. They arrived on Friday, an hour before we were going to leave for PA. I opened the box, signed a copy for my in-laws, and threw them in the car. I’ll be mailing copies at the end of the week to reviewers.

Very first picture of Sabers!

Chris and I came away from Vortex with an epic haul of horror novels and comic books, both for us and the kids. Mary SanGiovanni wasn’t there, but she was kind enough to inscribe a copy of Enemy of My Enemy to my twelve-year-old before she left on her trip. He’s obsessed with Alien, and for the past two days, I’ve heard him showing the book off to his friends via video-chat.

This is August’s excited face. He makes this face in every photo. My children are incapable of smiling for photos … Book haul from Vortex! Notice the Piccirilli and the L. Marie Wood on the very bottom—I’ve wanted that one for a while!

We had a blast at Vortex, and I can’t wait to go back. Thanks so much to Brian (and Mary in absentia) and Jennifer for inviting me, and to Sonora, Rhonda, and Somer for making my first bookstore event amazing!

What I’m Reading: The Fatal Mind, by N.J. Gallegos

I just finished The Fatal Mind by N.J. Gallegos. If you’re a fan of early Stephen King, this book will give you major reading-under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight vibes. Former NBA superstar Shawn was forced into retirement after an injury left him with crippling migraines. But when an experimental new implant by hot doctor Aldea Absinthe promises relief, Shawn jumps at the chance. The chip works like magic to take Shawn’s pain away—but his significant other, an ER nurse named Rachel, starts noticing side effects. . .

The Fatal Mind is a fast-paced read with a great premise (who isn’t afraid of medical trials?) and compelling characters that builds to a shattering climax. I read the novel in three sittings; it grabbed me quick and didn’t let go. While I liked Shawn and Rachel, I loved Dr. Absinthe—hell yes for a realistic lesbian character whose sexuality is incidental to her role in the plot and whose romance is not the main focus! Incidental queer representation is one of my favorite things in literature: (relatively) normal queers living lives that don’t revolve around their blatant sexualization. More of that, please. And make them morally gray, like Dr. Absinthe. She’s one of my favorite characters this year.

Gallegos is a doctor, which makes this book an extra treat—the medical setting and details in this book are accurate and fully realized. That’s a serious bonus in a horror/thriller like this one, which relies on a medicalized setting and a keen understanding of medical ethics, doctor/patient relationships, and ER protocols. It’s like a guided tour of how these work, and worth a read for that inside peek alone.

With an adrenaline rush of a plot and a memorable attending cast, The Fatal Mind cements N.J. Gallegos as writer/doctor double-threat you’ll one-click. Bonus for queer representation and cute cats on her Twitter. The Fatal Mind released October 15th with Winding Road Stories.

That’s all for this week!

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For the past two weekends, I’ve been lucky enough to sell books with one of my favorite people in horror, the talented and kind David Simms (check out my favorite book of his, Fear the Reaper, right here—it’s a fictionalized version of the history of an asylum in Staunton, VA, run by the man who inspired Hitler. It’s a hard read, but a well-done and important one). We hit the Fredricksburg Book Festival on October 12th, and the Queen City Word Fest in Staunton on October 19th. On Sunday, I collapsed with a rewatch of The Fall of the House of Usher, a cat, and plans to possibly reemerge around Wednesday.

I had to refuel. On Friday, I’m leaving Virginia to drive up to Pennsylvania. Destination: Brian Keene’s Vortex Books and Comics, for a signing with Sonora Taylor, R.J. Joseph, and Somer Canon on Saturday from 1-3pm.

I’ll have copies of Ink Vine, and super-surprise, a special pre-release copy of Ninety-Eight Sabers, as long as the Amazon order comes in time (dear indifferent gods of Amazon, please bring my book order in time, by which I mean before ten pm on Friday, because I want to leave at decent hour). I had ordered Sabers for Grimoire Academy on November 16th in Fredricksburg, and they’re scheduled to come this week. But Amazon is Amazoning fairly hard, and delivery is coming down to the wire. They should be here, but they might be here at the last possible minute. Fingers crossed.

I’m excited to sign books at what’s basically Horror Disney Land with half of the Horror Royal Family (Mary won’t be there, bummer!). It’s birthday season here at Casa del Broadbent, so I can’t wait to buy presents at Vortex, and the kids are rioting that we aren’t taking them to a place with comics!!! and Magic cards!!! and horror books!!! We are not currently popular parents.

I can’t wait to pick up a signed copy of Sonora’s Errant Roots, which was one of my favorite novellas in the Raw Dog Screaming line. I already have a signed copy of R.J. Joseph’s Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted, but I might pick up a copy of Monstrous Domesticity if she has one. I’ve never read any of Somer Canon’s work, so I’m looking forward to grabbing some of her work. This is the first Vortex reading for all of us but Sonora. Selfishly, I want to see absolutely everyone (too many to list), give Rhonda a big hug, and ask Brian about Tom Piccirilli.

Yes, I will shamelessly take photos by the Pan’s Labyrinth faun. With everyone. And I promise to share them.

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Spooky season has finally begun! It’s also known as birthday season in Casa del Broadbent, since I’m the weirdo Gemini perpetually surrounded by Scorpios. But mostly, the round of the season continues: writing, school, promo for Ninety-Eight Sabers, herding cats (literally). One black kitten (Babou) is now startlingly larger than the other (Navidson). He also likes to shed his collar and slink through the house in stealth mode. My fourteen-year-old calls him a “basement panther.” “In South Carolina,” he says, “that’s where you keep your panther.”

I can’t really tell him he’s wrong.

