Don’t miss this big event on Wednesday, October 1st, at 7 PM!
Come hear me, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Laird Barron, and L.A. Kornetsky (a.k.a. Nebula Award-nominated author Laura Anne Gilman) read from our latest works at WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn!
Books will be available for purchase and signing!
For more information, visit WORD’s website.
Also, to find out where else I’ll be reading and signing this fall, check out this schedule.
As I’ve mentioned, my new novel, Die and Stay Dead, the sequel to Dying Is My Business, is being released on September 30. I will be doing several readings and signings around the New York City area in celebration, and I hope you’ll be able to join me. Here are the details:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, WORD, 7 PM
This will be the official launch! Copies of Die and Stay Dead will be available for purchase. I’ll be reading and signing, of course…but wait, there’s more! Joining me will be two special guests: Shirley Jackson Award-winning horror author Laird Barron and critically acclaimed mystery author L.A. Kornetsky (a.k.a. Nebula Award-nominee Laura Ann Gilman), both of whom will be reading from and signing their own latest works! You definitely don’t want to miss this one!
WORD
126 Franklin Street
Brooklyn
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, WRITERS READ NYC, 6 PM
I’ll be reading with several other authors — I don’t know who yet — at this venerable literary reading series held at the Sidewalk Cafe. I plan to have some copies of Die and Stay Dead with me for purchase. A full menu of food and drink will be available. There is a $5 cover charge.
The Sidewalk Cafe
94 Avenue A (corner of 6th St.)
Manhattan
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION READING SERIES, 7 PM
Join me and Bram Stoker Award-nominated horror author John Langan for an evening of readings and book signings in a hip SoHo art gallery! Copies of Die and Stay Dead will be available for purchase. There is a $7 suggested donation at the door.
SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street (between W. Houston and Prince)
Manhattan
I hope to see you at one of these events, or even all three! In the meantime, don’t forget that you can preorder Die and Stay Dead from Amazon or your favorite bookseller.
Today marks four years since I stopped smoking!
It was without a doubt one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but so worth it. At this point, enough time has passed that I don’t miss cigarettes anymore, not even when I see my few remaining smoking friends light up. That used to be a trigger for cravings, but over time it got less and less. Now I’m a totally insufferable ex-smoker. When I see people smoking, I shake my head and wonder how that ever could have been me. I see smokers toss their butts like litter on the street and I sneer, but then I remember I used to do the exact same thing. I ponder why smokers would do this to themselves, since the awful health repercussions are known to everyone now, but then I remember that it’s a drug addiction. Nicotine is a drug that hooks you instantly, and it makes you crazy if you don’t keep putting it into your system after that. I should know. I was addicted for twenty years. Frankly, I’m lucky it didn’t kill me the way it killed my father, grandmother, and at least one of my grandfathers.
Anyway, if you’re looking for the secret to stopping smoking and staying stopped, it is simply this: You cannot have another cigarette again. Not ever. Not even a puff. Because once you do, the nicotine has got you and the addiction starts all over again. That’s why they say there’s no such thing as “just one.” That’s also why I refuse to even smoke the occasional cigar. I know if I ever have nicotine again, all my hard work will be for nothing. And I don’t want to go back to being beholden to a drug habit. It shapes your day and routines and thought patterns in ridiculous ways you don’t even realize until you stop.
So that’s it. The big secret. Once you stop smoking, you have to actually stop smoking. No bumming smokes. No puffs off other people’s cigarettes. No “I only smoke when I’m out with friends.” Nothing. No more. Only then can you break the addiction for good.
In other news, today is also the 11th anniversary of the biggest blackout in North American history. It struck the entire eastern seaboard, including New York City. I still remember having to walk all the way downtown from the New York Public Library on 42nd Street to the Brooklyn Bridge, then over the bridge and to my apartment through pitch-black Brooklyn streets. Our borough president, Marty Markowitz, was waiting on the other side of the bridge with a megaphone, welcoming us back home. Marcy and G Italiano were visiting from Canada at the time, and we used the little flashlight on Marcy’s keychain to make our way through the darkness. When we got back to my place, we lit candles and drank cocktails. It’s funny how time works. No way does feel like eleven years have passed, and yet so much has happened since then.
Yesterday I broke the Internet. Today it was my wife’s turn.
You see, we live in a pretty diverse neighborhood, Crown Heights, in which there dwells a very large Orthodox Jewish population. The Orthodox communities in New York aren’t exactly known for their tolerance of outsiders. In the past, they have forced women to sit in the back of public city buses, painted over bicycle lanes in the street because they deemed bicycle pants on women to be “immodest,” tried to gender segregate a public park, and so on and so on. Yesterday, a sign mysteriously appeared in our neighborhood, wrapped around a public utility pole. Alexa took a photo of it on her way home from work:
In case you can’t read it, it says, “Dear Resident, Guest, Visitor, please dress modestly. This is a Jewish neighborhood.”
Aside from the generally outrageous tone of the sign telling adults how they should dress, it is actually illegal to post private signs on public property. Furthermore, Crown Heights is not only a Jewish neighborhood. You can’t walk two blocks here without coming across a church, either freestanding or storefront. There’s a huge Caribbean and African-American population here, not to mention Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians, etc. etc. etc. It’s an extremely diverse neighborhood. The sign tries to “other” everyone who isn’t part of the orthodox community by claiming ownership of the neighborhood and addressing everyone else as merely residents, guests, and visitors. Fuck that.
So Alexa sent the pictures to a few places online. Failed Messiah and Gothamist both picked up the story and ran with it, reprinting not just Alexa’s pictures but also the email she sent with them. I’m so proud of her! I can’t wait for her to blow up the Internet again! In the meantime, the sign is still there. I wonder if it will be tomorrow.
In other news, I was quoted by the CBC in an article about those creepy dolls that were appearing on doorsteps in California. Everything’s coming up Internet!
