It’s Time To Be Thankful

We are back from a really fun week in New Orleans. In classic “back to life, back to reality” fashion, I jumped right into the pre-company cleaning of the house. Fortunately, some of this had already been taken care of, because honestly — who wants to come home from a vacation to a dirty house? That being said, I’m pretty sure that the only reason The Mrs ever has company over is so that I am forced to find permanent places for the little things that have collected on the horizontal surfaces of the house.

I’m pretty sure that my knock off FitBit thinks that someone stole it for a week. We walked everywhere in NOLA and now my exercise averages are severely skewed.

In a related story, I’m pleased to announce that I was able to do all of that walking without suffering too much and without the aid of my cane, so that’s a plus.

I am currently enjoying a little snuggle time with Tesla. I know that will end soon as “bathe the dog” is on my To Do list for today.

We returned from the relative warmth of Louisiana to typical autumnal Michigan weather. The Mrs has been enjoying fires in the wood stove after work every day. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the opportunity to wear warmer clothes like 3/4 sleeve shirts and hockey jerseys while she is at work. I’ve been changing into shorts and a tee shirt when she gets home because the TV room gets really warm with that fire going.

Listening To: Seven Demons by Aidan Truhen. This is an extreme and extremely humorous crime novel that has me literally laughing out loud.

Currently Reading: I’m finishing up Welcome to Elm Street: Inside the Film and Television Nightmares by Wayne Byrne. It’s an interesting look at some of the behind the scenes material associated with the production of one of my favorite horror franchises.

Current Obsession: Freddy’s Nightmares. I know that I watched the show when it was first on, I mean, I had to. I just don’t have any actual memories of any of the episodes (unlike Friday the 13th: The Series which for some reason I do remember). It appears to be available on Plex, so I will dive into that when I get all caught up on the housework. I see that they also have the full run of Max Headroom which I might also have to revisit.

We took the week off while we were out of town, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has been going on. In fact, quite a bit has been going on.

First off, we are running a sale at Dragon’s Roost Press. Apply code Terrorgiving2024 at checkout to receive 10% off of your total for Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and CyberMonday. Offer good through 3 December 2024.

The big news, and something we are definitely thankful for, is that Ramsey Cambell’s “The Assembled” which first appeared in our anthology Novus Monstrum, was selected to appear in Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year Volume 16. Congratulations to Mr. Campbell and to Novus Monstrum’s editors Douglas Gwylim and Ken MacGregor.

We have received the first 15 minutes of the audio version of The Pleasure in Pain for our review.

We will be finishing up the surveys for the Kickstarter campaign for Arkham Institutions and will be moving on to production next week.

We have some interesting projects in the work for 2025 which we can’t wait to announce.

We are also working on our touring schedule for next year. Do you know of a horror or book related event that you think we should appear at? Let us know!

This Week’s Rambling: A Week Away — Highlights

As mentioned above, we had a great time in New Orleans. While it is tempting to provide a minute by minute travelog, I’ve still got quite a bit of cleaning to do (including a dog to bathe which is super tiring). Instead, here are a few of the highlights.

We stayed at The Brakeman Hotel, a boutique establishment situated in a converted train station just north of the French Quarter. It had a few extra benefits as well. It was one of the stops on the Hop On, Hop Off bus route which allowed us to visit all the areas of the city which we wished to see without paying for a rideshare or renting a car. Even better, it is right next to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (it is where you meet to tour the cemetery). We had a great view from our window on the second floor.

We took a bunch of guided tours which covered various aspects of the city. The two best were the nighttime bus tour which took us into a cemetery at night and the Bad Bitches tour which talked about influential women from New Orleans.

We also left town for the swamp where we rode in an airboat and held a wild alligator.

Naturally, we had a ton of great food, the best of which was when we got dressed up to go to Muriell’s. If you want a fine dining experience, I highly recommend it.

I lost The Mrs for the better part of an hour while we were in the Audubon Aquarium and Insectorium — she has about a billion pictures from the butterfly house.

I also highly recommend the Sazerac House tour and its free samples!

Of course, we visited our neighbors as well.

I hope everyone has a peaceful Thanksgiving (or a great weekend if you are reading this outside of the US).