What I’m Reading

THIS BOOK. I’d read (of course) a few of my editor’s short stories before she, you know, became my editor. And when she asked me to blurb her book, I said yes, because I know she’s incredibly talented (I see her editing work), and I know we have the same tastes (again, I see her editing work). BUT THIS BOOK.

Y’all, I did not expect this book. Because you never expect a book like this. You know your friends are good? You never expect them to be this good, because no one has friends who are this good. Cuthbert’s lush, rich prose shines in this book of feminist horror short stories and poems that sings of women’s rights, but also women’s wrongs. I’m so on board for this one.

It’s quiet horror, but one more time for the people in the back: cozy/quiet horror does not make it less scary/horror/terrifying. Cuthbert had me weeping during her story about trees (admittedly, I recently suffered tree trauma when we sold our house in South Carolina and buyers clearcut the yard. All my trees). Her trick-or-treat story ranks as the most gut-punching quiet horror I’ve ever read.

If you’re into literary horror, this is the book the people point to and say, “That was when we knew that Rebecca Cuthbert was awesome—when she released Self-Made Monsters.”

You can grab your copy here on Amazon.

What I’m Writing

Bluefeather, a 2026 release for Undertaker Books, continues apace. At about 70K as of this morning, I ought to be able to finish a first draft by the end of the month, and then I’ll start on sci-fi shorts. But right now, my head’s stuck in Everett County, South Carolina, with the corrupt-ass Sutlais family. Currently occupied with questions like: how do you hide a body? You dump it in Lake Marion. You say he drowned and the gators ate him. Do I have to delete the section on video poker? Unfortunately, yes, though it means you don’t get to use the real-life line, “The wrong kind of white man was making money.” How do you run a whorehouse out of restaurant? You have a motel next door. What happens when the solicitor (what South Carolina calls a district attorney) gets indicted? You ask your best friend, who’s a public defender in the Upstate, and he explains the whole process to you, because this actually happens in the banana republic that is South Carolina.

Crow Report

Now that fall’s started, the crows are finally back on the platform. No great pics to show lately, but they’ve been coming and cleaning up their peanuts. They're also regularly shouting at me while I’m on my morning runs, which is both cool (the crows recognize me!) and kind of strange (have the neighbors noticed that the crows yell at me? Have they noticed that I talk back? Do I look unhinged? Can I bring myself to care?).

Neurodivergent News

I’m autistic. Some of you are nodding your heads like, She already knew that, right? No. I did not. I thought I had super-severe ADHD. So I’m taking some time assimilate this information. It’s a lot to realize that I needed social supports my whole life and never had them.

I’m announcing this because I’ve spent so many years writing for ADDitude Magazine, both in print and online (three of my articles made their top twenty-five of all time lists, including this one), and, well, um, I was wrong. I feel like I ought to say that somewhere. Also, I don’t know if someone reading this is also in their forties and newly diagnosed. I’ve found very few people to talk to about this—allegedly, the horror community is full of autistic people? Hi. I’m one of you.

Life makes sense now. Like, my interests have always been so intense. My feelings have always been so easily hurt. I never understood other people. I always felt like a space alien (that’s how my bestie puts it. Also David Bowie). I sort of want to scream about my autism to everyone from my childhood bullies to past editors: See?! You always teased me for not knowing who Justin Bieber was but autistic people tend to be blind to pop culture!!!! it’s a thing!!!!

This is obviously not productive thinking, but it’s sort of where I’m at right now.

Current Read: Episode 13, Craig DiLouie

Next Read: Wilder Creatures, Nadia Steven Rysing; Atacama, Jendia Gammon

What I’m Listening to: “Eleanor Put Your Boots Back On,” Franz Ferdinand; “The Boy with the Arab Strap,” “Piazza, New York Catcher,” “Get Me Away from Here I’m Dying,” Belle and Sebastian

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Drum roll! Ninety-Eight Sabers has a cover, and preorders are open for the November 29th release. All orders through Undertaker Books will receive a free ebook.

I freaking love this book cover, which captures everything Southern Gothic and weird and horror-y about Sabers. I’ll love it on my book, and I’ll love it hanging on my wall—and none other than genius cover artist Lynn Hansen says it’s great (I’ll brag about that compliment on Erick’s behalf til the end of time).

Undertaker Books believes in human art by human artists, and this cover is no exception. We had a lot of fun working with artist Erick Worthington to get here.

The Cover Art Process

I met Erick and his wife Kalli at Scares that Care AuthorCon in Williamsburg. They stopped by the Butcher Cabin Books table (run by Jenny Kiefer) to talk to me about my novella, Ink Vine. Erick, Kalli told me, was a gifted artist interested in doing covers. She showed me some of his work and gave me his card. A few days later, he messaged me on Instagram. After some discussion with the Undertaker team, I asked him to do a cover for Ninety-Eight Sabers.

Erick took this commission very seriously. I had a really specific vision. I wanted a house, and not just any house—the house in Ninety-Eight Sabers is something like a replica of the Wickham House in Richmond, Virginia. So I sent him some pictures.

But I was shocked when he messaged to say that he and Kalli were coming to Richmond to do sketches, and did I want to have lunch while they were in town?

Of course I did. Kalli and Erick invited Chris and I to a much cooler restaurant than we had a right to be at. We had way too much fun talking and sadly had to go home before the children felt too abandoned, or we would’ve stayed all night.

After lots of tinkering (poor Erick!), the cover turned out to be everything I’d hoped for and more. Erick was amazing to work with. You can see more of his work on Instagram at Erick Worthington.

