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April 2024’s new horror books, featuring titles from Adam Nevill, Hailey Piper, V. Castro, Nick Medina, Eric LaRocca, Sarah Langan, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and more!

I began writing spooky stories when I was in sixth grade. I believe my first was a retelling of my mother’s real life encounter with a UFO. By the age of thirteen, I was working on my first novel. It was in no way inspired by The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight, but featured a scarecrow […]

(First 3 pages)

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray, you’ll never know, dear, how much I love you, so please don’t t-��

“Mom! Stop already, you know I hate when you do that. I’m almost a teenager, it’s time to stop with the baby stuff.��

“You’ll always be my baby,sweetheart. If it makes you feel better, though, I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Since you’re so grown up now.��

She exaggerated the last part and ruffled my hair. I pushed her hand away and pulled the mirror down to make sure she hadn’t messed it up too bad.

“Mom! It’s my first day of school. I don’t want my hair looking all crazy.��

She smiled warmlyat meas we pulled up a little further in the car rider line.

“I wish your father was here to see you becoming such��

935 more words

Check out the excellent narration for my Christmas horror story, Deck The Halls, on the Grisly Details YouTube channel. It is about a boy who becomes suspicious of the stories that his parents tell him about Santa Claus.

Today is the day! Chasing Demons is available on Amazon. Thanks to VT Little for all the amazing artwork and Alien Buddha Press for publishing the book. It is a coming of age story in the vein of It, Stranger Things, or Fear Street. I put a list of comparable books, movies, and shows below to help you decide if it’s something you might be interested in.

It by Stephen King
Stranger Things (The Show)
Supernatural (The Show)
Preacher by Garth Ennis & Strve Dillon
Revelation by Stephen King
Fear Street (The Movies based on R. L. Stine)
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
The Cursed Among Us by John Durgin
Nightmare on Elm St (The Movies)

Hope you enjoy reading! If you do, I would appreciate you leaving a star rating, review, or both. Thanks so much.

For a 5$ ebook copy in PDF format, email [email protected]

Today is the day that I was able to reveal the cover to my first full-length novel. I thought it might be a good time to do a bit of reflecting on the process of writing the novel and how that has fueled me to continue writing and pursuing my muse in the future. It started back in October or November of last year. I started with the idea of a loving mother and a troubled son. This brought me back to two eras of my life that were full of fun, trouble, chaos, and most importantly for this story, brotherhood. I dove deep into the emotions that were buried within me from these times in my life and explored them openly and honestly.

Before writing Chasing Demons, I would write when I had the time and did not make consistent time for writing. As I began on the journey I realized that the time that I am not completely drained from work and making time for family is early in the morning before I leave to work. I tried waking up around 3-3:30 in the morning to have some time before my day of work to write. It was a breakthrough for me and made things just start clicking in a whole new way.

As I was able to continue this on a pretty consistent basis I decided to take Stephen King’s advice from his book, On Writing, and create my own writing space in my man cave/garage. Having a writing desk where I can play some music, do my Wordle, drink my coffee, and just be there to write made everything feel that much more real.

This book was a personal journey that brought me through highs and lows. Hemingway said, “No tears in the writer, No tears in the reader.�� I can’t speak for the reader, but the writer laughed, cried, sat in wonder, and went through the full spectrum of emotions during the experience of writing this one. It was a commitment that pushed the limits on what I thought I was capable of, and I can’t wait to keep right at it with more projects in the future.

I’ve read, written, and submitted more than ever since starting to write this book. It’s been a time of taking shape for me and learning who I am as a writer and a person. The horror writing community has been very supportive and so have friends and family that have found out about my burgeoning interest in the craft.

The submitting has led to tons of rejection, which is always something new writers are warned of. What I was definitely counting on, but still had trouble dealing with, was that rejection kind of sucks sometimes! Hailey Piper, a brilliant and successful author was talking to young writers on Twitter and gave a little nugget that helped my mindset with this a lot. She said that she aims to get over a hundred rejections every year.

