You’ve got to be kidding. Three newsletters in three weeks?

What can I say?

Far too much, evidently. Months go by without word from you, and then you turn up in our mailboxes every seven days. 

Um—

You’re like a college student who’s running out of money. Or like a crosstown bus. We wait for an hour in the cold, and then three show up, one after the other.

I know, I know. But I’ve got some news to share, and I don’t want y’all to have to wait for it. First off, do you remember a few months ago when I said I’d kind of like a position as writer-in-residence at a college?

I remember how nervy I thought it was. You dropped out of college without so much as a bachelor’s degree, and you think you can elbow your way into the halls of academia. How’d that work for you, dude?

In the first place, I didn’t drop out. The school asked me to leave.

But never mind. It all worked out better than either of us would have guessed. This fall I’ll be writer-in-residence at Newberry College in (duh) Newberry, South Carolina. I’ll be teaching about six hours a week, divided between a limited-enrollment writing workshop and a survey course of American crime fiction.

Seriously? How’d you con them into it?

I had some help from my friend, Warren Moore. When he’s not playing drums in a garage band or writing stellar fiction (outstanding stories for several anthologies of mine, and a powerful novel), Warren’s a distinguished professor in Newberry’s English department. I guess he’s a persuasive lad, because the upshot is that I got the gig.

And, best news of all, I’ll be on the job during all of football season. Go Wolves!

Well, I can see why you wouldn’t want to keep all that to yourself. Think you’ll enjoy teaching? Or that you’ll be any good at it?

Beats me, but I guess we’ll all find out. I’ll probably use a lot of the material I developed for Write For Your Life in the workshop, and for the survey course I’ll assign some of my favorite books by favorite authors; it’ll give me an excuse to read them again.

But that’s not all.

Oh, r@s. There’s more?

I’ll say. I’ve been telling all of y’all about At Home in the Dark, the cross-genre anthology of dark stories coming in April as a leather-bound signed-and-numbered limited edition from Subterranean Press.

And you’ll be doing it in paperback and ebook, and we can pre-order the Subterranean limited and/or the ebook right now, di dah di dah di dah. So?

So just a few days ago Netflix acquired the rights to Joe Hill‘s dark fantasy novelette, “Faun,” after a spirited bidding war. Joe’s story is quite wonderful, and richly visual, so it’s no surprise that people in the business were quick to recognize its dramatic potential. I can’t wait to see what they do with it.

Meanwhile, the news hasn’t hurt the book a bit. Subterranean’s edition was a pretty sure bet all along to sell out in advance of publication, but this news truly ices the cupcake. If you want the book’s only hardcover edition, you’re best advised to pre-order it now.

And, if you want to be the first on your block to have “Faun” on your eReader, pre-order it for Kindle Nook Kobo Apple Thalia

Why pre-order an ebook? You’re not going to run out of copies, are you?

I wouldn’t think so. But pre-ordering does two things. It means you’ll have one less thing to have to remember—or, if you’re my age, one less thing to forget. And it locks in the $9.99 price. I don’t anticipate hiking the price, but it’s something I have the option of doing after the book’s published.

Well, I can see why you felt you had to inflict yet another newsletter on us. And now I suppose you’re going to plug some of your other books, right? 

Not exactly. All I’ll do is throw some links at y’all, some books of mine you might enjoy readg, and that I’d certainly enjoy selling. No pictures, no sales talk. Just some titles. (The links are to Amazon, but you can probably hunt the titles down on other platforms as well.)

A Time to Scatter Stones. Small Town. The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes. The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons. Keller’s Fedora.Resume Speed and Other Stories. The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep. 

I guess that’s all.

I’d say it’s more than enough. So we’re done, are we? Until next week?

Or next month. Or next summer. Who’s to say, really?