Arriving in early 2023 by Written Backwards: Agatha’s Barn, the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novella by Michael Bailey. The original, a tie-in to Josh Malerman’s serial novel Carpenter’s Farm, was originally released as a 5-part series during the start of the pandemic. You can still read (perhaps indefinitely) both for free online as originally intended, but the novella is on the way in physical formats.
More information will be made available soon, but the cover features new artwork by Glenn Chadbourne, and the interior will include all original black and white illustrations created for the story, a few of which are featured below.
The Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated anthology, coedited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey, is under a buck on Kindle in the US / UK now through the weekend. Snag a copy of the eBook if you haven’t already. Features the Stoker-winning short story by Josh Malerman.
Foreword by Alma Katsu
“A Heart Arrhythmia Creeping into a Dark Room” – Michael Wehunt “Matryoshka” – Jo Kaplan “Butcher’s Blend” – Brian Hodge “Operations Other than War” – Nadia Bulkin “One Day of Inside/Out” – Linda D. Addison “One Last Transformation” – Josh Malerman “Brains” – Ramsey Campbell “You Are My Neighbor” – Max Booth III “The Vodyanoy” – Christina Sng “Imperfect Clay” – Lisa Morton “Spectral Evidence” – Victor LaValle “Ode to Joad the Toad” – Laird Barron “Only Bruises Are Permanent” – Scott Edelman “My Knowing Glance” – Lucy A. Snyder “Paper Doll Hypderplane” – R.B. Payne “Not Eradicated In You” – Bracken MacLeod “Resurrection Points” – Usman T. Malik “The Old Gods of Light” – Christina Sng “Sounds Caught in Cobwebs” – M.E. Bronstein “Umbra Sum” – Kristi DeMeester “A Benediction of Corpses” – Stephanie M. Wytovich “The Making of Asylum Ophelia” – Mercedes Yardley “Frakenstein’s Daughter” – Theodora Goss
To celebrate the Shirley Jackson Award nomination for A Rose / Arose from Psychotropic Dragon, Written Backwards is offering a sampling of writing by Michael Bailey for free from October 19th thru the 23rd. All we ask is to leave a review on Amazon.com and/or Goodreads. Click the covers below. Have you read these collections already? We’d love a review!
PSYCHOTROPIC DRAGON is the third composite novel (technically a fiction collection) by Michael Bailey. Part short novel, part novella, part novelette, with a few short stories and fables in between, Psychotropic Dragon is a mind-bending composite narrative about Julie Stipes and her experience with the street drug Drakein-5. The psychotropic eye drops blur reality, sending her through a horrific journey of self-discovery and recovery. Each act in this ensemble is further brought to life with illustrations by Daniele Serra, Glenn Chadbourne, L.A. Spooner, and Ty Scheuerman.
THE IMPOSSIBLE WEIGHT OF LIFE, an autobiographical collection of speculative fiction and poetry by Michael Bailey. contains Bram Stoker Award-nominated short stories such as “I Will Be the Reflection Until the End” and “Time Is a Face on the Water,” but also never-before-published mind-benders created during his “highly-medicated” state of recovery, including a story about memory loss called “Fragments of Br_an,” (composed on a typewriter that no longer exists, now ash), “Emergence of the Colorless,” a statement about the beginning of the end of prejudice, and the far future “Oll Korrect,” in which artificial intelligence is used to explore humankind. As for poetry, there are favorites such as “Loosed Earth” and “Shades of Red,” but many new poems to help with balance, including “Hurt People Hurt People,” “Night Rainbows,” and “Paper Earth.”
OVERSIGHT, a themed collection of two novelettes and a short story by Michael Bailey. Includes “Darkroom” and “SAD Face” (novelettes), and “Fade to Black” (short story).
WRITTEN BACKWARDS 