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Starship Librarians reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books

Starship Librarians, edited by JR Campbell and Shannon Allen, recently received a glowing review in the Ottawa Review of Books.
Overall, the reviewer, Robert Runte, an awesome guy who I first met when he was working as an editor for 5 Rivers Publishing had this to say about the review:

Overall, Starship Librarians is a first-rate collection with some standout stories. I’m willing to bet at least some of these turn up again in ‘best-of-year’ collections. Kudos to editors Allan and Campbell. I hope we can look forward to more themed anthologies from them.

Mr. Runte was kind enough to go through the stories and provide comments on most of them. It’s always awesome when someone takes the time to get into that level of detail. Here is what he had to say about my story, “The Revolution will Not Be Fertilized”:

In contrast, “The Revolution Will Not Be Fertilized”, follows a group of guerilla gardeners led by a rebel librarian. I dreaded reading this one! First, it’s written in the second person, which rarely works. Second, it’s by horror writer, J. W. Schnarr. Schnarr is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, but his writing . . … Years after first discovering his stories, I’m still trying to excise a couple of the nightmares he’s given me. So, throughout this story, I found myself reluctant to turn the next page as things got progressively darker. But . . . it’s wonderful! Inspired. A rare example of the perfect use of second person, and a truly unique take on resistance to dystopia.

You really couldn’t ask for a better review, could you?

Please read the full review here.

You can pick up a copy of Starship Librarians on Amazon!

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Grandecon 2025 in the books

Last weekend my girl and I went down to Grande Prairie for our first Grandecon and what a great time!

The format of the event is great, and there was a ton of stuff to check out. I spent way too much money. Sold some books and met some awesome people, so it was all well worth it. I haven’t had a convention table in a few years. It was so good to get back to it. I’ve really missed hanging out at these events. Selling books online is fun I guess, but there is nothing like being able to meet people directly to talk to them about what you love and what you have done. If you haven’t done that, I suggest you do so!

The table we had was at the back of Artist’s Alley, so I was surrounded by my people all weekend. As always, I made sure to stop by and grab books from every other writer there – gotta support the troops, right? There were some really interesting stories there. I may have to hand some of these over to my daughter to write reviews for them on her blog, https://mutatedlibrary.wordpress.com/. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. And if you have a book coming out that you think would fit the site, by all means, reach out to her!

It was the first Grandecon for both my girlfriend and myself.

I was halfway to GP when I realized I had forgotten a box of books I was bringing – The Astronaut Always Rings Twice (Tyche Books) and Negative Spaces 2: A Return to Survival Horror (Dark Peninsula Press). I have one or maybe 2 more local events scheduled for this year, and then we will start looking at next year’s schedule. I have a couple more places I’d like to add. I’ll have those books and everything else I had at Grandecon at my next event – The High Level Night Market! It’s an awesome local market that takes place October 4 in the park behind the Town building, and the stalls are all decorated with lights. It is by far the most Ray Bradbury Autumnesque thing you have ever experienced, and if you haven’t been, it’s well worth the visit.

Hopefully we’ll see some of you out there. I’ll be sharing a table with my daughter, who crochet’s stars and paints all kinds of amazing things. Can’t wait!

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Breakfast with Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones walked us through 23 things he has learned about writing during a keynote breakfast this morning at When Words Collide in Calgary, AB.

wwc2025 #horror #horrorcommunity #stephengrahamjones

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Hymn of the Hollow God

Hymn of the Hollow God – Book III of the Amberblight Quintet – is now live in digital format on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

The adventure picks up a short time after The Hexen Temple. Ellarion and Lirael, the elves the elves on opposite sides of the race to the Temple, partners in life and in death – have both disappeared, taking the Heartspire seed with them.

It is known they have headed into Maralenth Fen – the great swamp north of Riverrock. Reports from rangers scouting the area say the swamp has come under the spell of an amber malady, and creatures horrific and unknown are now found in the deep parts of the region. It is the home to ancient elven ruins, the place where the Heartspire Tree once grew and spread its magic from.

Following the elves into the swamps is no small feat. It will take courage, and it will take the help of the dwarves and elves working together in an uneasy alliance. But what horrors lie in wait at the centre of the swamp, the forgotten Vael’shara, elven centre of Heartspire worship?

Here is the teaser text for the module:

The crypt is behind them.
The artifact is no longer safe.
And deep in the swamp, voices have started singing again.