The Details on Sabers

Family secrets. High strangeness. Reality TV.

The Trenholm clan helped found Lower Congaree, South Carolina. Their land is cursed. Their abusive patriarch has croaked. Only heirs who attend the funeral will inherit.

But when Truluck Trenholm suffered his eventually-fatal stroke, oldest son Ash turned the haunted plantation into an enormously successful reality show—with all the attendant ethical issues of profiting off its legacy. Forced to tolerate the intrusion of California producers, grip guys, and cameras, toting a ton of childhood trauma, Ash’s brother and cousins have plenty of animosity for each other, along with a strong aversion to the paranormal shenanigans of their childhood home. But when Truluck’s funeral goes pear-shaped and the cousins are cut out of his will, Hollywood producers offer the deal of a lifetime: they’ll turn the Trenholms into witchy Kardashians with a Southern drawl.

If the cousins walk away, they’ll lose everything. But the farm’s high strangeness keeps getting stranger. Something’s happening on Cypress Bend. And filming might make it worse…

Combining the literary tradition of William Faulkner, Michael McDowell, and Octavia Butler with the shimmered lunacy of John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Elizabeth Broadbent’s Ninety-Eight Sabers is a Southern Gothic novel about a family determined to stick together as history threatens to tear them apart. This is a book that asks how we live with the past—and how we accept our responsibility for it in the present.

“A twisty marriage of classic Southern Gothic with modern found footage, Ninety-Eight Sabers satisfies that insatiable craving for humid, sweat-soaked, antebellum ghost stories updated for the new century!” —Bitter Karella, author of Midnight Pals and The Ballad of Horse Girl

Ninety-Eight Sabers is available for pre-order now at Undertaker Books (physical and ebook) and Amazon. It releases on November 29, 2024.

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I’ve come back to the Site Formerly Known As Twitter lately, and I kept seeing amazing posts by new press Stars and Sabers, helmed by author Jendia Gammon. They have an anthology coming soon, Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers, and the more contributing authors they announced, the more lit it looked—Gemma Amor, Cynthia Pelayo, Eugen Bacon, Laurel Hightower, Pedro Iniguez, Ai Jiang—a diverse cast of authors I love and admire.

I learned two things:

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Jendia Gammon is a patient soul.

Stars and Sabers is just as lit as I hoped.

Stars and Sabers is an awesome name. Where's it come from? 

Stars and Sabers was a quick, easy, perfect name for an imprint that publishes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. We also will publish mysteries and thrillers. If those take off, we may add another imprint, but for now it's all Stars and Sabers.

You bring so much to the table as speculative fiction author— The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern  was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Readers, as well as the BSFA Award for younger fiction  and  longlisted for the British Fantasy Award for Fantasy Novel, among other things. And it's only the first of its series! 

Thank you! It was also longlisted for the Lodestar at the Hugo Awards and considered for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, which was amazing.

What are you excited to bring from your experience as an author to your publisher position at Stars and Sabers? 

I'm Editor-in-Chief and CEO of Stars and Sabers Publishing, an imprint of my production company, Roaring Spring Productions, LLC. As both a writer and artist, I hope to bring joy and understanding and support for my fellow writers and artists. Gareth L. Powell, my author husband, is Managing Editor. We both want to expand what speculative fiction is, and create a new playground for both established and up-and-coming authors. Bringing our collected knowledge of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and thriller writing and publishing, we're excited to showcase new stories that can be loved forever.

 You also have a thriller coming out with Sley House and a campy horror novel coming out with Encyclopocalypse. There's enormous breadth in your body of work, from magical realism to space opera to thriller. How do you think that will affect your work as a publisher? Is there a genre you plan to concentrate on? 

I love to write what I love to read, and I want to publish what I love to write and read. We will publish sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mysteries/thrillers in various formats, and hope to add poetry and non-fiction eventually as well. If it is speculative fiction, it's what we live and breathe. I think our love and work in those fields makes us well-suited to become publishers.

You have an amazing anthology coming out soon ( Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers —support their Ko-Fi!). What did the process of compiling and editing look like? 

Our first anthology is Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers, and you can see more of it here: https://www.starsandsabers.com/of-shadows-stars-and-sabers/. This is a cross-genre anthology featuring stellar authors both established and debut. 

Compiling and editing OSSAS has been a complete joy for us! We love it reading these special stories. True gems in a treasure box. The other anthologies will be themed; we have two more planned for 2025, so stay tuned for those.

You also have some fantastic novella and novelette deals signed in a variety of different genres, and with some very diverse authors. What can you tell us about your upcoming publications?

We are SO lucky! We get a short story from Eugen in our first anthology, and we are publishing her Sauútiverse SF & horror novella, The Nga’phandileh Whisperer. We are also publishing P.A. Cornell's SF romance novelette, Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl. and Pedro Iniguez's Echoes and Embers SFF collection, as well as Ren Hutchings' SF novella The Legend Liminal 

[note: Gammon comped Hutching’s book to Donnie Darko, and as so-called Elder Millennial, I need it approximately yesterday].

Clearly, you value diverse voices at Stars and Sabers. How do you think the diversity of authorial experience—everything from race to gender to sexuality to disability to neurodivergence—has affected speculative fiction as a field? Who are your favorite diverse authors? 

I feel that doors to telling stories should always be thrown wide open, particularly to historically marginalized communities. Let's uplift speculative fiction and literature. We need each other more than ever. And stories make us essentially human. We all benefit by having more voices! My favorite diverse writers? Oh, I could take pages. In our first anthology, we have several whom I admire: Eugen Bacon, Ai Jiang, Renan Bernardo, Mya Duong, Greg van Eekhout, Dennis K.Crosby, Khan Wong, John Wiswell, T.L. Huchu... so many great voices, and you can see more here.

