The Ghoulish Times | 10.04.25
Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth and this is our free newsletter for all things GHOULISH.
I am writing this after having spent the last week and some change isolating in the bedroom sick with COVID. I went over 5 years without getting it. I openly bragged about being immune to this bitch-ass disease. Word must have spread, because it found me, and oh boy did it hit me hard. I would not personally recommend getting it, if you can avoid it. Don’t listen to the rumors that it’s a fun disease to attract. That’s a lie.
I almost definitely caught it while vendoring at Fantastic Fest late last month, since symptoms started hitting me a day or two later. I tested negative multiple times, including once at the urgent care, but eventually started testing positive by the weekend. I’ve since been in total isolation coughing myself silly. Lori and Miguel have traded shifts at the bookstore. I had to cancel my plans to fly out to Toronto for the Little Ghosts Book Festival, which is a huge bummer, especially since I was only able to get half of my travel expenses refunded from the airlines.
I’ve gotten a little work done, here and there, when I managed to find any energy. Mostly I’ve just been in bed, defeated with fatigue, drowning in phlegm. I’ve watched quite a few movies, though, all of them first-time viewings, including Takeout, I Want You Back, Big Time Adolescence, All of Us Strangers, We Live in Time, Play Dirty, Flesh and Bone, Mayhem, The Ice Storm, V/H/S/Halloween, Clown in a Cornfield, and Psycho Goreman. At Fantastic Fest, I didn’t get to see many movies, but I did manage to catch advance screenings of two instant-favorite films: Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos’s remake of Save the Green Planet!) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Check out my Letterboxd if you’re curious about reviews & ratings of any of these movies.
Reading-wise, I’ve gone through a bit of overdue slush, I’ve edited a bit of freelance & Ghoulish work, and I finished Monica Ojeda’s Jawbone and Michael McDowell’s The Flood. Both were great. Last night I started our book club pick for October: Christopher Golden’s All Hallows (shoutout to Mindy Rose for choosing this one; blame her if it sucks). I haven’t written anything. I don’t think my brain remembers how to write, to be honest. But that’s a problem to tackle some other day.
I’m sorry. I just got distracted cleaning up a river of dog piss in the kitchen. I don’t remember what else I was going to say. Here are some things I want to promote. Hopefully you support some or all of them. Thank you.
THE SMALL HOURS is Upon Us!
Who's ready to read some gnarly, bloodthirsty vampire fiction? Bob Pastorella's debut solo novel, The Small Hours, is officially OUT RIGHT NOW through Ghoulish Books.
“The Small Hours is what would happen if Bad Taste era Peter Jackson had written a wild, over-the-top, vampire romp, and brought in Adrian Lyne to sex things up!”
—Michael David Wilson, author of The Girl in the Video and This Is Horror Founder.
Jay is convinced his creepy next-door neighbor had something to do with his friend’s brutal murder. Mr. Fields with his mobster tattoos, keeping odd hours, visitors arriving yet never seen leaving.
Then Jay gets a lucky break after spotting a piece of evidence that could nail Fields for good and give Jay and his friends closure.
All they need to do is break into Fields’ backyard shed, and discover the den of horrors waiting beyond the metal door.
Horrors thirsty for blood.
Written by the great Bob Pastorella, front cover by Betty Rocksteady, and edited by Mindy Rose.
If you pre-ordered a paperback from our webstore, you probably already received it—if not, it's certainly on the way by now. Here's a picture of the author, Bob Pastorella, signing a couple pre-ordered stacks during ArmadilloCon last month month:
Watch a video of Bob reading the first chapter below:
(Video taken during ArmadilloCon.)
If you haven't already ordered your copy, get one HERE.
Nadia Bulkin to be Interviewed Live on the Lovecraft eZine Podcast
Nadia Bulkin will be going live on the Lovecraft eZine Podcast tomorrow evening (Sunday) at 5pm CST to discuss her new Ghoulish Books collection Issues with Authority. You can tell YouTube to notify you early so you don’t forget:
And you can buy the book directly from us HERE.
BANNING BOOKS ONLY MAKES US SCARIER
Several years ago we launched a fun t-shirt and tote bag that tied into Banned Books Week. We commissioned Luke Spooner to create a gnarly little design for it and a lot of you ate it up. Well, since then many others have asked us to do another run, and we have finally gotten our shit together early enough to do exactly that. Therefore beginning right now and lasting until the end of October we will be taking pre-orders for shirts, tank tops, and tote bags with the BANNING BOOKS ONLY MAKES US SCARIER design.
I think you will find the cost very affordable compared to most shirt companies. They’re all printed locally, too. It’s a great design. People will be impressed when they see you wearing it. They will think, wow, this person is very sexy and cool. Pre-order HERE.
Ryan Bradley on This is Horror
Ryan Bradley was a recent guest on the This is Horror podcast promoting his new Ghoulish Books novel Say Uncle, as well as books bound in human flesh, his story writing process, and much more. Listen to the episode HERE. Buy Say Uncle HERE.
STARLET Nominated for a Wonderland Award
Danger Slater’s novel, Starlet, was recently nominated for a Wonderland Award! Huzzah!
We published this book last year through Ghoulish Books and we think it’s a real swell time with words and fluids. Buy a copy HERE.
MOTHER-EATING Signing at Ghoulish Books
Jess Hagemann will be in-person at Ghoulish Books on Saturday, October 25th from 12pm-4pm to celebrate the release of her new novel Mother-Eating (published by Ghoulish Books!). Copies will be available for purchase at the shop. Readers can also pre-order signed copies ahead of time HERE.
GHOULISH OCTOBER BOOK CLUB
The GHOULISH BOOK CLUB continues with October's pick: ALL HALLOWS by Christopher Golden!
It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, horrifying secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified, and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man. There’s a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn’t belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them...and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road?
New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Christopher Golden is best known for his supernatural thrillers set in deadly, distant locales...but in this suburban Halloween drama, Golden brings the horror home.
All Hallows. The one night when everything is a mask...
Copies are in stock at our shop (10% off)! We will discuss the book all month on the GHOULISH DISCORD and if you’re local we will do an in-person discussion at our shop on October 26th, Sunday 6pm. Let’s get reading, ghouls!
Find the discord on our linktree: https://linktr.ee/ghoulishbooks
Buy the book through our webstore and have it shipped to you or choose local pickup: https://ghoulish.rip/product/all-hallows/
(use discount code “octbookclub” upon checkout for 10% off)
GHOULISH TALES Remains Open for Submissions Until 10/17
Just a reminder that we are still considering submissions for Ghoulish Tales until October 17th. Read our submission guidelines HERE. At the time of this newsletter coming out, we have already gotten just over 500 stories sent to our inbox. So, uh… good luck, ghouls!
okay goodbye
—max