Mark Wheaton's Blog

So, this is fun.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a note from Tony Jones, the Senior Librarian at Emanuel School, London, about WHO HAUNTS YOU. He’d read it, enjoyed it, and bought a copy for the school, saying in a later e-mail he was going to test it on “my keener/strong readers and see how they take it.” He also mentioned that he reviews YA horror for the Scottish horror site, The Ginger Nuts of Horror, would be reviewing it there, and that it was in the running for their Best of the Year list.

And, well, it made it in - yay!.

And not just in, but alongside such cool and terrifying and badass books as:

Kristy Acevedo's THE WARNING
Linda Cheng's GORGEOUS GRUESOME FACES
Darcy Coates's WHERE HE CAN'T FIND YOU (hell yeah, Darcy Coates!)
Katya De Becerra's WHEN GHOSTS CALL US HOME
Gigi Griffis's THE WICKED UNSEEN
Jessica Lewis's MONSTROUS
Lisa Richardson's CHANNEL FEAR
Rebecca Schaeffer's CITY OF NIGHTMARES
Deidre Sullivan's WISE CREATURES
Teri Terry's SCARE ME

I mean, that's a helluva list full of heavy hitters. To say I'm thrilled to be included is an understatement (especially being on an indie horror label next to all the big guns like Delacorte, Macmillan, and EMILY ETERNAL'S UK home of Hodder).

As I've mentioned elsewhere, one of the best parts of WHY's release have been the notes I've gotten from teachers and librarians telling me that they dug the book and have added it to their classroom or school libraries. That's the highest praise I could imagine. As the son of an English teacher, as a kid who grew up hiding out in school libraries (seriously, through grad school - hell, I still write in libraries to this day), there's no better way of getting books into the hands of the readers I had in mind when I wrote WHY.

If you click the link above, you can read Tony's words yourself (fine, fine, here's another link to it - twist my arm), but there was one other bit that rang out to me:

"Pulling in at around 150 pages it is perfect for teens who do not like long books..."

Another reason I was glad to be with an indie publisher that let me come out with a shorter piece. Viva, Off Limits Press and my amazing editor/publisher, Waylon Jordan! So, if you're a student at Emanuel School, Battersea, London, look for a copy of WHY near you.



All right, a second quick thing - I love Locus Magazine. It's been around forever, it covers EVERYTHING, and you don't get to be a 30-TIME Hugo Award winning publication for nothing. I've always wanted to get something reviewed in their pages. This finally came to pass with WHY.

And, phew, they dug it.

Also yes, I have like six copies of that issue now.

You can read their full review, by contributing editor, Colleen Mondor, is ONLINE HERE

A sample:

"Ultimately, Who Haunts You has an enormously compelling protagonist in a narrative that escalates tension with every page and Wheaton keeps read­ers on the edge of their seats as the novel careens to its startling, and satisfying, conclusion..."

All of that to say, if you haven't picked up WHO HAUNTS YOU based on my own desperate banging on the past two months, this blog post serves to provide the viewpoint of two others so if you're feeling it, here's a purchase link to WHY.

Just in time for Halloween, one of my favorite stories I've ever gotten to write lands in Dark Peninsula Press's third issue of THE CELLAR DOOR (this one subtitled DARK HIGHWAYS and focused on horror out on the road), edited by Aric Sundquist, who has now edited three of my stories, including the former East Germany-set, GHOST FOREST (in CELLAR DOOR #1) and the Arkansas-to-Brooklyn, livestock veterinarian takes revenge tale, KILLER OF HOGS (in VIOLENT VIXENS, an anthology of grindhouse horror - the story would go on to be long-listed by Ellen Datlow for best horror short story of the year that year!).

If you want to skip all this preamble and just buy CELLAR DOOR #3 for the low, low price of $2.99, CLICK ANYWHERE IN THIS SENTENCE

As always, Aric has assembled a murderer's row of talented authors for this anthology. Their tales include:

S.A.L.E. by Darren Todd
LAST FREQUENCY by Mary Rajotte
TWELVE MILES, TWO HOURS by Scotty Milder (I think this is my fifth or sixth TOC I've shared with Milder?!)
LIGHTS OUT, EVERYTHING OFF by Christi Nogle
PURGATORY'S PARADISE by Scott McCloskey
UNWANTED by S.R. Miller
THE FIELD TRIP by Matt Neil Hill
RIDERS ON THE STORM by Charlotte Vale

and then my MASTER OF THE HOUSE, pulling up the rear.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE is, well, about a lot of things but starts off with a small road crew laying a new stretch of highway in the desert between Barstow and Victorville, California in the late 1950s to replace worn out sections of Route 66 and make good on Eisenhower's promise of a national interstate highway system. It's kind of a story about who we were then and what we've become today. I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, I don't have a release date for a next story so this'll be it for me for a while. Happy Halloween and enjoy MASTER OF THE HOUSE!

