Tenebrous Tidings - 10p026 - Oh the Agony

I feel responsibility to hate what I can't eat, A sack full of hissin' snakes, laying at my feet, I see colors that don't exist, feel pain that isn't mine Gone from dirt to mud, gone from mud to slime

Hails, 10p Cult! How’s the world treating you?

…Wait, yeah no, maybe don’t answer that one; it’s a loaded question.

I guess a better one might be: how are you managing the ceaseless it-feels-like-my-eyelids-have-caught-fire inferno of daily life? If your answer is, “by the slimmest margin imaginable,” then congratulations: in my book, that makes you a goddamn hero.

Personally speaking, I’ve been a jangle of raw nerves and anxiety of late, for reasons far too vast to get into here. Let’s just say I’m racking up post-grad credits in pursuit of my “Driving Your Loved Ones & Mostly Alex Batshit Crazy” degree at a steady clip.

But writing this helps. Giving…well, maybe not name, but voice to it. It helps. A bit.

You know what else helps? The fact that I’m about to be buried so deep in 10p shenanigans that I don’t have time to dwell on anything else. Yep, that’s right: The Terrifying Tenebrous Tour 2023™ is kicking off shortly!

Here’s where you can catch us in the coming months:

• Scares that Care Presents: AuthorCon 2; March 31-April 2, Williamsburg, Virginia**

• Ghoulish Book Festival; April 14-16, San Antonio, Texas

• StokerCon 2023; June 15-18, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

We’ll be showcasing a brand new Tenebrous novella at each one of these events:

• Carson Winter’s SOFT TARGETS at Scares that Care (more below)

• Laura Keating’s AGONY’S LODESTONE at Ghoulish (more below)

• Danger Slater’s HOUSE OF ROT at Stoker (more next month)

Now, I’ve done more than my fair share of tabling conventions, fronting bands, waiting tables and slinging drinks in my life; and yet, I’m still a fumble-tongued nightmare in most social settings. If you’re at any of the above events and we get to talking—and I sincerely hope we do!—odds are good that you’re in for a flood of mangled syntax, wrong words swapped in for the right ones just cuz they sorta sound alike, and my “charming” pace of speaking that alternates randomly between a coked-up Formula One racer and a sloth pondering a leaf.

And honestly: I cannot wait. Cuz as much as I love the day-to-day of Tenebrous, it’s pretty much a plink-the-keyboard affair, done in solitude…excepting the Open-24/7 chat window with my Romanian counterpart. It doesn’t compare to seeing friends; making new ones; hanging out with Indie Horror readers and writers in the (under-sunned, perpetually mutating, borderline gangrenous) flesh. I’m so chuffed, I can barely muster any sarcasm.

(Now, the thought of logging nearly 19,000 miles on airplanes between those three trips: that can go screw. Won’t somebody not named me please host a major Horror fiction convention somewhere in the Pacific Northwest?)

Anyway: come hang out! I’m really quite nice! And I’ll probably say something hilariously stupid!

**Just as I was about to hit “send” on this newsletter I found out that I’m moderating a panel at AuthorCon about Ethics in Publishing. Apparently Alex and I run our mouths enough about that particular subject that they’ve either entrusted me to *shudder* guide other folks through a discussion of it…or this is all a horrible trap. Either way, it should be entertaining.

SOFT TARGETS Preorder Bundles Close Soon…

…Tuesday, February 28th, in fact. But don’t fret: if it’s only the book you’re after, those preorders open the following day.

Last chance to get your hands on this collection of Soft Targets-related swag! Get the book (signed by author) in both print and e-formats; t-shirt (tank top or straight cut); coffee mug; bookmark and sticker; preorder here.

Speaking of Ethics in Publishing: Alex is having herself a bit of a lie-down this week after working herself all up into a froth last time. She’ll be headlining the next newsletter—with Agony’s Lodestone’s Laura Keating in tow!—but for now we wanted to give some space to Soft Targets author Carson Winter, so you can hear more about this fierce, fanged novella direct from the source:

WE ARE ALL SOFT TARGETS

by Carson Winter

I think there’s a sense of pride that comes with writing a difficult book. Many writers—because we are creatures of ego—have the urge to write a book that will find its way to a good burn. 

We hear about them all the time. One or the other pops up on the news and suddenly we’re all staring at the same product. Something mass produced, relatively impotent, corporate designed. In the wake of a jpeg—shared via social media and television news—conversation begins. “This book must be protected.” “This book is a symbol.” “This book is a formative experience.”