I also love Tananarive Due, Shelly. Ellis, L.R. Lam, Eric Larocca, Hailey Piper... again, I could go on and on.

What are your goals as a publisher? 

I want to make books that expand speculative fiction, that celebrate the power of story and the beauty of words. I want to uplift human-made writing and human-made art. Let's celebrate humanity's rich tapestry and true storytelling and art.

What are you looking forward to, both as an author and publisher? 

I look forward to getting all these books—mine and others' —out in the world to readers!

If you could publish anyone, living or dead, who would it be? Who's your dream author? 

I really wish I'd published Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ray Bradbury.

My dream author is my husband, Gareth L. Powell.

You have Atacama coming out with Sley House. What was it like to write a thriller after working in sci-fi for so long? And then you came to… campy horror? I have questions. Where did THAT come from? 

Well, Atacama is thriller, horror, and sci-fi—also academia. I related heavily to my academic science research days in that. It was a hard book to write, because my mother died during the process. And as much of it does take place in Tennessee at first, having to go back twice made things hard. But it was satisfying to write. John Carpenter's The Thing is one of my top 3 favorite films of all time. There's a nod to that. I felt like having a sort of X-Files meets The Thing meets evil corporation and something monstrous would be fun things to explore. Atacama was an offshoot of my short story, "The Scaffold," in my collection published by Trepidatio/JournalStone, The Shadow Galaxy (under my J. Dianne Dotson pen name). I wanted to tell what happened next in that cliffhanger story. So the story is now the prologue. Atacama is out May 2025 from Sley House Publishing.

Campy horror and 80s movies are catnip to me. I leaned into the 80s and 90s vibe of Heathers and Mean Girls meets Day of the Triffids and The Thing, as well as skewering our bizarre modern era of clout-chasing and mean teen queen pastiche for Doomflower, out April 2025 from Encyclopocalypse Publications. 

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I saw a meme the other day that said life was worth living in part because you never knew when you’d find you next favorite work of art. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought. Little did I know that my husband had been cruising the internet for a bunch of Southern Gothic horror for me. For a week, random books kept arriving: Michael McDowell’s Cold Moon Over Babylon. Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!. Tom Piccarilli’s A Choir of Ill Children.

I’d spent the summer mainlining McDowell—I’d already finished all of his Blackwater saga as well The Elementals—so I picked up Piccarilli. The first three paragraphs are worth a excerpt:

We move in spasms.

My brothers because they are conjoined at the frontal lobe, and me—because for me there is no other way to continue moving.

They have three throats and three bodies, three intertwined minds and many feelings, but only one voice. They even have a lover, Dodi Coots, who sleeps at the foot of their king-size bed with the back of her hand brushing Sebastian’s ankle. Her breath is tinged with bourbon, and chocolate, a few strands of hair wafting against the corners of her mouth.

I could keep going for the sheer pleasure of retyping Piccarilli’s prose, but I’ve made my point: it’s deliciously lyrical, deliciously strange, offbeat and off-putting and otherworldly in all the best ways. For the record, main character Thomas is describing his conjoined triplet brothers, who share both a head and a lover.

This is a bizarre novel. I mean that in a literary sense, as if the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson tried to channel the universe of Flannery O’Conner in a fucked-up Florida bayou. Events remain deliciously inexplicable, but in this novel, man is inherently depraved and fallen. There’s a dash of Harry Crews’s meanness and Faulkner’s wistfulness.

Page one took me in. Page three had me lost. By page ten, I was gone. This is a smorgasbord of Southern insanity, and I’m there for it. Thomas—the sheer guts of naming your protagonist after yourself!—is the scion of the richest family in town, and the owner of the mill. But a “storm of souls” is coming, and only he can stop it, maybe. There are ghosts wandering in the yard, naked men possessed by the Spirit, disconsolate preachers and carnival freaks. Whores and granny women populate the backwater town of Kingdom Come, its decaying mansion and Leadbetter’s Bar, with its biker gangs and maybe a murderous prostitute ghost? This is Florida Gothic of the highest order, utterly unhinged.

People complain, in the Amazon reviews, that they don’t get the plot. But the novel has no traditional linear structure; it moves in spasms, like the narrator warns in the first sentence. One of my favorite books is Absalom, Absalom!, and my other favorite recent read is Aimee Hardy’s upcoming Pocket Full of Teeth (Sept. 13, Running Wild Press), so I’m all the way there for non-traditional structure (I’m also in the middle of the book Hardy recommended on narrative structure, Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative). Linear narrative is overrated.

Don’t let the spasmodic structure make you think there’s no payoff, either. Amazing, shattering conclusion to this novel. Piccarilli is a genius, and I can’t wait to read the maybe-sequel, November Mourns. I also can’t wait to read A Choir of Ill Children again—something I seldom do with such a ridiculous TBR list.

If you’ve read and loved Piccirilli, and you know of anything even remotely approaching the strangeness of Choir, drop your recs in the comments.

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First, the milestones: I turned in final edits for Ninety-Eight Sabers. Thanks to Rob Grimoire, my awesome sensitivity consultant, I had plenty of work to do (speaking of him, the Kickstarter for Spacefunk, an anthology of science fiction stories/poems by African and African Diaspora writers, is right here, and I’m stupid excited about it). A few days later, I finished edits for Blood Cypress, coming in 2025 with Raw Dog Screaming Press, then edits for a short story appearing in Undertaker Books’ judicial homicide anthology. WHEW.