I mean, it’s probably wise that they didn’t go with my original title, JASON VOORHEES: AUTISM SUPERSTAR, but hey – the third in my series of articles about neurodivergent representation in media went up today on CrimeReads. I had an article on there back in ’19 when EMILY ETERNAL hit (Why We've Decided That The Machines Want to Kill Us "[Machines and A.I.] don’t hate us. The people behind the data they’re using do.”), so it was fun to come up with a new story to support the release of WHO HAUNTS YOU.

The other two articles, in case you missed them are:

On Writing Neurodivergent Characters for Writer's Digest.

The Spectrum of Holly Gibney for the Off Limits Press blog.

And that’s a wrap for me on WHO HAUNTS YOU promotion, I think? (I hope?) The Goodreads Giveaway ends this weekend (you've got about 36 hours left to enter!) and I’ve got a whole box of WHY paperbacks ready to ship next week.

Then, on to October and the release of THE CELLAR DOOR #3: DARK HIGHWAYS from Dark Peninsula Press and edited by Aric Sundquist (my THIRD time working with Aric and Dark Pen!), featuring my brand new novelette, MASTER OF THE HOUSE.

Until then...

So, with WHO HAUNTS YOU hitting this past weekend from Off Limits Press (in paperback, eBook, and on audio, as narrated by Annalee Scott - get y'er copy today), I penned a series of articles about neurodivergence in media, the first two of which have already hit online.

The first, for the Off Limits Press blog, is THE SPECTRUM OF HOLLY GIBNEY and goes long into how Stephen King's popular neurodivergent detective character, Holly Gibney, has evolved between the page, the audiobook performances by Will Patton, and then on television, as played by Justine Lupe (MR. MERCEDES) and Cynthia Erivo (THE OUTSIDER), the latter two both having spoken about their attempts to present autism with authenticity. With King's sixth Holly Gibney story, HOLLY, hitting this week, it felt like a good time to look at both the character but also how King's work itself has evolved over the decades when including neurodivergent characters, from Duddits and John Coffey and Tom Cullen to even a tossed off remark about Danny Torrance in THE SHINING.



The second article, for Writer's Digest, is ON WRITING NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS. As neurodivergence is presented more and more often in media, it's a sort of plea into the wind to avoid perpetuating tropes and stereotypes that have so often been associated with neurodivergent characters in the past, particularly ones that become culturally overwhelming as with RAIN MAN ("Yep, that must be what savantism is all about!" - an entire generation), and instead focus on more dimensional, authentic presentations in which folks aren't just the sum of their visible, neurodivergence-related traits and characteristics.

There's one more article coming after these (about my friend and yours, Jason Voorhees) and then, happily, I will hibernate from self-promotion for a while.

With only two weeks to go before WHO HAUNTS YOU hits from Off Limits Press (on 9.2.23), I'm here to unveil not only new posters - one set from indie comics writer/artist, Carlton "Hermit Broth" Stevens, and another from my daughter, Rowan Wheaton (!) - but also a Goodreads giveaway of FIFTEEN signed copies of the paperback.

If you would like to enter the giveaway CLICK THIS LINK and hit the ENTER GIVEAWAY tab. It's US only and you've got 27 days left, so...good luck!

And now, the posters. The artist Carlton Stevens, who I've worked with for years and years and years dating back to my BONES stories, was one of the first readers of WHO HAUNTS YOU and provided this blurb:

“Mark Wheaton is a master at what I call comfortable dread, and Who Haunts You is no different. The book is atmospheric and fast-paced, but still meant to be intermissioned every few hours for a hot chocolate while admiring a thunderstorm. He creates the homecooking of writing, and the story mixes that with an obvious passion for understanding neurodivergency. Who Haunts You will open anyone's eyes to what it means to be truly autistic.”

