Super excited to announce my debut story collection, Whispers in the Ear of a Dreaming Ape, will be published by CLASH Books this Clashtober!
Cover reveal, ToC, & kind words from people you might trust coming soon. PDFs available for review. Please share!
OUT NOW from Salo Press— I Transgress, an anthology of transgressive fiction edited by Chris Kelso. It includes my story “Sangomas”, which takes place in South Africa and is about a very different kind of heist.
Check out this insane TOC:
Laura Lee Bahr, Tom Bradley, Joshua Chaplinsky, Garrett Cook, Dennis Cooper, Samuel R. Delany, Andrew Gallix, C.V. Hunt, James Joyce, Violet LeVoit, Edward Lee, Nick Mamatas, Thomas Moore, Scott Philips, The Residents, Matthew Revert, R.G. Robertson, Michael Salerno, Lauren Sapala, Gary J. Shipley, Iain Sinclair, John Skipp
I’ve got a new story in The Wyrd #2. Editor Marcel Harper describes it as, “a mind and time-bending story of an altogether different kind of mile-high club.” You can check out Aft Lavatory Occupied here.
This story started with the title. I came up with it—you guessed it—on a plane. But I had no idea what the story would be about.
A while after that I came across a Stephen King anecdote. I think it was in Dans Macabre or On Writing, but don’t hold me to that. It was about this story idea he had. About a bathroom (I remember it being on a plane or in an airport) that people kept going into and never coming out of. Eventually they sent in law enforcement, then the army, but no one ever came out. Was it a portal to another dimension? He never wrote it because he had no idea how it ended.
Or something like that.
Either way, that idea inspired this story.
Songs are like the short stories of the music world.
In related news, I recorded a disturbingly sexy cover of the Pete Townshend classic, “Rough Boys.” Check it out on Soundcloud:
Voici la première traduction étrangère de l’une de mes nouvelles! Le Roi des Rats a été traduit en français et figure dans l’édition du vingtième anniversaire de l’anthologie annuelle de Dreampress.com, Tenebres 2018. Il s’agit d’un immense honneur et je suis très excité. Vous pouvez en commander un exemplaire ici.*
*I apologize for the general shittiness of Google Translate.
This is a cool one, folks. My story, “The Unbearable Weight of Knowing”, is included in Unnerving Magazine #8, which is a special Stephen King inspired issue. The story was inspired by the novella “The Breathing Method”, from the collection Different Seasons.
Fun fact: “The Breathing Method” is the only novella from Different Seasons NOT adapted into a film thus far, although there is one in development, with Scott Derrickson attached to direct.
Sorsha knew the exact moment the child inside her died…
Speaking of The Hand of God (six months later…), said story has been reprinted in the Digital Horror Fiction anthology, Cosmic Scream. It originally appeared in Dark Moon Digest #21. It is available at all the usual outlets, i.e.: Amazon.com.
Two years ago my story “The Hand of God” was published in Dark Moon Digest #21. Issue #31 marks my triumphant return to their hallowed pages with “Nobody Rides For Free”, a story of hitchhiking gone wrong that’s Wheel of Fortune meets Deliverance.
Rake watched the blacktop melt into the horizon as Trisha hiked up her skirt and stuck out her thumb. Coarse hair sprouted from her dirt smeared legs, but Rake doubted it would hurt their prospects. Under all the grime Trisha was still a piece of ass. And if they put enough mileage between themselves and the shit that went down in Bellamy, they could splurge for a motel room and clean themselves up…
I recently wrote a new LitReactor column about my experiences promoting my book Kanye West—Reanimator. I learned a lot these past three years, and hope other indie authors find some of it helpful.
What the shit is this you say? Only me milking the last remaining drops from Kanye’s withered teat like I was Luke Skywalker and he was a Thala-siren.
Why the shit should you care? What’s in it for you? Only 40 pages of new content, including:
—A New Foreword: “Kanye West—Origins”, on how KW-Re came to be
—The KW-Re precursor story “Beyond the Wall of Sleep in Redhook, Brooklyn”
—A review of Re-Animator the Musical from 2012
—Acknowledgements! Did you make the cut? Buy a copy and see!
—New author bios! Exciting!
—Blurbs! Both good and bad (and made up)
—A single homophone correction!
—A dedication to my wife!
—A new ISBN!
And all for only a dollar more than the original.
It’s been almost three years you say? When am I going to write something new?
Well, if you must know, I have a short novel currently out on submission, one that isn’t a parody, but who knows if and when it will see the light of publishing day.
So if you want me to keep writing, buy this stupid book one more time. I promise I won’t go for the triple-dipple like my name was Mr. Whipple.
Joshua Chaplinsky 