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Greetings!
The World Horror Convention/Bram Stoker Awards Weekend hosted by the Horror Writers Association was held in New Orleans over the weekend of June 14th through the 16th, and JournalStone was well represented. According to Christopher C. Payne, it was an incredibly successful weekend that showcased the rising profile that we have earned in the publishing world. Chris was quoted in Publishers Weekly about his views on how Horror literature is changing.
Now, I will ask a favor of you. Take just a second and look at our Publishing Schedule towards the bottom of this newsletter. If you've been getting this newsletter for a while, I think the first thing you'll notice is how much this list has grown over the last several months. To say we are excited about the number of books we are putting out would be an understatement at best. To say that we're overjoyed at the newly signed authors who have entrusted us with their work couldn't even begin to describe how we feel. You'll see some authors who are very familiar to you as well as new authors whose stories will keep you enthralled for a very long time.
We are confident that you'll love the books we are releasing in July. Special Dead by Patrick Freivald and Steel Breeze by Douglass Wynne will continue the superior story telling that they delivered with their previous books. You won't be disappointed.
If magazines are more your style, it just so happens that Dark Discoveries will be publishing issue number 24 in July. Included in this edition will be fiction from some of your favorite authors, interviews with movers and shakers in the world of horror, and articles that explore trends in horror. You won't want to miss this one.
I hope that all of you who read this will be able to enjoy a little summer vacation with your loved ones in the near future. Take some time to smell the roses and catch up with family that you haven't seen in a while. Oh, and if you need something to read while you're relaxing in a hammock on a beach on some beautiful Caribbean island, we've got you covered. Just visit our JournalStore and download your favorite book.
Until next month, I want to again thank you for your incredible support. We wouldn't be able to continue without it.
Have a great day!
Russ Thompson
Public Relations/Marketing
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Weird Tales of Terror: Volume One
Sephera Giron
Trade Paperback Edition: CreateSpace; 392 pages; $12.99
eBook: Kindle Edition: Scarlett Publishing; $2.99
Reviewer: William J. Grabowski
Award-winning author Sephera Giron has released a collection of never-before-published fiction: six short stories, including a novel, The Witch's Field. A hefty work indeed of early excursions into spaces where trauma, insanity, isolation, and sex collide with horror and the occult.
For early work this is well-crafted, potent material. During the read, I kept telling myself: "This stuff is like Joyce Carol Oates as directed by David Cronenberg." In case you missed it, that's meant as a compliment.
The first piece, "Wanna Go for a Ride?", chronicles a lonely night out with new-in-town Brenda. When even a strip-club fails to inspire enthusiasm, Brenda heads for her car, fires up the friendly bud, and drives to a moon-lit beach for comfort. She soon discovers the quiet is populated by others, the first of whom-Andrea-is a beautiful, gentle woman with a lilting accent, who seems to know a lot about Brenda. There follows passage into a liminal realm we all might desire to visit, but the denouement-by its very reasonableness-caught me by surprise; something I wish would happen more often.
To read the rest of the review, click on the title link above.
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The Fictional Man
By Al Ewing
Solaris: an imprint of Rebellion Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 978-1781080948
May 2013, Paperback $9.99 ebook $6.99
Review by Kat Yares
Imagine a world where fictional characters were living, breathing humans. In Hollywood, this world exists as an everyday occurrence. Instead of hiring actors to fill a role in films adapted from books, the studios now clone the characters they need, giving the character all the attributes the authors envisioned when they wrote them.
Problem is 'fictionals', as they are called, have no sense of self other than what is programmed into their brains. They can't do many of the things that make people truly human nor do they have any memories other than those the writer gave them when created for the page. For the most part, they are shallow, cardboard and depressed. They can also be jealous and murderous depending on how they are written.
To read the rest of the review, click on the title link above.
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It came to me in the shower one morning. Showers and mindless chores like mowing the lawn and washing the dishes seem to be good for inducing the sort of light trance state where stories are born. In the case of showers and dishes I have a hunch that the warm water has something to do with it-some kind of amniotic trigger that brings us closer to dreaming.