It's not only one of my favorite blurbs ever, it also just shows how much he understands what I was going for with the story. He expanded on that even further with these amazing three posters (which I'm blowing up, printing, and framing in my office):







And these are from my 14-year-old daughter, Rowan Wheaton, who makes better posters and graphic design stuff on Canva in five minutes than I could given two or three weeks. They took a bunch of blurbs and recent quotes and banged this out on a laptop in between study sessions.





Anyway, I thought I'd share? Again, if you're interested in entering the Goodreads giveaway, HERE'S THAT LINK AGAIN!

If you have the scratch sitting around and want to guarantee you'll get your copy in a couple of weeks, you can pre-order the book HERE.

Delighted to report that my brand new novelette (apparently, that's what you call long short stories between 7,500 and 19,000 words these days?!), RUPERT'S NECROPOLIS, hits TODAY in the latest from editor Staci Layne Wilson's popular ROCK & ROLL NIGHTMARES series, 28. You've heard of the notorious 27 Club, right? The one whose membership is made up by rockers who passed away in their 27th year? Well, Staci came up with a killer anthology idea - what would've happened to these people if they'd survived to see 28?

Oh, and make it horror! Here's the full TOC:

Robert Johnson - "Life & Soul" by C.S. Dines
Brian Jones - "Sod It" by Curt Lambert
Janis Joplin - "Janis from Port Arthur, Texas" by Sebastian Corbascio
Jimi Hendrix - "Oliver Green Haze" by Graydon Schlichter
Jim Morrison - "127 Fascination" by Staci Layne Wilson
Kurt Cobain - "Box-Shaped Heart" by LeeAnne Rowe & Dr. Oolong Seemingly
Amy Winehouse - "I Don't Wanna Go to Remus" by Staci Layne Wilson
Rupert Brooke - "Rupert's Necropolis" by Me

If this already sounds like your thing, HERE'S THAT ORDER LINK.

Honestly, it's one of my favorite anthology calls ever as it's so original and out there, so I wanted to do something outside the box and asked Staci if I could do the war poet, Rupert Brooke, who died of sepsis aboard ship on the eve of the disastrous Gallipoli landings in World War I. Not only was Brooke one of the most read poets of his time, particularly after his death when his poems were presented as a martyr's gallant propaganda, he later influenced a number of rock musicians including Fleetwood Mac (their song "Dust," which opens with Brooke's poem, also entitled "Dust," from 1910) and Pink Floyd ("The Gunner's Dream" borrows "And the corner of some foreign field...'" from Brooke's fifth and most famous war sonnet, "The Soldier," from 1914.

So, what WOULD Brooke have done should he have survived his brush with death sepsis and returned to England, particularly given that his brother was brutally killed on the Western Front on seven weeks later? Would he have returned to the war to fight on? Or would he have come to a new understanding of the madness into which he was inspiring tens of thousands of young men to leap and perhaps even turn to killings of his own? (hint: I'd suggest the latter)

One last time, HERE'S THAT ORDER LINK and enjoy...

Still reading? Okay, Brooke's work is in the public domain, so as a bonus, here are a couple of his (wonderful) poems:

HAUNTINGS

In the grey tumult of these after years
Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part;
And less-than-echoes of remembered tears
Hush all the loud confusion of the heart;
And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of mirth and crying
Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, --
Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying,
Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.

So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,
Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,
Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,
And light on waving grass, he knows not when,
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.

DEAD MEN'S LOVE

There was a damned successful Poet;
There was a Woman like the Sun.
And they were dead. They did not know it.
They did not know their time was done.
They did not know his hymns
Were silence; and her limbs,
That had served Love so well,
Dust, and a filthy smell.

And so one day, as ever of old,
Hands out, they hurried, knee to knee;
On fire to cling and kiss and hold
And, in the other's eyes, to see
Each his own tiny face,
And in that long embrace
Feel lip and breast grow warm
To breast and lip and arm.

So knee to knee they sped again,
And laugh to laugh they ran, I'm told,
Across the streets of Hell . . .
And then
They suddenly felt the wind blow cold,
And knew, so closely pressed,
Chill air on lip and breast,
And, with a sick surprise,
The emptiness of eyes.