Wow! Aiming to get rejected over a hundred times in a single year. Talk about a glutton for punishment, right? It clicked in my head instantly, though. Aiming for such a high goal of rejections does multiple things. It makes getting rejection turn into progress towards a goal, leading to the possibility for a positive spin on it. It forces you to submit as often as humanly possible to try and meet this insane goal. Most importantly, it leads to more acceptances.

I will probably end up near half of the goal of a hundred rejections for the year. That is still much more than any other year for me and has definitely done the job in the acceptance field for me as well compared to other years. This, of course, can feel like swimming through the black seas of rejection to acceptances that are few and far between, but you cant argue with the results being better than when you don’t bite the bullet and send, send, send.

The main takeaway from this tangent is that through writing Chasing Demons I’ve also began to feel more connected to the writing community. Like even if I’m not fully on the inside, yet, that I can belong there and that I can learn from the wealth of knowledge that is shared openly from so many incredible authors that are working hard in the field today. It really is like a new golden era for horror and the more that I read from modern authors the more that I see why people have been claiming this. There is just so much good stuff out there right now.

I guess I just wanted to sit here for a bit and think about how grateful I am for the experience of writing this novel and everything that it has done for me. Great timing with Thanksgiving coming up next week. It was a transformative experience and the time that I spent with Michael, Tim, Dominic, and Logan in the town of Fairmont, Texas will always be close to my heart no matter how many stories I write.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you check out Chasing Demons on December 2nd, 2022.

Listen to my story, Halloween Night, on The Night’s End Podcast (@nightsendpodcast) available now! They did a great job with the voice acting and sound effects. Get your spooky story time in for Halloween Weekend. 

Thank you so much for all of your support! It was really eye opening to see how many people participated with this and I’m very grateful for everyone who voted for me during my time in the competition.

It also helped me realize that a lot of my friends and family knew nothing about my writing horror and were interested to look into it more! I will add my links below for anyone who is interested I’m reading or listening to some of my stories.

Thank you all so much again! I was really blown away by how far we made it. ��

The Bunker ��

Dreadful Nostalgia: Tavistock Galleria II -

Reddit ��

My Blog ��
cdkester.wordpress.com

YouTube ��

Horror Tree ��

Horror Hill Podcast ��

Library Podcast (G. H. Astly) ��

Listen to the audio narration of this story on the Library Voices podcast!

