2016 has been pretty damn good writing-wise.

Since January, I’ve had my fifth novella and first novel published, two of my old novellas re-released, a short collection of Halloween stories published, and even a colouring book unleashed upon the unsuspecting public.

The reception to all these publications has been, on the whole, really great and I’m most thankful to those publishers, peer reviewers, booksellers and readers who took a chance on me.  The horror fiction game is a very challenging one, but it’s also turned out to be a very satisfying.

I think the top achievements this year were seeing my novel, Hollow House in print and securing re-publication of my 2013 novella, The Last Night of October, with Cemetery Dance. Hopefully it’s just the beginning.

The one aspect to my writing that I haven’t really excelled in this year was short stories. I’ve written very few and most of them, unfortunately, have been unsuccessful in securing publication. This is an area I know I need to work on, but for the foreseeable future novels will be my primary focus.

This year has also been great in respect to making new connections with the horror community. I’ve worked with a number of authors and publishers to create book covers and internal art and it’s been a whole lot of fun. Did I mention I’m available for hire? 🙂

Working with the Australian Horror Writers Association and the US Horror Writers Association on their various projects, including StokerCon, has also been fantastic.

2017 will see me hitting the keyboard and notebooks. I hope to finish my novel-length sequel to The Noctuary early in the year and begin a new series of novels, and maybe even engage in a collaboration.

It’s going to be a hard slog for this part-time writer, but it’s also going to be a blast. I hope you’ll continue to be along for the ride.

Until next year!