They were pals back in the day, now they’re competing for my attention.

The Kickstarter for the next volume of MX Sherlock Holmes stories has begun. Volume Six will feature my new Sherlock & Wiggins story “The Adventure of the Cat’s Claws” and will be out in May. The funding goal has already been achieved, but don’t let that stop you from making a pledge and getting your copy earlier and cheaper than everybody else. Higher pledge levels can also nab you all the other entries in the series, which together amount to heaping piles of Holmes mysteries—more than Conan Doyle himself ever got around to writing. My earlier Wiggins story, “The Song of the Mudlark” can be found in Volume One. As always, all profits go towards the restoration of Undershaw.

On the Stoker front, my story “Raw” which appeared in Silent Screams: An Anthology of Socially Conscious Dark Fiction has made the preliminary ballot for the 2016 Bram Stoker Awards in the long fiction category. It’s not a nomination, but it places me among the eleven possible nominees. There will be an announcement in February. I’ll try not to get my hopes up, but the trophy is a friggin’ haunted house with Cthulhu gargoyles and tentacles poking out the windows. Who wouldn’t want one of those? I would totally lord it over the Oscar winners I know and tell them how much my award kicks the shit out of their boring-ass statuette.

Because being a sore winner is all the rage.