And finally, the fourth of his famed WAR SONNETS: THE DEAD

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

Edited by Waylon Jordan and with a cover by Adrian Medina of Fabled Beast Design, my first YA horror tale, WHO HAUNTS YOU, arrives this September from Off Limits Press (eBook Pre-Order Link). What’s it about? Glad you asked! Here’s the breakdown from Kirkus Reviews:

Featuring an autistic protagonist, this YA horror novel revolves around a high school senior who investigates the deaths of three of her classmates only to become entangled in a deadly mystery.

Rebecca “Bex” Koeltl is a loner, struggling daily to figure out who she is and where her future lies after graduation. And although her neurodiversity has posed problems in the past with her mother and older sister, Glory, her time with therapist Dr. Lesli Tamar has been nothing short of “life-changing.” But when seniors begin dying in notable ways—track star and academic standout Yunwen Lei runs off a cliff; basketball player Darrell Anolik is killed in a car accident; and introvert Oswaldo Husti perishes in a fire—Bex begins finding disturbing connections between the students. An adept hacker and tenacious investigator, she uncovers stunning revelations and comes up with a theory that seems difficult to believe. Someone has made these teenagers believe that they’re being haunted by long-dead (and nonexistent) family members and terrified them to such an extent that their fears killed them. But the question Bex asks herself is “Why?” Is it because someone in the highly competitive school wants to be valedictorian, or is the motivation much more sinister? When Bex begins to have seemingly supernatural visitations from a great aunt who never existed, she realizes that she is the murderer’s next victim.

That seems about right? And to convince you even further, here are a few blurbs:

“WHO HAUNTS YOU is the first book I’ve read that not only delivers an unsettling supernatural mystery, but also paints a fully realized, wholly moving portrait of the autistic teenage experience. A vital book that will make any neurodivergent young adult feel seen, heard, and understood.” – Craig Perry, producer, FINAL DESTINATION

"I loved it. Wheaton has built a buzzsaw of a supernatural thriller here - scary, surprisingly emotional, and loaded with enough twists to keep you guessing till the final page. It's an all killer no filler thriller." – James Vanderbilt, screenwriter, ZODIAC, SCREAM V-VI

“An utterly readable teen murder tale with an intriguing twist and an endearing hero. Reminiscent of Lois Duncan’s classic suspense novel I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER…the story’s narrative strengths include Wheaton’s ability to weave together relentless tension with an impressively knotty mystery…the book will keep readers guessing who the killer is until the very end. Bex’s dry sense of humor—particularly when dealing with adversity—makes her a character whom readers will root for.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Mark Wheaton is a master at what I call comfortable dread, and WHO HAUNTS YOU is no different. The book is atmospheric and fast-paced, but still meant to be intermissioned every few hours for a hot chocolate while admiring a thunderstorm. He creates the homecooking of writing, and the story mixes that with an obvious passion for understanding neurodivergency. WHO HAUNTS YOU will open anyone's eyes to what it means to be truly autistic.” – Carlton “Hermit Broth” Stevens, author, CULINARY BOXER FRANKENSTEIN

“An absorbing and original supernatural mystery, written by a wonderfully talented author. Highly recommended!” – Aric Sundquist, author of SERIOUS APPLICANTS ONLY and THE END OF AUTUMN

Anyway, here’s that (eBook Pre-Order Link) again with a paperback one to follow. Annalee Scott, who so wonderfully narrated the WRAITH audiobook, is back to tackle WHO HAUNTS YOU and I can’t wait to hear where she takes her performance this time. More to come and look for WHO HAUNTS YOU on Sept. 2nd!

So, this is kind of great - Rock & Roll Nightmares owner/founder/editor/writer Staci Layne Wilson assembled a rock-themed, charity cocktail book featuring a slew of fancy drink recipes contributed by all kinds of rockers and random horror folks. I got an early look at it and it's no joke. Some drinks are old favorites but then there are a TON of exotic ideas and spins on old classics that I, for one, can't wait to try, many with wild stories about how they came to be from the rockers themselves.

I'm one of the "random horror folks" who Staci asked to contribute, so I sent a take on the Aviation, the great gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, and crème de violette combo cocktail, which I dubbed the "Flying High Again" after the Ozzy Osbourne song (yeah, I kinda flipped when I saw that it was in the same pages as cocktails contributed by not one but two of Ozzy's former collaborators and bandmates, including Phil Soussan, who co-wrote my big fave, "Shot in the Dark," and Bob Daisley, who actually co-wrote "Flying High Again" - lol). As these things are passed around and around, I should add that the recipe actually came to me from producer, Charles Pugliese, who has his own rocker connection, having been a producer on Todd Haynes's "I'm Not There."


