Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth and this is my free spooky newsletter about all things GHOULISH. This is also the first newsletter written from my new home in Minneapolis. I think that’s true. If I said the same thing in the previous newsletter, no I didn’t. And if you continue to insist on this being true, name a time and place for us to fight, and I will gladly not show up. Gladly.

I made it to Minnesota at the end of June, and I’ve just been attempting to settle in since then. A lot of things have happened in the last two months, and I’ll attempt to recap them on Patreon soon, but I haven’t had much spare time to really break the trip down like I’d like to. It was not a very good drive. Many things went wrong. But I lived, bitch. Here I am, writing a little newsletter for your perverted amusement.

So, if you’ve somehow missed the news, our bookstore is officially closed. Goodbye, Texas.

Maybe one day I’ll open a new store in Minnesota, but there are no immediate plans at this moment in time. Right now I’m just focusing on the publishing company, my own writing, and figuring out how to be a person for maybe the first time in my life. Have you heard about “agency” before? Brand-new concept to me. Pretty crazy tbh.

I've spent a ridiculous amount of hours lately putting together the new Ghoulish website and I'd love for you to check it out and maybe take advantage of our webstore sale. Use discount code NEWFLESH2026 upon checkout for 10% off your order (valid until Monday). I think the site looks really cool and I’m proud of it. Give it a spin!

Oh, yeah, everybody should be congratulating Nadia Bulkin on winning a Shirley Jackson Award for her collection Issues With Authority. Very honored to have published this book.

Also, we have new bookmarks now, and all webstore orders will receive one (if you’re waiting on an order, I’m trying to package them now, it took some time for me to get a new PO box, sorry!).

Check this shit out (art by Betty Rocksteady):

Finally, we have several fun events lined up for the near future. Come check us out (in the flesh) in Texas, Minnesota, and Iowa!

More details HERE.

This is kind of my sole job now, outside of freelancing (and my occasional book writing). No more bookshop. No more uhhh stable house and family. Just me in a tiny apartment running a small press with my sausage dog and trying my goddamn hardest to make this thing really, truly WORK.

And I’m trying. I really am. It has been an absolute fucking headache putting together the new site and refiling as an LLC with the state of Minnesota and setting up new bank accounts and so many other boring, annoying tasks but every day I make more progress and start feeling more confident that I can actually do this.

I started this press when I was 19 and have made many mistakes since then, but I'm 33 now and somehow it's still alive, and somehow I’m still alive, and I don't know, I feel like things are only going to improve from here. I could have easily killed it earlier this year and almost did. Maybe I should have. But fuck that. Once a ghoul always a ghoul. 💚

—max