Allow me to pause and collect myself. Such reconfigurations are necessary – indeed, essential – at certain points in the life of a somewhat creative soul.

I’m now closing out my sixth year devoted exclusively to the writing of fiction, and the last two of these six seem to have taken place inside a minor whirlwind, out of which emerged two chapbooks and a first collection of short fiction, a Shirley Jackson Award nomination, two publishing deals, and several stories released in quality anthologies. I feel incredibly fortunate for all of these opportunities and milestones reached. Readers and colleagues have expressed their thoughts on my work in such a way that I am confident that I’m not completely wasting my time (nor theirs), and that Ivy was right – as she always is – when she suggested in late 2009 that I stop writing mediocre screenplays and start writing fiction. Nearly seven years on, and I haven’t yet and will never look back. I love what I do, and love her for helping me get here.

This new website, bearing my name and which will serve as my new official HQ (the old, gloriously exuberant and somewhat decrepit The Cosmicomicon now acting as my linked blog through this site), is a part of my minor, albeit significant, recomposition. So, too, are the stories I have just finished, and those on which I am currently working, which includes pieces for my second collection, commencement of my first novel, and a few short stories written expressly for select anthologies and a wide swath of fiction journals.

I hope to show you a new focus in my work, as well, which will be less about tentacles and more about a deeper hue of black that resides only in the hearts of humankind and in the forgotten sublevels of the waiting abyss. I want to expose you to monsters never imagined by any writers before me. I want to show you new things that probably shouldn’t be shown. I want to carve out new real estate that was better left undiscovered. I want to bring forth wonder and dread and pain and sadness and tragedy and brutality and beauty and a thousand flavors of the unknown. I want to pay back your faith in me with grim dividends that will flower and grow.

Whether I will be successful in these ambitious designs remains to be seen, but that is where my path through the odd trees is taking me. I hope you come along, and we all see what waits for us on the other side.