According to The Real Mixology website, the aviation was created by the head bartender at the Hotel Wallick in New York, Hugo Ensslin, who published the recipe in his own "Recipes for Mixed Drinks" which hit in 1916. A later recipe book, "Savoy Cocktail Book" by Harry Craddock, dropped the crème de violette and increased the gin, which for me is not only a sin but alters its distinctive purple color (see my snap above)!

The anthology benefits the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which "provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet while facing physical or mental health issues, disability, or age-related problems."



Anyway, recipe contributors include folks from bands as varied as KISS (Tommy Thayer!), Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Quiet Riot, GWAR, The Ventures (Staci's father is the late, great "Ventures" co-founder, Don Wilson - she directed the Ventures doc, "The Ventures: Stars on Guitars"), Los Straitjackets, Ice Nine Kills, Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Doobie Brothers, then solo folks like Suzi Quatro and Billy Bob Thornton, so if you're into fancy (and not so fancy - Thornton's is a combo of tons of pineapple and gallons of vodka!) cocktails or know someone who is, check out this book:

CLICK THIS LINK FOR COCKTAIL GREATNESS

Now that I made my own to post up the above photo, time to dive back in and see which ones to try next!

Not sure which is cooler, that FIVE stories from Dark Peninsula Press's VIOLENT VIXENS anthology (edited by, well, the clearly great-at-editing-anthologies Aric Sundquist) made Ellen Datlow's long list for Best Horror of 2022 or that Datlow not only read one of my odd stories but also apparently liked it.

The VIOLENT VIXENS stories that made the cut include:

Matt Neil Hill, THE PARTS THAT HURT ME THE MOST
Gwendolyn Kiste, SISTER GLITTER BLOOD
Sarah Read, BLOOD BON SECOURS (a personal fave of mine)
Buck Weiss, THE DRESSMAKER
Mark Wheaton, KILLER OF HOGS

KILLER OF HOGS concerns a livestock veterinarian from rural Arkansas who, after discovering that the murderer of both her sister and mother is genetically linked to a single, Brooklyn-based crime family, heads to New York to kill the entire clan in revenge.

You can check out the long, looooong list here which likely includes several of y'er faves: Ellen Datlow's Recommendations for Best Horror #14-Long List

And if'n this has you interested in checking out VIOLENT VIXENS, you can pick up your copy AT THIS LINK RIGHT C'HERE

Happy Halloween - muahahahahaha!

Just in time to finish up the Spooky Season (not that it could ever really be over), Fedowar Press is releasing the second volume in their CAMP SLASHER LAKE series, edited by D.W. Hitz, which they describe as a tribute to the glorious slasher movies of the 1980s. It includes my tale, ASH WEDNESDAY, as well as several other stories. Here's the full TOC:

Evisceration Liberation by Jay Bower
Disassembler 3: The Revenge Of Billy Burns by Justin Cawthorne
Fat Fran by Kay Hanifen
Custer's Last Stand by D.W. Hitz
He Hunts at Night in the Boneyard Bog by Brett Mitchell Kent
Borrowed Symbols by Aaron E. Lee
Father's Day by Kevin McHugh
Skulls on the Shelf by Carl R. Moore
Dirty Little Family Secrets by Daniel R. Robichaud
The Gospel According to Teddy by Darren Todd

For me, I wanted to write a horror-crime story inspired by some of my favorite slasher movies of the 1980s, specifically those that take place in an urban setting (a'la, say, early Abel Ferrara movies like DRILLER KILLER and FEAR CITY), rather than a camp and, luckily, Fedowar was on board! ASH WEDNESDAY takes place during the days leading up to Fat Tuesday during New Orleans' 1985 Carnival season and follows a low-level French Quarter bagman, Frenchy Marquette, as he's tasked with hunting down a ferocious serial killer threatening to take a bite out of that year's biggest tourist draw. As a Gulf Coaster who spent an inordinate amount of time in New Orleans growing up and who is obsessed with the heights of corruption scaled by Louisiana politicians in the '80s, I welcomed the chance to write not just a short story but a novelette I hope does not only the place justice but also the era.

To check it out, CLICK HERE

Anyway, have a Happy Halloween and enjoy ASH WEDNESDAY!