Anyway, I was standing there with the suds rolling down my shoulders when I slipped into the mind of a serial killer for a minute. I could see him spying on a widower and judging how the man was coping with the loss of his wife. Nothing too inventive there, but what sparked my imagination was the knowledge that this killer was more interested in the survivors of his handiwork than he was in the victims. He wanted to know if the loss had changed the man. Had it jarred him awake from his petty priorities and caused him to value his remaining relationships more? It was a weird lens for a killer to be peering through. I wrote a murder scene that morning from the killer's point of view.
To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.
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I'm a lazy, ADD-riddled workaholic. I guess what it comes down to is that I don't like being bored. I don't watch much TV, though when I do I tend to chew through entire seasons in a weekend-Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Dexter.... I wake up in the morning between six and seven, go to bed around midnight, and don't take many breaks in-between. I don't like being idle, I don't like just doing nothing, and (in the interest of complete honesty) I sometimes half-ass things like yard work, tend to neglect my friends, and don't have kids. (The Redhead™ gets neglected too, but that's the secret of our happy marriage-we try not to spend too much time together!)
I got into writing at the behest of my twin brother, Phil. Phil and I had talked about writing for most of our lives, but except for the odd short story or roleplaying-related bit, had never done anything of any substance. Somewhere around 2007-my mind is no good with those kinds of details-he insisted that we stop talking about it, and just do it. So we did.
To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.
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About Us
JournalStone is a small press publishing company, focusing on horror, fantasy and science fiction in both the adult and young adult markets.
We are members of & actively support:
HWA - Horror Writers Association
WNBA - Women's Nat'l Book Assn.
IBPA - Independent Book Publishing Assn.
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Shackled to her desk, Ani Romero has a hard time concentrating on her studies. One of eight zombie survivors of the Prompocalypse, she's back at school, but this time it's no secret. Locked in their room, flamethrower-toting soldiers watching their every move, they're tasked with homework and classes during the week, and macabre experiments on the weekend.
When the courts rule they're not human, only an appeal keeps them alive long enough to discover a cure. College applications and SATs pale under the threat of incineration, and desperation turns them into lab rats... ...but the scientists helping them have ulterior motives, and the promised cure destroys more than the virus.
Surviving high school has never been so hard.
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A BLACK WIND BLOWS AND A LIFE HANGS IN THE BALANCE.
It's been a year since novelist Desmond Carmichael's wife Sandy was brutally murdered. Now, with someone stalking him and his four-year-old son, he fears that the wrong man has been imprisoned for the crime. Sandy's parents and Detective Chuck Fournier have a different fear: that Desmond, despondent over Sandy's death, has become too unstable to raise his own son.
To prove them wrong, Desmond must work outside the law to defeat a threat born in the dust of an American wasteland, baptized by fire, and hellbent on riding the winds of karma.
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 SAN FRANCISCO, June 21, 2013 - JournalStone Publishing (JSP) President, Christopher C. Payne is pleased to announce that he has reached an agreement with Kensington Publishing/Pinnacle Books and New York Times bestselling and multiple Bram Stoker AwardŽ winning author, Jonathan Maberry, for the publication of the first-ever deluxe hardcover limited editions of his acclaimed Pine Deep Trilogy. The series of related supernatural horror novels is set in the fictional rural Pennsylvania town of Pine Deep, considered the "most haunted town in America," and the epicenter of a booming tourism industry related to the town's history and the Halloween holiday. The first novel in the series, Ghost Road Blues, won the 2006 Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker AwardŽ for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. The second novel in the series, Dead Man's Song, was released in 2007, and the third novel, Bad Moon Rising, in 2008. The Pine Deep Trilogy were the first three novels written by Maberry, and they propelled him into the center of the horror world. All three novels were paperback originals and heretofore there has never been any hardcover edition of any of these books published. The anticipated release date for the collection is in 2014.
To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.
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 SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 2013 - JournalStone Publishing (JSP) President, Christopher C. Payne is pleased to announce the signing of a contract with award winning author, Hank Schwaeble, to publish his next four novels in the award winning Jake Hatcher series.
About the novels: The Angel of the Abyss, novel three in the Jake Hatcher series, is tentatively set for publication on Friday, June 13, 2014, and follows ex-special forces interrogator and demon-magnet Jake Hatcher, who has inherited millions after thwarting Valentine and the Carnates' plan to open a portal to Hell. Finally able to be with the woman he loves, life-for anyone else-would seem charmed. But Hatcher's good fortune came at a steep price; one that doesn't merely haunt him, but dictates his every move.
