Good grief. Has it really been since October 14th? So much has happened since then…

My professional life can be broken out into three segments. First, there is the day job. Second, there is the Apex job. Third, there is my freelance job.

In regards to the first, I quit my old job working for the Commonwealth of Kentucky and took gainful employment with the University of Kentucky as an ABAP developer. The new job is great. Compared to the old job, it is awesome.

In regards to the second, I’m going to write a special post for the Apex blog to talk about Apex stuff. That should be quite the screed.

And in regards to the third… it wasn’t a particularly “big” year for me. Thanks to the madness that is my life, the time to put words to digital paper doesn’t exist. Even so, I did manage to pen a few new stories and produce a handful of new anthology projects.

Anthologies:

The project I’m most proud of doing is The Zombie Feed Volume 1.  Despite being inordinately expensive and having a poor profit/loss ratio, the small press loves anthologies, and I’m no exception.  Disregarding all business sense, I wanted to put one together to help launch TZF Press. I couldn’t pay professional rates, so almost all the submissions I received were from lesser-known short fiction writers, yet the overall quality of the stories was outstanding. This made selecting the final works quite difficult. It also helped make for an anthology that I consider mostly pro-level in fiction quality. Critics have heaped plenty of love on the book and the anthology has brought deserved attention to several breakout stars like Kristin Dearborn, Maggie Slater, and Simon McCaffery.

A link. A link! A link to buy The Zombie Feed Volume 1!

I’d love to do a second volume. Unfortunately, the first volume hasn’t sold enough to justify a follow up. Help remedy that, would you? The print version is $14.95 and the eBook version goes for $2.99.

I did a second anthology (digital only) for Apex to showcase our kick ass authors and editors. Apexology: Science Fiction and Fantasy has eighteen stories from the likes of Lavie Tidhar, Maurice Broaddus, and Alethea Kontis.

A link to buy a book full of greatness from the amazing Apex folks.

This is the follow up to Apexology: Horror (which turned out to be a pretty big seller). Quite simply, if you like genre work, you’ll like this book. I’ll probably do more Apexology titles, but that is far, far down the road.

Short Fiction:

I had a handful of stories come out in 2011.

“Samuel” in Fell Beasts edited by Ty Schwamberger.

“Lollipop” in Day Terrors edited by Dru Pagliassotti and Kfir Luzzatto

“Useless Creek” in Haunted: Eleven Tales of Ghostly Horror edited by Monica Valentinelli

Conventions:

I went to MidSouthCon, Mo*Con, Hypericon, Context, Gen*Con, Frightfest, and Scarefest. I was out and about quite a bit in 2011! I’m still hashing out my 2012 schedule, but right now I have confirmed for Mo*Con, Gen*Con, and Scarefest (this is a hometown convention).

Looking Ahead:

I’m asked a lot at conventions and by friends if I plan on writing more. The answer to that is “yes, but it probably won’t happen anytime soon.” I would love to hop on the self-publishing bandwagon with a novel or collection and play in the shallow waters as everybody else, but I barely keep up with the books I have contracted through Apex let alone doing my own stuff. I’d have to write the novel, get it printed, then market like mad. Nope, not enough time in the day right now.

I want to promise to blog more often, but that would likely become a broken promise, so I’ll refrain.

I tool around on Facebook quite a lot these days. You can find me here. I also have a Twitter feed that I check maybe once a week that is here.

Christmas Outlook:

I’ve been a punk all year, so coal it is for me.