Ellarion and Lirael have vanished, carrying the unstable Heartspire with them. To Vael’shara, the Sanctum of the First Root.

Pursuing them through the drowned temple and amber-laced ruins, something stirs beneath the muck and stone. Dreams bloom in unnatural patterns. The trees lean too closely. Reflections twitch when no one moves.

At the heart of it all, a pool of golden resin, perfectly still. And a song, as old as the stones, yet new as birth. Calling to you. Singing of doom.

Check it out at the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

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The Hexen Temple

The Hexen Temple, the second adventure in the Amberblight Quintet, is now live on Amazon – for those of you who prefer paper over pixels (like myself). If you are just getting caught up, here is where we sit at the beginning of The Hexen Temple:

An ancient Elven artifact has been discovered beneath the long deserted Dwarven outpost known as Rockshield. The artifact, once buried at the base of a great magical tree, unleashed a horrific blight upon the region when activated, and it was only the actions of a brave adventuring company that stopped the blight from spreading across the realm.

Now, the artifact is seemingly deactivated, but it has a strange habit of drawing in anyone near it with whispered promises of power, wealth, and potential.

The Elves are coming to reclaim the artifact for themselves, while the local dwarves have other ideas. On the eve of the arrival of two elven envoys, a group of Rockshield dwarves steal the artifact, determined not to let it fall into elven hands.

Enspelled by its power, they attack and kidnap the residents of a hunting village before retreating into a Dwarven crypt nearby, determined to reactivate the artifact and gain the wealth, and power the artifact has promised.

The elves are determined not to let this happen. They alone know what the artifact is, and what it is capable of, but they are not telling anyone.

All that is known is the artifact is important enough for the elves to be willing to die in service of retrieving it. And they are also willing to kill…

So that is the story. But you may be asking yourself, what do you actually do?

In The Hexen Temple, your players will be part of the discussions between the envoys and get a chance to decide for themselves which of the two competing groups of elves they join to reclaim the object. They will race into the mountains, trying to beat the competing elves to the site of the Hexen Temple, and then face off against dwarves, Skarnid mutations, and the competing elves who are now determined to claim the artifact at any cost. The adventure culminates in a battle between the horrific secret at the heart of the Hexen Temple, the dwarves, the Skarnid mutations, the competing elves, and the players themselves.

And you know, since this is book 2 of 5, you know it’s only going to get more dangerous from here on out…

Check out The Hexen Temple in print on Amazon.ca:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FH3Y57JC

or on Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FH3Y57JC

And for those of you who prefer pixels, it’s been available on the Dungeon Master’s Guild site for a few months now:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/519379/The-Hexen-Temple–Book-II-of-the-Amberblight-Quintet

Hope you enjoy it! And watch out for “The Hymn of the Hollow God” – Book III of the Amberblight Quintet – coming out on digital at the Dungeon Master’s Guild later this month!

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Starship Librarians Cover Reveal

Here is the cover for Tyche Books’ anthology, “Starship Librarians”. The anthology features a story of mine called “The Revolution Will Not Be Fertilized”.

Shannon Allen and JR Campbell are awesome at what they do, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us this time around!

Tyche was kind enough to send along a Kindle preorder link for those of you who love their paper pixelized – and really, who doesn’t?

So support small press, support Canadian writing, support great people. I’m sure you know all this, and I don’t have to remind you.

Starship Librarians preorder link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD4ZKNHX

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Cover Teaser for Starship Librarians

The amazing folks over at Tyche books have sent out a cover teaser for their upcoming anthology, “Starship Librarians” edited by Shannon Allen and JR Campbell. The cover art is by Lorna Antoniazzi, according to Tyche’s Facebook post with this exact image.

The full reveal will be on June 17, but until then… here is a little teaser.

In other news, I have stepped once more into the shadow realm that exists behind every Dungeon Master screen and will be running a heavily modified 3.5e version of Tyranny of Dragons for my new group. It’s a mix of experienced Grogs and new 5e players, so there should be lots of help at the table.

We held a session 0 earlier this week and laid out some ground rules. Then we have a couple weeks off before our first game. I’ll keep you posted on this and other stuff as it happens. In all honesty, probably like a week or two after it happens 😉

If you haven’t checked out my printed adventures over on Amazon, please feel free to do so at your convenience. I have another one coming soon. And copies of my newly rebirthed short story collection, A Quiet Place (cover by the amazing Erin MacCallum, who will be at When Words Collide in August if you want to bug her for commissions) is also available.

