Tenebrous080: Kiss My Astronaut

I wrote this in one sitting, please clap.

Oct 24, 2024

Hey Ho Tenebrous Cult!

I just typed and deleted an extended rant about Twitter—if you’re remotely active there, you already get it and you don’t need me slapping you across the face with that site’s complete and utter downfall. I’ll spare y’all the vitriol and simply say that we’re cycling toward “Updates Only” status on Twitter; if you want to find us being (marginally) more active, Bluesky and Instagram are your best bets. And of course, you can always come hang out with us in our Discord server.

A side effect of attending such soul-fulfilling, organic flesh-and-blood endeavors like HPLFF the other week is that it makes social media engagement feel downright excruciating by comparison. There’s just nothing like talking books + horror in person with people. Before we started doing this, I don’t think either Alex or I realized how much pleasure we’d derive from the blissful exhaustion of blathering excitedly about the ins and outs of indie publishing. We muse, often and wistfully, of a future where we aren’t beholden to social media; where the real conversations happen at Ghoulish Fest or Void Con or Scarelastic Book Fair, where we get to direct our energies toward The Good Work™.

We’re also aware that this isn’t a reality that everyone is able to share in, in a world still in the throes of a pandemic. We are privileged to be able to do this. And until someone drops a Scrooge McDuck-style sack of riches and a top-tier distribution deal into our laps, no strings attached—currently taking offers on both of those things!—we’re just gonna keep doin’ what we do; and that’ll do us just fine for now.

Anyway! News:

We’re Great Big Liars: One More Signing Announcement for 2025

We moved some schedule stuff around and now we can announce next year’s for-real-final Tenebrous title:

It’s no surprise that every book we publish has to be loved to the goddamn bone by both Alex and me. But there’s usually at least a bit of back-and-forth…not bartering, necessarily; let’s call it a weighing of the scales. And one of us usually has to wait on the other to read the thing that we’ve fallen madly in love with; rarely do our schedules sync up enough that we’re reading the same thing at approximately the same time.

With DEAR STUPID PENPAL, it did.

Actual conversation (more or less):
Alex: PENPAL—yeah?
Matt: Hell yeah.

Done.

DEAR STUPID PENPAL is funny and wrenching and has at least three moments of completely discombobulating “what the f&%k”-edness where the bottom of your stomach will drop out. It has the best narrator voice I’ve read in forever. I want to punch that wise-ass astronaut’s teeth out and buy him multiple rounds of drinks all at once. It comes out next November which…isn’t that soon, really, but once you’ve read it, you’re gonna realize that time really is relative.

So, this is what Tenebrous circa 2025 looks like now:

Two novels; three novellas; two novelettes in the form of SPLIT SCREAM; one story collection; the third volume of BRAVE NEW WEIRD, showcasing indie publishing’s Best Weird Fiction, and several issues of THE SKULL & LAUREL.

Cerebral sci-fi and gruesome body horror. Big budget supernatural thriller vibes rubbing shoulders with sharp Occult stabs and some of the craziest goddamn tales we’ve ever published (welcome back, Val, yes of course you can go and play with the other publishers, as long as you always bring your Weirdest children home).

Say, it’s about time to start tying some pretty pictures to all the pretty (and pretty gruesome) books coming soon from all those pretty faces all in a row up there, yeah? How about a…

…COVER ART REVEAL??

Here’s your first look at Cristina Bencina’s incredible art for Koji A. Dae’s Black Mirror-esque Weird Sci-Fi novel, CASUAL:

About CASUAL:

Valya’s neural implant is amazing.
CASUAL managed her depression and anxiety, stabilized her mood, and helped her get pregnant; but new laws forbid her from using the device when she's sole caregiver for her infant, so Valya needs to detox before giving birth. The full-blown panic attacks have her considering a controversial clinical trial that would place a tandem implant in her unborn baby and allow Valya to keep hers active. Her only options are to attempt solo parenting without CASUAL, or install a minimally tested device in her vulnerable child.
CASUAL is a stark and cutting glance at a near future that looks uncannily like our present, exploring themes of bodily autonomy and the struggle for mental health in a world increasingly divided.

CASUAL is out February 10, 2025. We’ll be opening preorders for it in a month or so, right around when we start talking about next year’s book club subscriptions. Nothing’s set in stone yet, but I think we’ve got a couple fun exclusives for upcoming subscribers. More on that soon.

