From the Editor's Desk: October 2016

Fall is my favorite season. Here in New Mexico, it means the International Balloon Fiesta, green chile roasting, piñon picking, and the annual burning of Zozobra (Old Man Gloom). It's also, of course, the season of Halloween, and Dia de los Muertos, and the leaves changing and falling. As the days grow colder and darker, our thoughts often turn darker as well, the contemplation of our own mortality balanced by the revelry of costumes and harvest and festivals. It's a great time to return to those classic Gothic novels, or to take your own writing to the dark places you've been avoiding all year.

Has it really been seven months since I took over as Editor-in-Chief? We've brought our seven books in as many months, with two more coming soon, and a full slate planned for 2017 (and yes, open submissions, too). I planned to return to one of those recent books in these darker days. In its original conception, my anthology Speculative Story Bites was supposed to be a followup to Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales. Speculative Story Bites is published as an ebook, and for the next few months I will be posting approximately one story per week from it here on the WWP blog, starting with the fun "fairy noir" story by Shannon Phillips, and following up with some of the darker, more Halloween-like stories. Check the blog each Friday for a new story, or grab the whole collection for your Kindle or Kobo.

We have a lot of books that make great #OctoberReads. For the whole month of October, we're donating to the American Red Cross for each copy of Bite Somebody by Sara Dobie Bauer that sells from any vendor, including our table at the Imaginarium Convention, where you also might be able to get Sara to bite—er, I mean sign—your book. There's also Rhonda Parrish's anthology Scarecrow, which re-imagines the autumn straw-man in a variety of fantasy, science fiction, and horror milieus, and Laura Harvey's anthology Demons, Imps, and Incubi, if you like some sexy along with your scary.

In the next couple of months, keep an eye out for the next installment in A.E. Decker's satirical fantasy series (this one parodies Gothic Lit tropes, and is just as wonderful as the first), a new Krampus anthology from Kate Wolford, the long awaited second book in Michelle Lowery Combs' Genie Chronicles series, and some exciting cover reveals and announcements about brand new series by Cheryl Low and K. Bird Lincoln. We're also taking submissions for Rhonda Parrish's Equus anthology, and will be announcing submission details soon for a new humorous fantasy anthology from Trysh Thompson.

Whether you follow us on social media, subscribe to our newsletter, or just stumble across our site now and then, thank you for supporting small press. You are the community that keeps us going, especially during the dark, strange days.

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