Later days!

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When Words Collide

In August, I’ll be heading down to When Words Collide in Calgary, and it’s been a while since I did that. I’m excited to see some friends I have missed, drink some beer, commiserate with fellow writers, drink some more, and possibly even learn a thing or two.

This year’s guest is Stephen Graham Jones, which is awesome because horror writers don’t often get a ton of love in the genre world – they are the creepy, deformed sisters that get locked in the basement and only come out when someone forgets to secure the lock after feeding them.

So that is going to be awesome! I’m also looking forward to possibly seeing some family while I’m down there, so if you are in the area the weekend of August 15, stop in and say hi!

In other news, I’m working on lining up some convention tables for my new releases this year – the re-release of my fiction collection A Quiet Place and a handful of D&D adventures that are slowly making their round. There is some little stuff up here. I’d love to get up to Yellowknife at some point, but to be honest, I don’t trust my car to drive for hours without a single gas station in sight.

In a short time, I am going to be running a Tyranny of Dragons campaign – my DM break is over! Since every single 5e campaign book is hot garbage (organizationally, the ideas are very good!) this means a ton of homebrewing on my part. It’s really one of my favourite things about D&D.

This campaign is going to be extra awesome because we’ve finally convinced our 5e players to try out 3.5 – the best version of D&D and if you disagree, well, in the words of Conan the Barbarian, “DEN TO HALL WITCHOO!”

I have a plan for this game that I think will really put it over the top for my players. More to come on that.

Did I mention it’s fuckin’ hot up here? Well, it is.

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The Crypt of the Four in print!

Just a quick note here announcing an adventure I wrote a few months ago – “The Crypt of the Four” is now available in print, for those of you – like myself – prefer the persistence of paper over the cold efficiency of pixels.

Also, and I may be a little biased here, but these little adventures look great on a bookshelf.

Here is the back cover for The Crypt of the Four:

They were heroes lost to time. But they bore a dark secret…
Beneath the earth, where history is buried and forgotten, something stirs. The
Crypt of the Four, once a monument to legendary heroes, has been defiled,
twisted by a presence long erased.

The Fifth has returned.

Shadows stretch unnaturally, whispers claw at the edges of thought, and the
past refuses to stay dead. A name, chiseled from stone, lingers. Waiting to be
spoken. Mockeries of the past writhe in stitched flesh, torches flicker with
spectral flame, and sorrow thickens the air.
Uncover the truth. Face what was lost.

But beware… some names were meant to be forgotten.

A 5e Compatible Horror Story for levels 7-10

You can find it in print on all the relevant Amazons, such as here:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F89F2Q2R
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F89F2Q2R

And of course, the digital version is available up on the Dungeon Masters Guild:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/511792/The-Crypt-of-the-Four

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Winter Hearts on Dungeon Masters Guild

I’ve recently released a new first-tier adventure on Dungeon Masters Guild, and will be releasing it soon as a print release on Amazon (stay tuned for news on that!)

Winter Hearts takes place near Mourningbridge, the same community I built for The Crypt of the Four, for those of you keeping track. If you can’t tell by the name, this adventure takes place during the winter.

In winter hearts, your adventurers can investigate the disappearance of a family on their way to Mourningbridge who were seemingly attacked and taken. An ancient elven keep that sits in ruins nearby is the likely location.

Some say the keep is haunted; of late, there have been strange lights seen in the upper reaches of the keep, and even stranger things heard.

Here is the teaser for Winter Hearts:

In the dead of winter, an ancient elven keep lies in ruin, its walls besieged by gnolls driven mad by visions of a sacred child hidden within. Inside, an elven couple guards their newborn, while a desperate human family lies captive beneath their feet.
As hunger, bloodlust, and divine prophecy converge, the walls won’t hold for long… and what waits below hungers for more than just flesh.
Break the siege, save the innocent, and cleanse the desecrated magic of the Bleeding Watch –  before winter’s heart devours you…

Before you go any further, read this!!!

This story contains themes of imprisonment, childbirth under duress, starvation, siege warfare, religious zealotry, torture, and threats to families.

Readers may also encounter unsettling depictions of predatory violence, emotional manipulation, gnoll rituals, and moral dilemmas involving desperate survival. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these themes.

For some of you, this is exactly why you have purchased this adventure. For others…

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Check it out at the DMs Guild!

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/521265/Winter-Hearts