We’re celebrating our Birthday in November!

And probably well into December, considering the amount of-

…well, hold on a second, I’ll get to that.

We told you about our slightly-arbitrary-but-still-deeply-meaningful upcoming anniversary a couple months ago. Alex started designing us some fun birthday cards for the occasion (Note: if the Editor in Chief doesn’t also design bawdy birthday cards, they’re Editor in Chief-ing all wrong).

Along the way, we asked some of our Tenebrous alumni if they would be interested in “whipping up something small and unfussy” (my exact words, I swear!) to reward our loyal Cult followers—random pieces of flash fiction, Bizarro poetry or dirty limericks they’d like to throw into the celebratory stew; fun little pieces that we could sprinkle throughout November, on (sigh) social media, or here in this newsletter.

In true fashion, our extraordinary family, uh, overdelivered.

We’ve got poems, art, short stories—this isn’t a complaint at all, but some Tenebrous authors can’t be bothered with 100-word flash fiction when f$%k it, 2000 words will do just as well—galore. Honestly, I’m getting a bit misty-eyed thinking about what ridiculous badasses these people are who have trusted their art with us these past few years; how much of a family—a Weird, so Weird, probably highly illegally Weird family, but a family nonetheless—they are to us.

(Yes, Echo Echo redesigned the Tenebrous logo for us, in her own inimitable fashion. Yes, it is diabolically glorious.)

So you might see an uptick of newsletters throughout the month of November (and possibly beyond), beyond our usual bi-weekly-ish-ness. Sometimes they might not contain much beyond a story (and a couple links to buy shit, because hey, we’re still trying to push our books on you too).

I implore you not to delete them unread: they may contain something exclusive from one of your new favorite authors.

Keep an eye out.

Speaking of buying shit: also in November, SPLIT SCREAM is back!

And it’s brought along a couple of the worst parents ever.

Buy SPLIT SCREAM

About SPLIT SCREAM: The Parents Ain’t Alright

SPLIT SCREAM goes to its darkest corners yet with these twin odes to horrible parents!
COME TO DADDY by Ryan T. Jenkins
A damaged man endeavors to put the pieces back together after a lifetime of destruction; to reckon with his wife and son leaving him; to attend to the dreams of his dead mother’s well-manicured hand scuttling around at night; and the haunted movie poster of a B-list actor coming to life before his eyes.
Distilled from the classic Gothic haunted house narrative comes this twisted ode to punk rock and fatherhood.
MOTHER IS COMING HOME by David Corse
When Otis discovers an undulating, flesh-like portal near his barn, he believes he’s finally found a way to escape his hometown and travel the world. All he has to do is sell the oddity to the highest bidder and leave home for good.
His plans crumble when, during a drunken argument, he tosses his sickly, cruel mother through the portal. His elation is brief, though, as Otis realizes he must rescue his mother and protect the strange opening from prying eyes, no matter the cost.
“Jenkins doesn’t think like other people. I’m laughing, wincing, cringing, thinking what the hell is this guy talking about? Then I’m misty eyed at the emotional bass drop.”
Alex Gonzalez, REKT
“One of the most unsettling stories I’ve ever read. You can’t help but feel filthy afterwards. Mother is Coming Home is wrong. Plain wrong.”
Michael Bettendorf, Trve Cvlt
"A hideous, delightful novelette…for anyone who has wondered what it would look like if Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner had a cosmic horror love child."
Mathilda Zeller, featured author, Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

Out November 12th, but you can preorder it now.

I should go before I say something stupid. Y’all, there is so much turmoil in the publishing scene; it never seems to stop. People queue around the block for hours just for the opportunity to shout stupid things at each other.

And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier doing this than right now. We’re running at max capacity, Alex and me, there’s not much daylight shining through the gaps in our free time, but—dare I say it?—we’ve got it running pretty smooth.

“Running pretty smooth”…there it is. Something stupid. Excellent. That’s not gonna come back to bite me in the ass, no way.

Here, how ‘bout you go read this article where TRVE CVLT ‘s Michael Bettendorf rubs elbows with Kathe Koja, Brian Evenson, Hailey Piper and more, in this list of ten must-read Halloween season books. Hell yeah, get it Betts.

Then go buy TRVE CVLT, if you haven’t already. And then just forget I made that crack about things running smooth.

Buy TRVE CVLT