^my usual editing position, with Babou.

Then, the slog: Both Rob and my fabulous editor Rebecca Cuthbert are demanding a sequel to Sabers. I’d sort-of-not-really had one in mind, and I made the mistake of mentioning it. So I had to set Bluefeather aside, and now I’m 2 weeks and 20K into a first draft. Still tossing titles around, so we’ll call it Sabers 2.0 for now.

And the great news: Ink Vine will be available on audio any day! Because the novella hangs on a first-person voice, I had to be very selective about my narrator—there’s nothing worse than a bad Southern accent. In the end, my good friend from college agreed to do it. Nikki Lachen has an authentic South Carolina Midlands accent (if you’ve met me, she sounds like me but with a far better reading voice). She did a phenomenal job, and I can’t wait to unleash this version of Ink Vine on the world.

What I’m Reading

Best thing ever: when your friends write awesome books. I never get tired of it, and I never take it for granted.

Just finished David Simms’s Pierce the Veil, a tense psychological horror/thriller that examines what happens after we die (Macabre Ink, July 2024). Simms did a tremendous amount of research on NDEs (near-death experiences) for this novel, and it shows. The book follows Boone, a high school music teacher who dies after plunging into an icy river. A full day later, he’s resurrected with little to no memory of his death.

But plenty of people insist that after a full day, he must remember something about the afterlife. Those people include a dangerous cult of men and women who’ve had NDEs, as well as a fanatical religious organization. They’re all out to get Boone, who’s not only clueless about what happened to him, but also carrying a metric ton of leftover Catholic trauma (and clearly, this book was written by someone who knows what he’s talking about in that regard; this ex-Catholic noticed the authentic details. Namaste, Dave). To survive, Boone will have to evade the fanatics—and remember.

Pierce the Veil is a tense, well-paced book with great characterization; Simms delves into the motives of the villains as well as the protagonist, a trick which makes the final revelations even more devastating. This deft juggling of multiple narratives, in fact, reminded me of Stephen King. This is a book for thriller fans; the action never lets up, and Simms maintains an edge-of-your-seat atmosphere throughout. One of my favorite thrillers since Caleb Stephens's The Girls in the Cabin.

I also just finished Aimee Hardy’s Pocketful of Teeth (Running Wild Press, September 13, 2024), which Kirkus Reviews calls “an absolute must-read”. This Southern Gothic novel of family and loss tells two spiraling narratives. Cat’s returning to her hometown after some kind of tragedy which resulted in the loss of her mother; Eddy’s reading Cat’s story, which her historian-mother left behind after her death.

I love Southern Gothic; Faulkner’s doom-spiraling narrative in Absalom, Absalom! is probably my favorite (sorry, Melville). Pocketful of Teeth is not only spectacularly voiced in Southern vernacular, it also plays with structure in new and surprising ways (footnotes! narrative-within-a-narrative! metatext!). Count me a sucker for books who ask me to reflect on storytelling; this is a great one. Inevitable comparison: if you liked House of Leaves, you’ll love this novel (especially if you want more of a payoff from the footnotes/alternate narrator).

It’s lyrical and atmospheric; it’s dark; it deals with family secrets. Sign me up. And the last page will, as Kirkus says, have your jaw on the ground. This is a doom-spiral that pays off in the most spectacular way. I loved this narrative structure so much that I want the novel in hard copy so I can visualize exactly what Hardy did. Seriously obsessed with this book.

What I’m Listening To

Husband and I saw Cake play Richmond about a week ago, and they’ve still got it. Since then, I’ve been listening to them on repeat, constantly deciding that no, this song is actually my favorite (“Comfort Eagle” to “Meanwhile, Rich James” to “Satan is My Motor” to, currently, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle”). Sabers was born to a soundtrack of Violent Femmes; its sequel is definitely a Cake baby.

What I’m Cooking

I was desperately jonesing for the pistachio cake I used to eat at a now-defunct Cuban restaurant in Columbia, SC. It’s impossible to find pistachio cake anywhere, so I made my own using this recipe. The children were dubious, and I used a Hans-Solo-encased-in-carbonite cake dish, but they loved it in the end.

Recommendation: do not make icing out of sweetened Kool Whip and instant pudding unless you want to die of sugar shock. The kids adored it; Chris and I had stomachaches for an hour afterward. Next time I’ll sub out unsweetened, whipped cream for the Kool Whip. The cake was stellar; however, I’m clearly too old for that kind of icing.

That’s all for now! Catch you next week.

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I was super excited to read Emma E. Murray’s Crushing Snails (Apocalypse Party, out today). I love Murray’s work—When the Devil (Shortwave) was one of my favorite reads this spring.

I DNF’d Crushing Snails at 11%.

This is not a black mark against the book. Five big gold stars.

Crushing Snails is a novel about “burgeoning serial killer,” sixteen-year-old Winnie Campbell. As the description says, “Her father blames her for her mother's death, dotes on her little sister, and executes increasingly cruel punishments meant to humiliate Winnie. As the punishments morph into torture, she begins fantasizing about regaining some semblance of power …”

I didn’t make it to the serial killer part.

Winnie’s abuse comes from a narcissistic (borderline psychotic) father who scapegoats her. She’s subjected to brutal abuse because her little sister makes up lies; she’s forced to clean until her hands blister because that sister spilled milk, and she was blamed. Her little brother expects her to do his homework. Bullies harass her at school. Winnie’s life? It’s straight awful. She doesn’t see a way out, and she wants to die.

Winnie’s voice was so authentic, so raw, and so real that I couldn’t make it past the first few chapters.