Somewhere, the writer smiles. The ego has been fed. 

I’ve authored a book that I don’t think will get banned, but I can’t deny the romance of the idea. Little old me? Important? Intoxicating. 

Soft Targets is a book about violence as escapism. Just like the authorial urge to write a banned book, my characters have the human urge to die in a mass shooting. They also have the unfortunately-human desire to perpetrate them. 

Why?

Because they are humans living in America. 

Their attention has been commodified by advertisers. Their work is unfulfilling. They’re disconnected from others. They live in a world where mass violence happens weekly, if not more. These people are powerless, and yes: often driven by hateful ideologies. And they drift into fantasy just as well as I do. 

A pile of burning books or a pile of corpses. What’s the difference?

This is escapism. Ugly, ugly escapism. But it’s a line I’ve flirted with myself. When I wrote Soft Targets, I was an essential worker facing down the pandemic, eight years into my career as a grocery store supervisor. Mass shootings were a common discussion point amongst my co-workers as we came to realize that it could happen anywhere. 

There’s a deep powerlessness involved in talking about mass shootings. One moment that sticks in my mind was when my company distributed a laminated pamphlet on disaster response. On one page, there were the inevitable recommendations on surviving an active shooter:

Run. Hide. Throw cans at the motherfucker. 

But what stuck in my mind was that the corporate language never said “if” a mass shooting happens. It said “when”.

Powerless people escape into power fantasies. And that’s just what we did. 

It wasn’t if for us anymore either, we embraced the when. When we’d get to talk on TV. When we’d get to go home early. When we’d get disaster pay. When we’d get zipped up in a body bag and wouldn’t have to think about any of this ever again. 

Soft Targets is about this uncomfortable escapism. The survival reflex to internal and external disease. But also, hopefully, it’s about digging ourselves out of it. 

Jon Padgett said something about Soft Targets that gave me pause, as I hadn’t truly considered it before.

“...It is also damned funny—one of the most difficult things to pull off in any kind of horror story, let alone one with such grim and taboo subject matter.”

Funny? Me? This? 

Yes: this. Because it’s terrifying, because it’s absurd, because we’re powerless. Despite all this grim talk about violence and power fantasies, it’s hard to dodge the fact that Soft Targets is not sober literary fiction, but rather entertaining genre fiction. It is meant to be devoured. From the toolbox of a genre I love, I built an examination of what I hate. 

I hope it means that it’s honest. That our reality is grim, bleak, entertaining, funny, sad, and badly in need of therapy—just like the two central characters in my book. 

As Soft Targets comes closer to being a real book, and not just my own private escapism, I’m confronted continually by what it all means. For me, I guess it’s meant as a point of resistance. A simultaneous pushback and love letter to escapism; a clear-eyed acknowledgment and takedown of gun violence. 

Whatever it is, I hope it feels real to you. Because, unfortunately, it feels real to me. 

Last chance to preorder the Soft Targets bundle here!

Also: if you’re in the Portland OR area, we’ll be celebrating the release of Soft Targets on Sunday, March 19th at the wonderful Rose City Book Pub at 7pm. You’ll be able to get a copy of the book before its formal release date; catch some readings from Carson and fellow forthcoming 10p author/lunatic Danger Slater; have some food, have some drinks, and chat us up. Come on down if you’re in the area.

AGONY’S LODESTONE COVER REVEAL

Dread Central gave us a nice little write-up a couple weeks back and showed off Trevor Henderson’s incredible cover art for Laura Keating’s upcoming novella, Agony’s Lodestone. Now here it is for y’all to get lost in:

Agony’s Lodestone blends found footage Horror with complex family drama and vertigo-inducing time-and-space hijinks to create a heart-rending, Horrific stew.

Laura herself will be here next newsletter to tell you much more about Agony’s Lodestone; meanwhile, here’s the synopsis:

A grave could be visited. Ashes could be scattered. But vanishing? That ripped a hole in the world the size of a life, and through that hole sighed a terrible wind repeating a single note:

Gone.

For years, Aggie had forgotten the real Joanne; had forgotten the way her sister had laughed, fought, been.

But now that the videotape made her real again—no matter how many times the recording changed, no matter how terrifying the flickering images—it was all Aggie wanted. To trade the Gone for the One. She owed Joanne that much. To say she was sorry. That it had been her fault.

It had been all their faults.

Agony’s Lodestone is out April 14th. Lots more to say about it next time.

OK, y’all; be kind to each other, and to yourselves.

Hail Indie Horror.

Hail the Tenebrous Cult.

Alex & Matt