Postcards From the Falls, Issue 008 - February 2023
The newsletter for all things Brennan LaFaro - An inundation of Illusions of Isolation information, Dead Headspace season 4 kick-off, and a new highlight section called "Out of the Shadows"
What’s New?
On March 1st, French Press will be releasing Illusions of Isolation. Thirteen stories that range from splatterpunk to space horror, creeps to creature features, and body horror to eco horror. Huge thank you to Stephen Kozeniewski and Kayleigh Edwards for all their hard work bringing this thing together.
You can preorder the e-book right here and it will be waiting for you the morning of March 1st.
I’ve also been talking a little bit about each story over on twitter. If you’d like to read the thread, you can find it below.
A couple more things I’ve been dying to share. This collection will include an introduction written by one of my all-time favorite authors, Jonathan Janz. To say reading Jonathan’s kind words about my stories was surreal is a major understatement. I’m honored that he took the time.
If you’re still on the fence about ordering, let a few incredible writers push you over the edge.
“With the thirteen tales in this Norman Rockwell nightmare, Brennan LaFaro has made the world feel unsafe — the bucolic now rendered septic, the familial unfamiliar and the innocence of children something to be absolutely terrified of.”
- Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters
“Evocative, relevant, and expertly crafted, LaFaro’s collection is an exemplary testament to his range and mastery of his craft.”
- Candace Nola, author of Bishop
Works-in-Progress
Last month I announced the title of the third and final Slattery Falls book, The World You Loved. I spent most of January rewriting and revising, tweaking, and trying to get everything just right. TWYL is the sixth book I’ve written and wildly different even than Decimated Dreams. Writing DD there was pressure to honor the characters from the first book and continue the arc, but I knew it wasn’t the end of the line. There was still time to tie up loose ends. With this book, I feel the pressure to deliver an ending that I love, that the readers deserve, and most importantly that does justice to these characters I’ve lived with for more than three years now. If it doesn’t kill me, I think it will be worth the wait.
Recommendations
Reading: You might notice a theme going on above. I picked up Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth in preparation for Dead Headspace and got about 100 pages in before falling head over heels for her voice. I took advantage of an unexpected day off to head to the bookstore and fill in the gaps of my Rachel Harrison collection then proceeded to plow through her entire collection in about a week. While it’s tough to pick a favorite, the last one I finished, Cackle, may be the one that stuck with me the most. If you’ve been sleeping on this author, wake up.
Listening: I spent a little time this week formatting a copy of my upcoming novella, Last Stay, for blurbs. It made me think of Dustin Kensrue’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love and reignited my love of the album Thoughts That Float on a Different Blood, an acoustic cover album featuring a lot of unexpected tunes from artists like Lorde, Miley Cyrus, Radiohead, Counting Crows, Bruce Springsteen and a bunch more.
Dead Headspace Podcast
Season four of Dead Headspace is upon us and perhaps the most exciting part is that Patrick and I are graced with a third member of the team. It’s official, long-time collaborator Erica Robyn is one of us. More on her in a minute.
As I mentioned earlier, we kicked the season off with Rachel Harrison and Erica’s first episode as a host. Next was our annual Best of episode. This year we invited Brian McAuley and the Curator of Horror himself, Chance Forshee for a conversation about our favorite books of 2022. To wrap up January, we recorded with Jordan Harper and Eli Cranor to talk about Jordan’s new book, Everybody Knows, and an episode with CJ Tudor, featuring Candace Nola.
February promises to be a huge month with episodes featuring Victor LaValle, Erika T. Wurth, John Lynch, Well Read Beard, Samantha Kolesnik, and Grady Hendrix.
Out of the Shadows
Previously, I’ve wrapped this newsletter up with “Writing Tips” but unless there’s public outcry, I’ll just work those into my works-in-progress section. Whenever I write the acknowledgments section for a book, I always like to thank a few people who live to shout about horror books and build up authors. I plan to use this section each month to pull the shadows back and reveal one member of the horror community. This month?
The inimitable Erica Robyn. Patrick McDonough and I never made plans to add a third member of the team. Within a week of launching the podcast, we had a fan. Not just a listener, someone who understood our desire to read great horror and share it with as wide an audience as possible. Of course, she understood it. She spent her time writing reviews and articles to achieve the same end. That mutual respect blossomed into a friendship and we were honored to have Erica co-host a group of episodes over the years. Then we floated the idea of adding her to the team and the rest is history.
Erica is a consummate consumer of all things horror and a natural talent at taking her reading experience and turning it into an enticing argument that any reader would be hard-pressed to ignore. Add to all that, Erica is one of the warmest, most genuine human beings you’ll ever have the pleasure of meeting.
You can check out her archive at ericarobynreads.com
Remember, you can preorder Illusions of Isolation now.
YAY YAY YAY! So pumped for March first!!! And you are too kind... <3 So happy to be part of the team! So excited for the rest of 2023!