The Ghoulish Times | 06.10.24
Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth and this is my spooky newsletter. If you’re reading this, I’m afraid it's too late for you…unless you forward this email to ten of your contacts. You have exactly 24 hrs before Mister Bones comes to collect your bones. Your fate is in your hands. Do you want to keep your bones or not, pal? Time’s ticking.
For Ghoulish Tales, we have reopened for submissions. I’ll share the guidelines and other details at the end of this newsletter. But don’t you dare skip and scroll. I’ll be able to tell, and I’ll judge you pretty dang harshly for it.
I started doing yoga a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago now? Not sure why. Just thought hey maybe I should do yoga. Since then I’ve mostly found time to do it every day, and you know what? Yoga…rules? Big fan. If you’re someone who has thought hey maybe I should do yoga, too, but aren’t sure where to start, I’d recommend the Yoga with Adriene channel on YouTube. I’ve been using her videos daily and she’s a big help. Doesn’t really take it too seriously. Very casual stuff. Easy peasy. Plus, she has a cute dog!
My partner and step-son are currently visiting family in the Los Angeles area. I dropped them off at the airport last Tuesday at 4am. They won’t be coming back until this upcoming Thursday. Which means I’ve been handling the bookshop by myself, and going a bit feral at the house while engaged in numerous nonsensical conversations with my dogs. I realize I’ve just doxxed some pretty private information, for anyone who might wish to murder me without any witnesses. To that, I say…please god do it, do it fast and do it now.
Yesterday, I did drive out to Austin and have breakfast with some friends and then fuck around at a nearby batting cages. I can’t remember the last time I’ve really hit a baseball but I sure forgot how fucking painful using an aluminum bat can be without gloves. My left hand has a throbbing welt on it and my right index finger is swollen and achy from a ball that bounced back and hit my finger against the bat. I don’t think it’s broken, sadly. There was a point where I got excited at the prospect of it being broken, only because I’m currently losing my mind finishing writing a novel that’s about people breaking their bones, and how perfect would that have been? But it’s just slightly injured, not broken, so…whatever. Waste of my fucking time, if you ask me.
It’s so hot over here that I just want to melt, I want to turn into a puddle of ooze and I want some fucked-up creature to drink me with a straw as I percolate on the street. This is my dream. This is my life ambition.
It is midnight and I am blaring Pat the Bunny so loud this house is shaking and I am drinking so much coffee that I’m shaking just as much as this house and I am writing this newsletter for your pretty little eyeballs and your sexy little brains. This is what I hope happens: you continue scrolling and reading all the cool shit I’m promoting and at the very least you nod and go, “right on, mx. booth, right on,” and, best case scenario, you go, “shit I gotta get some of these books,” and you go and order them and then you read them and your life isn’t fixed or cured but it’s at least a little bit better. So okay then. Here we go. Here’s to making your life a little bit better and mine, too.
GIVE UNTO US
In case you missed us shouting about this the other day, Give Unto Us by Justin Lutz is officially available wherever you buy books. Here is a photo of the author with his weird, depraved creation:
And here, for some reason, is a Cameo we paid for of professional wrestler Danhausen wishing Justin Lutz good luck on his new book, cursing Justin's enemies, and refusing to sing "There's a Hole in my Bucket" while being terrorized by Texas grackles.
More about GIVE UNTO US:
"Justin Lutz, this generation's Michael McDowell, proves yet again that he is here to bash our minds with stories so wonderfully-almost gleefully-grotesque, and made all the more grotesque by the empathy with which he explores his characters and their worlds. Give Unto Us is immediate, wry, and made me literally squirm, as if gritty sand were being elbowed into a hot, septic wound in my side. Oh, and it's tenderly romantic at times. This is a story of love and parental anxiety and pus, written by such an empathetic writer whose work is so alive, and so very frightening. I loved it." -Aaron Dries, author of Dirty Heads
You can buy it directly from our GHOULISH.RIP webstore or snag a copy anywhere else you typically buy books.
JUNE EVENTS
Ghouls! It’s June and it’s very very hot. The sun is stupid and we hate it but what can you do? Seriously, what can be done? Can anything be done?
Anyway – we have some killer events lined up this month and we hope you attend every last one of them. Here are our on-site events at Ghoulish Books (9330 Corporate Drive, Suite 702, Selma, TX 78154).
Learn more about each event over on the GHOULBLOG.
We also have one off-site event to promote, for those who live in the New York area:
BURY YOUR GAYS… IN NEW YORK! Book Signing + Reading Feat. Charlene Adhiambo & LC von Hessen
Learn more about the New York event HERE.
ONLY SAFE PLACE PROMO
I must spotlight two cool things about Warren Wagner’s The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark, which is a zombie apocalyptic queer novella that Ghoulish released last year.
Here is the first cool thing:
It’s a Staff pick at Indigo! Which, if you’re unaware, is the big bookstore chain over in Canada. Basically, their Barnes & Noble.
The other cool thing I must share about this sick, beautiful novella is a little fundraising campaign we’re doing.
For the month of June, provide proof of donation to either of the following charities and we will send you a free digital copy of Warren’s book.
TRANSGENDER EQUALITY - https://donate.transequality.org/a/ncte
ELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION - https://tinyurl.com/5t2wtazt
POCKETKNIFE KITTY MOOD BOARD
Shannon Riley posted her mood board for Pocketknife Kitty (coming later this month from Ghoulish Books) and I feel it is my duty to share it here.
If that didn’t sell you on her novella, I don’t know what will. Pre-order it HERE, ghouls.
GHOULISH TALES Reopens Submissions: Only Considering Unpublished Writers
We are thrilled to announce that we are, once again, reading submissions for a new issue of our magazine Ghoulish Tales. This will be for our fourth issue. Issue 3 is in the process of being finalized and will come out next month. We strongly encourage you to subscribe now so you don’t miss it once it’s available.
Plus, if you are not already familiar with the style & tone of the magazine, we highly encourage you to read one of our previous issues.
With this new issue—Issue 4—we are doing something slightly different with our open call. This time, we are only considering fiction and non-fiction from writers who have never been published before. We want to see work from new writers only. I suppose you could call this the New Ghouls issue.
Learn more about what we’re looking for (and not looking for) and how to submit over on the GHOULBLOG. Payment is 10c per word and the deadline is the end of the month. Good luck!
MYSTERY
And, finally, here is your weekly nonbinary meme, delivered straight to your doorstep as promised (I have never promised this anywhere):