Let me explain.

Narcissistic Abuse Is Real

Narcissistic abuse refers to abuse, generally or partially psychological, stemming from a parent with narcissistic tendencies or narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic parents see children not as people, but as props to bolster their self-image. Narcissists, according to the Newport Institute, “can be charming and highly functional … [but] suffer from feelings of superiority and entitlement that demand they be the center of attention. They manipulate others, family members included, to get their needs met, and require excessive admiration.” Narcissists exhibit a stunning lack of empathy, refuse to accept blame, and and refuse to hold themselves accountable.

Narcissistic parents use fear and and manipulation to exert their authority over their children, including ridicule, criticism, and isolation. They bully and gaslight, withdrawing love when their children act in ways they find unacceptable—and children of narcissists know that “acceptable,” to a parent, means “only what makes me look good.” Siblings are often pitted against one another, with one cast as the golden child who can do no wrong, and another castigated as the perpetual scapegoat. Narcissistic parents expect excessive praise and admiration for their parenting, though they also compete with their children. Boundaries are nonexistent.

The father in Crushing Snails is clearly a narcissist, and Winnie’s the family scapegoat: subordinated to her brother and sister, blamed for their misbehavior, punished because her father’s in a bad mood. It’s brutal. It’s honest. Crushing Snails is a deeply real novel, one that grapples with the real ugliness of child abuse.

In other words: Winnie’s voice was so authentic that I had to set down the book. As a survivor of narcissistic parents, I couldn’t stand to continue. Her inner monologue sounded too familiar.

Confronting the Horror of Child Abuse

Abuse like Winnie’s happens every day—physical abuse, but emotional abuse as well.

While my parents’ abuse was primarily emotional (though hitting did happen), like Winnie, I also was scapegoated. If I spilled a drink, my parents screamed in my face: Why are you so clumsy? What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you have any common sense? You’re so useless. My brother’s tattling would bring down the same raft of invective: It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends. No one likes you because you act this way.

My brother made a mess in our room? My fault. My brother and I were fighting? My fault. My parents were angry? My fault, and if I protested, I was punished for lying. As the neurodivergent child in a neurotypical household, I was labeled “weird,” and regularly told “no one will like you if you do x” and “It’s your fault you don’t have friends.”

Like Winnie, I thought there was no way out.

By the time I turned sixteen, I harbored a deep well of rage that occasionally disturbed teachers; when confronted about it, my ensuing flat affect and naked doubt about their kind motivations (I assumed I was being punished) off-put them even more. I didn’t tilt into a killer. But I understand how it happens.

So does Murray, and Crushing Snails utilizes that understanding to brutal and unforgettable effect. It’s real and raw, heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. The subject matter is true horror, not the supernatural kind. It could happen, and that’s what makes the novel so devastating.

Read the Book I Couldn’t Finish

I’d love to delve into more good things about this novel. I can’t, because it shook me so badly I had to set it down. Murray’s known for her stellar command of voice and evocative prose, and Crushing Snails is no exception. It’s a beautiful nightmare, so good I couldn’t finish it. Crushing Snails is so effective at its portrayal of a burgeoning serial killer, and its voice so authentic, that I found it too triggering to continue. I was hearing my own sixteen-year-old inner monologue, long-buried; I couldn’t stand to continue. This novel is real. It’s harrowing.

Pick up your copy now.

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Since I missed StokerCon due to illness—think a cold that wouldn’t go away—I’ve been busy, busy, busy. Here’s a brief rundown of the news in Casa del Broadbent:

Kitties!

When we met, my husband had a raging allergy to cats—think eye blisters like something out of Exodus. But it’s waned. We were thinking about cats anyway, so when I had to miss Stoker, we took the leap and adopted two black kittens, AKA Spotsylvania Dumpster Gremlins. They’re brothers, and while their names were Fester and Gomez when we adopted them, they’ve changed to Navidson (Navy) and Babou (named for the ocelot in Archer).

No one in my immediate family has ever owned cats; my husband was surprised to realize they didn’t say “purr” rather than actually purring. We definitely didn’t expect a house of die-hard dog people to change into cat people overnight. Navy and Babou like to sit in my lap while I write; Navy demands that my fourteen-year-old wrap him in a blanket and tote him around like a baby. They’re absolutely delightful, whether they’re in demon mode or sleeping mode (generally, their two state of existence).

I’ll spare you rhapsodies over my cats’ general awesomeness. Instead, here’s Babou.

What I’m Reading

Kate Maruyama’s The Collective is out! Order it and get installments in your inbox. Here’s my blurb:

“A horror of Hollywood gone rotten, a siren-seductive tale of fame and hope, desire and dreams, wrapped in a lushly-realized SoCal setting. You’ll smell the sea breeze and the smog as you move through backlot deals and secret studios. A beautiful nightmare of a tale from an LA insider. More, please!”

Jennifer Barnes, editor at Raw Dog Screaming Press, sent me a copy of EV Knight’s Children of Demeter, a cult horror novel I devoured in two days. Wonderful characterization, super creepy, with a twist I didn’t see coming. Loved this one!

I also finished L.S. Johnson’s The House at Harkworth Hall, the first of her Chase & Daniels series. I absolutely loved this historical horror novella! Set in Georgian England, it has shades of Austen … until it goes sapphic. I need this series straight in the vein.

I’m in the process of finishing Blackwater, by Michael McDowell. I bought the omnibus edition from Valancourt Books (local to RVA!), and it’s just as amazing as I thought it would be. McDowell is a genius of the Southern Gothic, and it shows. I love the slow creep of the speculative in these novellas; the Caskey family is vividly realized and relatable … until the monster shows up. Amazing tale!

