10p032: This Shirley Jackson Award-Nominated Publisher surely won't be getting obnoxious about it, no way
There ain't no Devil, only God when he's drunk.
Hey Ho Tenebrous Cult,
Lots to get to, so let’s dive in, shall we?
StokerCon Achievement Unlocked
I’d say Alex’s first trip to the states was an unbridled success. Between marveling at rusty fire escape ladders on the exteriors of buildings; sampling her first tater tot; and the strange fact that Americans must forcibly salute the flag every time they pass one (OK, she may not have had the most reliable tour guides in 10p Cultist Michael Boulerice and myself) it was an eventful week.
For every person we got to meet for the first time—even in passing—there was someone else who we never got a chance to cross paths with. Luckily, we’ve already booked tickets for next year’s Stoker in San Diego to remedy all that. We’ll be setting up in the Dealer’s Room again next year too; table sales ended up paying off the hotel, flights and tickets, which almost never happens at conventions. I’m accustomed to operating at a loss at these types of things—just part of the trade-off to find a new audience—so the fact that there were so many new readers who dig what we do was invigorating, to say the least.
We’re not very good at remembering to take pictures, either, but here’ s a couple of the Tenebrous Cult in action.
It sounds very hoity-toity and proper, but we honestly spent most of our time taking meetings and prepping for the future. We’ve got a metric ton of stuff to share with you too! We just…can’t yet. I’ll share a couple teases though:
Tenebrous will be folding a couple of known quantities into its wings in the near future. We are expanding.
We’ve got projects forthcoming in at least two formats that we’ve never before delved into.
Exciting, exhausting times are on the horizon. Stay tuned as we prepare to announce some fun additions to the Tenebrous masthead.
Oh and this happened while we were at Stoker too:
Tenebrous Press is Nominated for THREE Shirley Jackson Awards
Tim McGregor’s wonderful book, LURE, is up for Best Novella.
YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR BODY is up for Best Anthology.
Viktor Athelstan’s twisted tale, “Brother Maternitas,” from that same antho, is up for Best Short Fiction.
Stiff competition in each one of these categories; this is a situation where we’re legit grateful just to be considered alongside so many worthy peers and buds. In particular we wanna highlight both Kelsea Yu and Wendy Wagner, who are wonderful friends of the press.
And of course, the Editorial Elephant in the room, who inspired the funniest, most accurate Tweet I’ve ever written:
As I said: we received the email about our nominations while we were at StokerCon; I read the first part of it to Alex; then we went in search of everyone we knew attached to YB=/=YB, and Tim himself, to share the good news. Here’s Hailey Piper, Tim, Alex and me, at this precise moment:
We then returned to our table and read the part of the email that said “DON’T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS YET.” After which we had to track everyone back down in a convention center filled with a thousand people and tell them to shut the hell up about what we’d just blathered.
The Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented in-person on Saturday, July 15 at 8pm at Readercon 32, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Alex and I won’t be there, but a handful of our favorite folks will be on hand in the off-chance we pull a win out and need someone to jump onstage and gloat (and subsequently get kicked out).
FOUR DAYS LEFT TO HELP US CONTRIBUTE TO THE TREVOR PROJECT
This entire Pride Month, Tenebrous Press has been donating 15% of all our webstore proceeds to the Trevor Project. It’s as good a time as any to pick up any of our books that might be missing from your shelves:
Haven’t grabbed our latest—Danger Slater’s HOUSE OF ROT—yet? Do it here.
Interested in preordering our next book—Ashley Deng’s quietly dreadful Eco-Horror thriller, DEHISCENT? Do it here.
Shirts, patches, books: check it all out here, and help support this great cause.
Incidentally, I’m not dwelling on DEHISCENT a whole lot this week, because we have a full news blast planned for next week that’ll give this peculiar novella its due spot on the stage. Keep your eyes peeled.
COMING IN 2024
In addition to the second volume of BRAVE NEW WEIRD (submissions news incoming in the next couple months), we recently announced two novellas coming your way next year:
Carson, of course, is no stranger to the Tenebrous faithful, and the dude still hasn’t worn out his welcome. A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING GREENTREE will carve a far different path than his previous work with us has (or, for that matter, than his upcoming novel POSTHASTE MANOR, with Jolie Toomajan, does!)
Joshua Hull, though…y’all, if you haven’t seen GLORIOUS (currently airing on Shudder), then you’re seriously missing out. Fix that pronto. Alex and I each watched it separately, and came to the same conclusion: this is a New Weird Horror film, through and through. We struck up a convo with Joshua online and wouldn’t you know it? He had a novella tailor-made to our tastes practically ready…and soon we’ll be bringing you MOUTH. We’re thrilled to capture him at this moment, too, because dude is already about to explode to the next level. BUT WE GOT TO HIM FIRST, HA.
MOUTH and A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING GREENTREE. Both coming your way in 2024. More soon.
And one more tidbit on Carson:
In two weeks, he and I will be sitting down at Powell’s City of Books—the biggest bookstore in the world, don’tcha know?—for…well, who the hell knows really? Reading some selections from SOFT TARGETS? Probably. A Q&A between publisher and author? Sure, why not. An obscene game of Charades with audience participation? Almost assuredly. Whatever happens, we’ll try to make sure it’s entertaining and not too psychologically scarring.
Reaching my word count limit here, and Alex didn’t even get to pipe in. She’ll be back next time.
A quick word to those few folks still waiting on their HOUSE OF ROT preorder deluxe packages: they just shipped. Apologies and thanks for your patience as we’ve been finagling some supply chain issues from an unanticipated part of the chain. All caught up now.
DEHISCENT news coming soon (including deluxe preorder package information; but if the book is all you’re interested in, you can get that now!)
Hail Indie Horror.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Alex & Matt