Welcome to the Atrocissimus

Yes, I know, I haven't been terribly active with my blog or my other social media sites. What can I say? It's summer and, even here at the monastery, we take things more relaxed. As any of you who are familiar with my work already know, I'm not much given to flash fiction. I like to explore themes, characters, ideas, etc., and all that takes words. Lots and lots of words. But, I figured I'd give it a shot since it's a fun way to get out a few extra stories in no time at all. And since I still have a few more weeks of languid summer relaxation to get in, a few quick shots is all I might be able to do. Enjoy! Juan had been working from home for over a year and a half by now, thanks to the pandemic. As a psychotherapist, he'd found this quite difficult because he didn't have that same connection to his patients he did while sitting in the same room with them. So many of the nuanced non-verbals he depended upon were lost when doing therapy over a video connectio

If the American Civil War wasn't horrible enough on its own, the Atrocissimus made it even more so by inserting its foul creatures into the nightmarish mix...  Mess   As he sat on a rickety chair, Fletcher Marshall lit his pipe outside the barn that was being used as an impromptu field hospital. He could hear the flames roaring and the collected shrieks as hundreds of wounded were burned alive not a mile away, and he could smell the odor of roasting flesh. Though it was around one o’clock in the morning, the farm on which the II Corps hospital had been arranged was illuminated by an orange glow that made it look like daylight would soon break. The air was clouded with a smoky haze from the fires as the odor of searing flesh mixed freely with that of the burning woods. If there ever was a hell on earth, Fletcher thought, then surely it was in this horrifying place. The year prior at Gettysburg, Fletcher had heard similar shrieks of pain and terror coming from wounded men in

The cover art for my next book, All-American Werewolf , was just released today. It continues the exploration of the Atrocissimus we started previously and delves into even darker, more twisted corners of it than we've peered into before. The book will be available later this summer. So, as always, I need to ask you, my Dear Friend: Are you ready?  

As you all no doubt already know, my next book to explore the Atrocissimus, All-American Werewolf , will be published later this summer. To help get the word out I've been creating promotional "posters" made from artwork I located online and to which I've added lettering. I like 'em, so I'll be adding these posters here to create an archive of them. That's it. That's the blog entry. Enjoy!

Today, I have submitted my next book, All-American Werewolf , to my publisher, Next Chapter Publishing. For various reasons I've been holding back on this since January, but I'm now ready to hand it over so it can be published, which I would expect by sometime this summer. I'm very excited! So to celebrate this achievement and to give you a little taste of what we have coming, I've decided to share the prologue with you. If you want a bit more of a flavor for the book, you can check out a teaser I published earlier on my blog of the first chapter here . Enjoy! PROLOGUE Are you ready? Are you, my Dear Friend, ready to delve once again into this world of horror, into this twisted hellscape we’ve only just started to explore – this, the Atrocissimus? We scratched the surface of this perverse space and began to expand your awareness in my first book, The House on Blackstone Hill . There I revealed to you some horrifying truths of the world around you, and now, with ever

As any of you who have followed my work here already know, I don't so much consider myself a writer as a chronicler of the Atrocissimus, a collector of the dark stories from that evil realm. However, that doesn't mean that I, your humble servant dedicated to shining the light on this twisted world, don't occasionally like to write an original story that has nothing at all to do with the Atrocissimus. Even one burdened with so much dread knowledge as I sometimes likes to be creative, after all. So here I now offer you up an original horror story. I have several such short stories which I will eventually gather together and publish, but for now, please do enjoy your visit with the Sanguanini Sisters...if you survive, that is. The Sanguanini Sisters Dear Billy,                                                                                                     9/20/43 Sorry I haven’t been able to write to you much lately. The Germans and Italians have been putting up one he