My Latest, and Maybe Last, Story: “The Atrocity Exhibitionists”

This one has been out for a while, actually. I wrote it for Ellen Datlow’s anthology Screams From the Dark, first released in hardcover last summer, with a paperback release scheduled for May.

The book’s overall theme: monsters. But allowing for a very broad interpretation of what constitutes a monster.

Me, I couldn’t think of anything more monstrous than what can happen to people under the malign influences of social media. In fact, the whole morass began years ago to appear like a monstrous entity unto itself, sucking away human decency and self-respect by the tankerful, and leaving behind all the baser impulses to be indulged in an endless theater of the grotesque.

All along — for reasons addressed on my About page — this one has felt like the final story of mine that could legitimately wear the horror tag. And if it is, I can be proud of it, that it’s the last in this particular line. Ellen’s editorial oversight was invaluable, and essential, in helping me shape this story into everything I wanted it to be.

At present, after around 136 of them, there are no more new short stories from me on the horizon. Which feels weird. It’s never been that way before.

I can’t imagine I wouldn’t have another one or two or ten in me at some point. But for the foreseeable future, the intention is to focus solely on novels.

And given the scope of what I’m working on now, I’ll take that tradeoff.