The Ghoulish Times | 02.16.26
Hello and welcome to The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth and this is my free spooky newsletter for all things GHOULISH. Somehow this is the first issue of 2026. I don’t know what you may or may not have missed, and I refuse to do the memory work to figure it out. It’s Monday morning. It’s my day off from the bookshop. I have a shit ton of writing to do today and even more editing screaming at me for attention. BUT, before then, we did just release our first 2026 title, and dang it I’m gonna tell you about the thing!
Who Ya Gonna Call? COSMIC DYKE PATROL!
Well, ghouls! The time is finally here! Lor Gislason’s COSMIC DYKE PATROL is out now through Ghoulish Books. If you’ve pre-ordered through the webstore, paperbacks are already packaged and in the process of shipping. eBooks are available to purchase and download RIGHT NOW.
Here is the incredible front cover art from Val Hal:
When Stevie starts seeing floating orbs, they call a spiritual pest control company for guidance. Harriett and Marcy—two queer, punk lesbians—welcome Stevie into a world of otherworldly creatures, tree people, and something called the bone spider. Equal parts slice-of-life, queer romance and body horror, Cosmic Dyke Patrol is a story about how everyone is worthy of love, no matter how weird.
Buy COSMIC DYKE PATROL from our Webstore, B&N, Bookshop.org, Amazon, or request it from your favorite local bookstore!
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR COSMIC DYKE PATROL
“What if all the Ghostbusters had lesbian sex? What if Slimer was an it/its dyke? What if a portal to an alien world appeared in your mom’s basement? Exactly how long does it take for a person to turn into a tree? Gislason tells you in this romantic body horror action adventure!”
—Briar Ripley Page
“Grab your carabiner and save the family you chose in this charming, sexy, and gory story where the eldritch horrors are as terrifying as the generational trauma that brought the patrol together in the first place.”
—Ladz, author of The Cradle of Eternal Night
“The first few pages of COSMIC DYKE PATROL read like a hilarious, queer, larger-than-life version of Ghostbusters…but as I got further and further into the book, I realized that this is a love story celebrating found family, weird dimensions and beings, true identity, glorious and goopy sex, and the true power that resides in community. If you’re looking for a wild ride with plenty of action, some seriously scary monsters, and loads of heart, pick up a copy of COSMIC DYKE PATROL.”
—Tiffany Michelle Brown, Author of How Lovely to Be a Women: Stories and Poems, Co-host of the Horror in the Margins podcast
“Gislason takes readers on a wild ride with Cosmic Dyke Patrol. A heartwarming tale of found family and strange otherworldly creatures, with a sprinkle of sexy, a dash of grief, and hearty dollop of goop, this book had me on a rollercoaster of laughing to crying and back again. This is exactly the kind of horror the world needs more of right now.”
—Emma E. Murray, author of Crushing Snails
STAND WITH MINNESOTA
Last month, during the General Strike, we posted the following on social media:
Ghoulish Books will remain open today as a community space.
We stand in support of the General Strike. People may make book purchases, but no pressure.
We will be donating 100% of the day’s profits (or, if not reached, a minimum of $500) to organizations benefiting Minnesota.
Here is our accountability screenshot:
You can donate HERE.
PERSONAL PATREON
To end this newsletter, I’d like to announce that I’ve started a personal Patreon (keen observers will have noticed I deleted the old, inactive Ghoulish patreon a bit ago). Rather than retype something I think I already got across on the Patreon itself, I’m just going to copy/paste the About section and provide a link at the end:
Writer of books, short stories, screenplays, and stageplays. Publisher, editor, bookshop ghoul. Infrequent podcaster. Cursed to haunt the internet forever.
My most notably work is We Need to Do Something, which was adapted into a film (from my own screenplay) and debuted at Tribeca in 2021. I also wrote a stageplay adaptation which debuted through Austin, TX's Bottle Alley Theatre Company in 2025. My other books include I Believe in Mister Bones, Abnormal Statistics, The Last Haunt, The 'Dillo, Maggots Screaming!, Touch the Night, Carnivorous Lunar Activities, The Nightly Disease, How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers, The Mind is a Razorblade, and Toxicity.
I'm also the co-founder & publisher of Ghoulish Books and the editor of Ghoulish Tales.
I've been writing for the internet since 2013-ish (LitReactor, CrimeReads, Fangoria, Film14, etc). I haven't in a while, due to a variety of reasons, but I do miss it. Internet comedy is one of my favorite things on this planet. I would like to use this space on Patreon to start publishing more humor pieces, but also excerpts from longer novels-in-progress, flash fiction, short stories, film & literature criticism, and...probably other stuff? I think this is only going to work, long-term, if there's not one specific thing you can expect me to publish here, and just trust my instincts on what I suspect will be entertaining.
Any amount pledged will be immensely appreciated and go directly to supporting an indie writer. I don't work a regular job and I don't have a steady income. Most of the work I do for Ghoulish Books is purely out of love and passion for publishing literature and I do not cut myself a paycheck for it. Which has been okay for a while, but life continues to be expensive, and thus... Patreon.
If you're a fan of the books I write, or the work I do through Ghoulish, or perhaps my many failed podcasts, or some mysterious other thing I've forgotten about, please consider throwing some $$$ my way every month. And if you can't, that's okay too. You can subscribe for free and still receive some of the stuff I plan on publishing here.
Already posted on the Patreon:
Also it should be noted that I will be writing a personalized “death prediction” for every new paying patron. So, if you want to learn how you’re going to die (100% accuracy, btw), PLEDGE TODAY.
Thank you.
-max