Ultimately, Hatcher must discover for himself what is real, and what isn't, on whose side he should be fighting, and whether he can prevail in a potential battle of wit and wills with both a new contender for the throne of Hell and the being that has been its occupant since the dawn of Creation-the Crowned Ruler of all Demons, the Lord of all Damnation, the Great Deceiver... The Angel of the Abyss. The additional three novels under contract will follow Jake Hatcher as he continues his hellish adventures.
To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.
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 SAN FRANCISCO, June 25, 2013 - JournalStone Publishing (JSP) President, Christopher C. Payne is pleased to announce the signing of a contract with award winning author, John R. Little, for the publication of four novels - one per year - beginning in 2014.
About the novels: DarkNet (announced earlier this year) is a suspense/thriller about an abused woman in Seattle who decides she needs to take extreme action to save herself and her daughter from her violent husband. The book is full of shocking twists that will surprise every reader and make them wonder what could possibly come next. The additional three books will also fall into the suspense/thriller genre.
To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.
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by Michael R. Collings
The werewolf as theme, character, and motif has intrigued me for decades. One of my earliest poems dealt with the theme, followed shortly thereafter by a short-story version (more about both of those later). My science-fantasy novel,Wordsmith and one of its prequel-stories, "The Calling of Iam'Kendron," use a variant on the werewolf as a rite of passage for young characters whose manhood is about to be tested.
I grew up on an occasional but welcome diet of werewolves-of the filmic variety, that is. The four-o'clock-movies after school frequently replayed such classics as The Werewolf of London (1935); The Wolfman (1941), with Lon Chaney; and I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), made long before Michael Landon made it big on Bonanza or Little House on the Prairie. As an adult, I counted werewolves among my favorite film creatures, even as advances in technology and special effects rapidly transformed the visual impact of the monster with The Howling (1981); the mind-blowing An American Werewolf in London (1981); Michael Jackson's Thriller (1983); Ladyhawk (1985), with its re-imagining of the character...and its incredible juxtaposition of medieval landscapes and contemporary music; and so on, through Dog Soldiers (2002), Von Helsing (2004), and other reincarnations of the beast. (I will admit, however, to never having seen any of the Twilight films.)
To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.
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JournalStone Publishing Schedule - Subject to additions/changes.
Patrick Freivald - Special Dead - 7/12/2013 Douglas Wynne - Steel Breeze - 7/19/2013
Kristina Meister - The One We Feed - 8/16/2013
Lisa Morton and Eric Guignard - Double Down II - Smog and Baggage of Eternal Night 9/6/2013 Rick Hautala - The Devil's Wife - 9/13/2013
Lisa Morton - Summer's End - 10/4/2013
Christopher Golden - Mr. October, An Anthology in Memory of Rick Hautala - 11/8/2013
Patrick and Phil Freivald - Blood List - 11/15/2013
Joe McKinney and Sanford Allen -
Double Down III - 12/6/2013
Allyson Bird - Bull Running for Girls - 12/13/2013 Lisa Morton - Netherworld Book I - 1/10/2014 Jaleta Clegg - The Kumadai Run - 1/17/2014
Brian Knight - Phoenix Girls II - 2/7/2014
Harry Shannon and Brett J. Talley - Double Down IV - 2/14/2014 Jonathan Maberry - Ghost Road Blues (Limited Edition) 3/7/2014 Gene O'Neill and Chris Marrs - Double Down V - 3/14/2014 Brett J. Talley - That Which Should Not Be II - 3/21/2014
Benjamin Kane Etheridge - Divine Scream - 4/11/2014
Jonathan Maberry - Joe Ledger: Special Ops - 4/18/2014 Rick Hautala - Mockingbird Bay - 5/9/2014 Jonathan Maberry - Bad Moon Rising (Limited Edition) 5/23/2014
John Little and Mark Allen Gunnells -
Double Down VI - 6/6/2014
Hank Schwaeble - Angel of the Abyss (A Jake Hatcher Novel) 6/13/2014
Weston Ochse - Halfway House - 7/4/2014
Anne C. Petty (Editor) - Limbus II - 7/11/2014
Joe McKinney - St Rage - 8/8/2014
Jonathan Maberry - Dead Man's Song (Limited Edition) 8/22/2014
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