If you've been keeping up with my proper author page then this is old news to you; or at least, it's news that's 24 hours old or better. But since that site gets a very small fraction of the traffic that this LJ receives, I considered that posting a "soft release," if you will. Here's the real and proper scoop: I've signed on to do another novella for Subterranean Press. Although it is true that I've been brain-knockingly busy for the last few months, I'm on the verge of hitting the downswing in that frantic sine curve; and besides, I had such a wonderful experience with the composition and subsequent publication of Dreadful Skin, that I was thrilled silly when the marvelous Mr. Schafer suggested doing another.

My next project for this fine company will be called, Those Who Went Remain There Still. It's a title I've been kicking around for a long time, but it never suited anything until this story landed in my lap;* and when I realized what a perfect fit it was, I damn near squealed. Tentative summary could be offered as follows:

Heaster Wharton is finally dead.

Elderly figurehead of a Kentucky family that split itself into feuding factions, Heaster's passing might mean an end to hostilities between the Martins and the Coys. If the old man had the kindness and foresight to split his property cleanly between them, then a truce could be arranged.

His final request is a strange one. Representatives of both families must set out for a cave at the edge of his property. There, he promised, they would find his proper will and the deeds to his land.

But there's more than legal paperwork waiting at the bottom of Witch's Pit, as vindictive old Heaster was well aware.

In 1775, Daniel Boone and a band of axe-wielding frontiersmen struggled to clear a path through the bluegrass hills, but they did not work unopposed. Hounded and harried by an astonishing monster, they overcame it by sheer numbers and steel -- and they tossed its body into a nearby cave.

But it was not dead, and now it is not alone.

Crippled and outraged, for 100 years something terrible has huddled underground, but its newest visitors will not make for easy pickings.

The Martins and Coys are heavily armed, skeptical of their instructions, and happy to resort to violence. And with the aid of a spiritualist cousin, they're also encouraged and guided by the ghosts of those who came before -- even the guilt-stricken shade of Boone himself.

Because live there or die there, no one ever really leaves the Witch's Pit.

Best of all, at least part of this convoluted tale is hypothetically true. Wow. Disclaimer much? Yes, well. One must be careful about such things when one is discussing the phantoms of beloved American folk figures and man-eating cave monsters. So let us say more correctly that this novella will be Inspired By A True Story. And for a variety of reasons,** I'll even be writing a chapbook about the story's composition that explains how much is true, how much is maybe-true, and how much I pulled out of my butt for narrative purposes. (As a matter of full disclosure, the vast bulk of material will come directly from category #3.)

Anyway, there you go -- that's what I've been sitting on for the last week or so, and now you know. I'm pretty psyched about this project, though the moment my mother reads this post, I predict that she will become notably less excited about helping me with the familial specifics. Even so, it's going to be grand, and I can't wait.

:)

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* Indeed, several years ago it was the working title for Fathom. Trust me. Fathom is a MUCH better fit.
** It's quite interesting to google around and learn that the bulk of history remembers your relatives as a fictional satire upon another set of feuding families. At one point I stumbled across the phrase, "Probably never existed." But let me put it this way -- my grandma's maiden name was "Coy," her family originally came from northern Kentucky, and at least two of my characters (apart from Boone) are based on historically verifiable people.