It was getting late at the library in Fairmont, Texas. Trenton was  done with all of his homework and decided he would look for some books to entertain him for the weekend. He loved a good spooky story and the Library usually set up an awesome horror section as Halloween drew near.Trenton stopped by the station of his favorite Library Assistant, Rachel, and asked. “So, where do y’all have the spooky section set up this year? I can’t wait to see what you did on the decorations.”Rachel smiled and replied, “Right across from the atrium. I hope that you like it! We have the heavy hitters like King and Koontz, but there are also a lot of newer and up and coming authors like Booth, Piper, Castro, Hightower. You know I could talk for hours about my favorite new writers. It’s so exciting to think of the new worlds they will create!”Trenton smiled. “Yeah, I know you could. I’d usually love to sit and go back and forth with you about all that but I’m way too excited to see what you have set up. Thanks, Rachel!”Rachel smiled back and said, “Of course. Make sure to stop by and let me know what you think!”Trenton rushed off eagerly and walked through the atrium which was by far the most beautiful feature of Fairmont Branch Library. It was filled with plants that Rachel and the other assistants took care of. There were bamboo plants, orchids, and even coffee trees with shiny and waxy green leaves that lit up the room. Plenty of comfortable seating was arranged within the atrium and it was Trenton’s favorite spot to study.As Trenton walked out of the other side of the atrium the mood shifted. There was smoke about his feet and he couldnt quite tell if it was from a smoke machine or dry ice. The effect was fantastic either way. The section had purple and black shimmering streamers that dangled from above. A sign dangled from the entrance that read “Let’s Get Spooky�� with yellow cats eyes in place of the Os.Trenton stopped and looked around to appreciate every detail and thought how Rachel had really outdone herself this year.He walked into the section setting off an evil laugh with gothic tones of music. This startled him a bit and he marveled at the skeleton who was emitting the noise. This side of the atrium was far enough from everyone who was reading or studying, so I guess she figured that it wouldn’t bother anyone.Smirking with delight at the newly festive section, Trenton scanned the titles and authors. There was Tremblay, Amor, even Danger Slater and of course Stephen Graham Jones. There was a whole section  with authors from reddit’s nosleep like Rafael Marmol, T. W. Grim, L. P. Hernandez and C. B. Jones. It was an incredible line up and Rachel had obviously been doing her homework. Trenton was delighted and reached for his first pick.Just as he was about to retrieve Night of the Mannequins by SGJ, he noticed an author that he had never heard of before. His name was G. H. Astly and his volumes took up an entire row! How had this author flown under Trenton’s radar? He was an avid reader and he especially loved the horror genre. He abandoned his original plan and reached for the first title that jumped out at home. “How to Disappear�� by G. H. AstlyThe cover was of a man who was disintegrating into the sky. The sky was purple and blue with clouds of a lemony yellow. Trenton felt entranced by the cover and stared into it. Suddenly it appeared that the clouds were circling right in front of his eyes the man who was disintegrating slowly disappeared piece by tiny piece into the otherworldly storm that the cover portrayed.”Ahhh!!!”Trenton dropped the book and looked around. He felt as if someone had to be playing a trick on him. Seeing that nobody was around he took a moment to rationalize. He considered that it could be one of those effects where the cover shows a different image depending on how you look at it. It didn’t seem to be one, but he could be mistaken. At this point he just needed to believe that it was for his own sanity. He shoved the book back into it’s empty place. Another one jumped out at him so he reached for it�� No, really. It jumped out at him. The book flew off the shelf and he reached out and grabbed it basically on pure instinct.This was enough to send Trenton running for the hills. He reached the counter and looked to Rachel with his eyes nearly popping from the sockets. “You really went all out this year, huh?”Rachel laughed and said, “Calm down. It’s just one of those skeletons from Spirit Halloween. I didn’t expect you to be so spooked by it.”Trenton began to calm himself and attempt to bring his breathing back to a normal level.”No, not that. That was super cool, though. The trick books. You know the ones by G. H. Astly?”He remembered the book that he grabbed right before he ran off.”Oh yeah, like this one!�� Trenton held up his empty hand and pointed at it. Rachel laughed and clapped a couple of times.”G. H. Astly, huh? You think you’re so clever. I’m not going to lie that is a pretty good dad joke. A little young for those aren’t you, Trenton?”Trenton looked to Rachel then to his hand and back and forth as fear began to send goosebumps up and down his arms.”I…I…I�� Uh�� It was just right there. I’m not joking, I swear. Then there was the book with the moving cover.”Rachel began to look concerned. “Moving cover? Buddy, are you ok? Do you need me to get you some water? There are no books by anyone named G. H. Astly. You can take a look for yourself.”Trenton had cold sweat running down his forehead. He wiped it and pressed on his eyes as if the act could summon to book to reappear in his grasp.Trenton responded shakily. “Yeah�� Yeah, I think I’ll do that, thanks. There’s a water fountain over there. Maybe that’s a good idea too.”Rachel nodded her head, “It’s all for fun, Trenton. Don’t let the decorations get to your head!”Trenton walked back to the spooky display and just like Rachel said there were no books by a G. H. Astly on the shelves. The row he had been searching through now showed nothing but Goosebumps and Fear Street. Trenton pressed on his temples and tried to make sense of it all.As he stood there, dumbfounded, a man slid up to the corner of the bookshelf. His legs were hidden by the smoke and his face was shrouded by a hood. He spoke as if he spoke in a hushed and whispering tone. “I see that you’ve taken interest in my books. That is good, and you’re right to do so�� There’s no better way to get into the spirit of the season.”The man broke into a laugh that made the skeleton sound like child’s play. He shrieked and he howled. This time Trenton took off for the front door and he did not turn back.

I was lucky enough to have one of my stories chosen for the end of summer special over at Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear. There is a lot of great free fiction to check out and reminisce on the joys of summer and summer past while also getting into the spirit of spooky season. There is a new ending to my story that I think you will really like. Thanks to everyone over at the Horror Tree, and I hope you enjoy!