I also finished up This Side of Paradise again, by one of my all-time favorites, F. Scott Fitzgerald, then rounded my literary fix off with Faulkner’s The Unvanquished, which may be one of my two favorite Faulkner works. Currently tearing through W. J. Cash’s The Mind of the South at the same time as I read Blackwater. You can’t really get a better combo …

I have several ARCs to get through in the next few weeks that I’m super excited about. They include Rebecca Cuthbert’s Self-Made Monsters, Aimee Hardy’s A Pocketful of Teeth, and Nicole Willson’s Keeper of the Key. If I have time, I’m hoping to pick up Eugen Bacon’s new collection, A Place Between Waking and Forgetting—if you’re not familiar with her afro-futurism, you should be—and EV Knight’s The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel, both from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

Publishing Deals

I signed a four-book deal with Undertaker Books for Ninety-Eight Sabers (November 2024), The Swamp Child (October 2025), Bluefeather (February 2026), and a rewrite of my novelette, Naked & Famous (ELJ Editions, 2023) into a novella. That’s a lot of books! Editor Rebecca digs into Sabers this weekend, and I already have one blurb. More on the way! Undertaker published Ink Vine this April, and they’ve been amazing in every way, so I’m really excited stay with them.

I also signed a deal with Sley House Publishing for Breaking Neverland, a science fiction novel set in the same world as my three-story arc in Hyphenpunk (you can read the stories here, here, and here). I’m thrilled to be working with Jeremy Billingsley and the rest of the Sley House crew.

Penumbric Speculative Fiction Mag also accepted Until I Return to the Earth That Made Me as part of its “Best of Penumbric April 2023-April 2024” volume. I’m over the moon to find myself among names like Christina Sng!

I also have an upcoming story that ties into Sabers in the works with another press. It’s yet untitled (working with the editor on that!), and I was reading Absalom, Absalom! (again) when I wrote it, so I hope y’all enjoy some Faulknerian prose.

Speaking of tie-ins, my short story “Swamp Girl,” a prequel to Ink Vine, is currently available on Bookfunnel. And we might have a surprise for you over at Undertaker when it comes to the one-year anniversary edition of Ink Vine. Stay tuned to see what brilliant editor T.J. Price and I cook up!

We also have an audiobook of Ink Vine on the way. Southern accented narrators are hard to find, so I tapped an experienced friend from college to do the narration. I’ve known Nikki since I was eighteen, and I’m beyond thrilled that she agreed to voice Emerald. That Midlands South Carolina accent of hers is perfect for Emerald, and despite requests for me to do it myself, Nikki does a much better job. We’re in the final stages of approving audio, and it should be available soon.

Until next time, keep reading!

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(Note: not the actual cover)The one sentence pitch for Ninety-Eight Sabers

What if The Royal Tenenbaums took place on Skinwalker Ranch—but a plantation?

The blurb

The sprawling Nesmith clan helped found Lower Congaree, South Carolina. Problem: they’re slightly nuts. Second problem: their land is cursed, or something. Third, fourth, fifth problems: Their father/uncle was abusive; he’s dead; and only heirs who attend the funeral will inherit.

But when Truluck Nesmith suffered his eventually-fatal stroke, his oldest son Ash turned the haunted plantation wedding destination, which supports and employs their vast clan of cousins, into the site of an enormously successful reality show. Ash’s brother Sullivan and cousins Rhys and Olivia aren’t happy about it. But Rhys has student loans to pay. Sullivan and Olivia want recompense for their childhood. And their fifth cousin Henry was never supposed to come to Cypress Bend, much less stick around.

Forced to tolerate the gross intrusion of California producers, grip guys, and cameras, toting a metric ton of childhood trauma, the cousins have plenty of animosity for each other, along with a strong aversion for the paranormal shenanigans of their childhood home. But when the funeral goes fucktangular and the cousins are cut out of the will, Sullivan, Rhys, and Olivia are offered the deal of a lifetime. To take it, they’ll have to become the witchy Kardashians with a Southern drawl. They hate it. But as weird tumbles into weirder, they’ll have to come together as a family. Or else.

The inspiration for Sabers

Short answer:

I watch a lot of The Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch and thought, “wow, the concept of operating a plantation as a wedding destination is racist/offensive/bizarre enough. What if it was haunted?”

Long answer:

This is a true story.

In the not-so-distant past, an archivist in an unnamed Southern state found out the State Archives was junking 200 Confederate sabers. Offended, he absconded with them all. These rusty sabers were festooned through his whole house, including the bedrooms. Clearly, I had to steal this story.

Longer answer:

South Carolina has a long history of the bizarre and macabre. On the eve of secession, Charleston unionist James Louis Petigru called the state “too small for a Republic, and too large an insane asylum.” This is our unofficial state motto. The real one is “Dum spiro spero,” literally translated to “While I breathe, I hope,” and figuratively to “I tilt at windmills on a regular and persistent basis.”

We’re a banana republic masquerading as a state, really.

They always tell you to write what you know. Maybe luckily, or not, I’m intimately acquainted with a place where tapwater tastes like moss. BBQ barns fly Confederate flags; the postal service is spotty, and our senior senator’s a notable pool shark. He used to eat dinner at one of my bestie’s houses, where he found the hump in their table immediately. The former senior senator used to eat dinner there too, before he croaked. He was a Dixiecrat. Our first apartment was at the corner where a drunk driver killed his daughter, and that’s how we gave people directions to our house. “We’re the first house up from the corner where Nancy Thurmond got hit,” we’d say.

