Yes, I’m trying out Beehiiv as an alternative to Substack. Not sure where I’ll wind up.
First, I need to admit I screwed up. Last month I happily told you about a new short story collection, Remembrance of Things to Come, that was scheduled for release on October 3rd. It appeared — and promptly vanished again, because I realized I didn’t actually have reprint rights to one of the stories yet. It was still exclusive to the original publisher.
The rights will revert to me in February, so Remembrance has been rescheduled for release on March 1, 2026. This gives me a chance to fix some formatting errors I hadn’t spotted back in September, so when it does come out it’ll be a slightly better-looking book.
I’m publishing it through Draft2Digital, rather than the publishing services I’ve used in the past. This will put it on most of the usual bookseller sites — Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and many more — but not necessarily on Amazon. If you really, really want to buy it through Amazon, let me know, and I can make sure it gets there, one way or another. (I haven’t yet decided whether to put the ebook on Google Play. Opinions welcome.)
In actual writing news, I’m a little over halfway through Tom Derringer & the Sinister Statue, and hope to get it done and published some time in 2026. We’ll see how that goes.
As I mentioned, I’m also working on a special project — I’m planning to re-publish “The Wooden Heads,” by C.L. Hales, an obscure story from 1925 (and therefore out of copyright in the U.S.). More about that when it nears completion. I don’t expect this one to make anyone any money; I just want it to be available again.
And all of this is going slowly. Julie had knee replacement surgery on the 20th, so I’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into preparing for that, getting equipment in place for the months of recovery, and running errands. She won’t be allowed to drive for a couple of weeks yet. We won’t be trick-or-treating this year! (We wouldn’t be anyway, of course.)
Our plans for the holidays are somewhat vague, as they’re dependent on how quickly Julie recovers and whether family members dare to venture into the skies with the U.S. air traffic control system in disarray.
So that’s about it. Hope you’ll all enjoy the holiday season.
— Lawrence