20 Something Monstrous This Way Comes

I hope some of you who read these posts have had a chance to look at the books pictured on the home page. If you have, thank you, and I hope they've rewarded your time! I'm happy to announce a novel coming out in 2018. The title is Wiskalo Chookalo; it's a ghost story I've set in early 1930s Wisconsin. TCK Publishing is bringing it out maybe in early summer in paperback and e-book. I'll post again when it becomes available. Yes, I know the title sounds strange. No, I'm not going to tell what it means. The title holds a couple secrets to the story, and its meaning unfolds as the story does--I don't want to spoil either. The story has a peculiar genesis. A couple of years ago on a frosty Wisconsin fall night with just a hint of snow in the air, I was looking out the back window into the yard, and the ghost dropped over the fence, sending the proverbial chill up my spine. Fortunately for me, it disappeared, but it left its story clear and complete in my mind. I needed only a little concentrated free time to tell it. At Christmastime my father-in-law passed away. He wasn't a literary man, but he always complimented me on my work and encouraged it, and shortly after he passed, I felt a special urgency to write that ghost story, as if he were saying, "Time for that work, son." The first draft, title and all, finished itself in twenty-two days. I took some time to refine it and spent the next year and a half looking for a place for it. Those of you who have experienced a similar passion for a project will know how great it felt to find that place. Perhaps I've mentioned before that while people in our time say "I thought that," the ancients said "the thought came to me that": this story came to me. I hope it proves as enjoyable in the reading as it did cathartic and fulfilling in the writing. I wish you similar inspiration, and may you find a place and readers at least for your favorite stories if not for all of them.