“Oh, there,” friends would reply, though Nancy Thurmond died in the arms of the South Carolina Lieutenant Governor—who happened to be passing by—years and years before.

You’d write about it, too, if only because that one downtown gas station kept a tiger. Though it was before my time, Happy the Tiger eventually became the first animal at Riverbanks Zoo, and my kids spent their formative years climbing over his statue.

Recently, state Senator Dick Harpootlian, known locally as “Poot-Poot” and Alex Murdaugh’s trial attorney, gave a speech in which he informed the General Assembly, multiple times, that if concealed weapons were allowed without a permit, the senators themselves should “strap one on.”

He knew exactly what he was saying.

We lost our governor once. He returned from what his staff hurriedly claimed was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” (they couldn’t find him either, and the FBI was worried he’d been kidnapped by a foreign power) to announce at a tearful press conference that he’d “spent five days crying in Argentina” with his mistress, a former Miss Universe. He apologized to his wife, children, the Great State of South Carolina, and the Lord.

A passing statehouse tour happened by. A Black woman stopped and watched the entire press conference, standing behind him, in full view of the media, wearing a shark-like grin.

She is my hero.

The Reverend E.X. Slave set fire to the Confederate flag in front of the Statehouse while wearing a black Santa suit (not red, just black). Like Wu Tang clan at the MTV Video Music Awards, he said he “did it for the children.”

The police peppered sprayed him. It blew back in their faces.

Judge Alex Sanders preserved the now-national park in Congaree. He said he had fake Confederate cannonballs waiting to seed the ground in case appeals to environmentalism didn’t work.

He was serious.

Westinghouse had a leak and spilled radiative chemicals in the Congaree Creek. Since they didn’t tell anyone, I swam in it, with my kids, a few months after.

The University of South Carolina voted to make its mascot the Gamecock after Revolutionary War general Thomas Sumter. They did so because they wanted to yell “GO COCKS!” at football games.

This tradition persists.

Thanksgiving is a high holy day not for the feast, but for the Carolina-Clemson game.

The state government still celebrates Confederate Memorial Day.

And on and on and on.

Here’s a way to understand the Gothic at the heart of the South

Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a classic for a reason, but it’s a linchpin to understanding Southern literature, and not for the reasons you think. Central to any understanding of the South is the lingering morass of history, our institutional racism, corruption, cronyism, and Lost Cause-ism. We can recite it like a nursery rhyme. But there’s a detail in that story that shows the effect all of them have when taken in total.

The tired family stops for lunch at one of those ubiquitous roadside BBQ barns. They have checked tablecloths, buffet-style service, and kitschy signs like “If You Can’t Stand The Heat, Get Out Of The Kitchen” and “God Don’t Make No Junk.” The kids eat outside. They watch the monkey in the trees, and the owner tells them about a recently escaped gang of murderers.

Did you catch it? There’s a fucking monkey in the tree. The monkey belongs to the owner. He’s a resident of the BBQ Barn. The monkey’s presence is not rationalized, and the narrative continues. You want to tell about the South? There it is: the monkey at the BBQ barn. It’s that shimmer of lunacy. When you live under the yoke of insanity for long, it becomes part of the scenery. The governor goes missing. Alex Murdaugh fakes his own suicide. Lady Chablis powders her face in her own cocaine and steps onstage.

If you find yourself paralyzed between laughter, rage, and weeping, the proper response is, “Bless your heart.”

So What’s Real in Sabers?

If it claims to be actual history and didn’t walk out of time portal, it happened.

What about the brutal legacy of racism?

It’s real and it’s ugly.

This includes the story, which I handed to Sullivan Nesmith, about a famous Irish poet. Somehow, in graduate school, my husband and I were nominated to chauffeur Eavan Boland. Two miles from Columbia International Airport, we came upon Maurice’s Bessinger’s Piggy Park, a barbecue complex flying an enormous Confederate flag. Boland was appalled, and we were forced to explain that not only did people still eat there (I never did, despite its ubiquity, and I remain proud), but that Maurice only dropped his refusal to integrate when the Supreme Court ruled against his Biblical defense of slavery.

I also took a college class in which Cleveland Sellers spoke. The current president of Voorhees College was shot during the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968 (please read the link, which explains this forgotten chapter in American Civil Rights history far better than I could). He was subsequently jailed, incarcerated on Death Row, and only pardoned for allegedly inciting a riot twenty-five years later. I know people whose relatives were killed during that massacre, during which the National Guard opened fire on college students.

My best friend knew Clemanta C. Pinckney, who was brutally murdered by Dylann Roofe during the shooting of Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston—he had lunch with Rev. Pinckney the week before he was killed. Roofe went to school with one of my former students. And before he perpetrated that hate crime, he cased several places in the Columbia area. This includes Finley Park, where I often took my sons to play. Allegedly, he was targeting the local Black homeless population.

My husband taught at the school Roofe’s sister attended when she as expelled for making racially motivated threats of violence.

When the good reverend burnt that flag, a passing motorist shouted, “String him up!”

This stuff is chokingly, terrifyingly real. Some people there believe Black people should still be enslaved and/or actually, literally second-class citizens. For all its humorous lunacy, for all its Gothic bizarrity, this is the central fact of the state’s existence. We live in the shadow of the Lost Cause: Dum spiro spero.

Sabers releases November 29th from Undertaker Books.

It’s already gone to at least one blurber, as well as the capable hands of editor Rebecca Cuthbert. It made my best friend laugh, as well as weep. Keep checking this substack for updates, and in the meantime, write on!

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