Beyond the Void

Mary SanGiovanni Newsletter, Issue 4 July 2023

Hi there! I’m horror author Mary SanGiovanni, and this is the fourth issue of my author newsletter. Thanks for reading!

So much has happened since May. I got married to the love of my life, fellow author Brian Keene, and both our wedding and honeymoon were wonderful. The two of us, we’re kind of untamed, in a way — wild in our thoughts, our hopes and dreams, our life, and the way we live it. It’s nice to know that marriage to your best friend is not a taming of that wild, wonderful adventurousness, as I had believed in the past, before Brian, but a promise to have those adventures with someone by your side.

Here’s a pic of us from our wedding day.

Now it’s back to the beginning of the rest of our lives, and I love it so far. I’ve been redoing my office, trying to declutter and decorate it as a space that inspires creativity. This has led to some fun craft projects, which, if you’re so inclined, you can check it out — I’m at dreamscapes_and_nightmarys (that’s my crafting one).

On the writing front, I’m continuing to play catch-up on personalized stories and Patreon — I sincerely appreciate the patience that people have shown me in giving me time to work on that. I’ve also been working on a solo novella and a novel sequel to THRALL, as well as my next part of the novella I’m writing with Ed Lee.

I’ve begun compiling Cosmic Shenanigans, a comprehensive non-fiction book about cosmic horror that is based largely on the episodes of my old podcast, Cosmic Shenanigans. It is a labor-intensive effort, though, as I will need to transcribe, edit, cite, and likely add to the content I have for it.

And speaking of cosmic horror, I just did a seminar on cosmic horror for Apex Publishing, where I talked about its history, its legacy, and what I believe constitutes a cosmic horror story. As soon as the link is available to the public, I’ll get it out to you.

I just turned in a comic script for a project I’m doing for Marvel — I don’t think I can give details yet, but I will as soon as I am able. It was fun, and I have to admit, it feels pretty good to say I’ve now done comics work for both DC and Marvel.

If you’re looking for something to read by me, these two books are currently out and available.

The ALIEN novel is blazing through its second printing, which delights me, and SHAPES is, I think, one of my edgier and more violent stories. People seem to dig both; I hope you’ll check them out if you haven’t already.

Pandi Press recently released a new anthology edited by Brian Keene and Chris Golden, called THE DRIVE-IN: MULTIPLEX, where stories are all set in the world of Joe Lansdale’s THE DRIVE-IN. There’s an all-star line-up (and, uh…me) of writers who have contributed stories, and I’m honored to be included among them with my story, “The Beach: An Indie Short.”

I believe I’ve mentioned that my cosmic horror haunted house novel, THE EVERYWHERE HOUSE, will be published by Thunderstorm Books. I’m not sure when the release date is for that, but I am thrilled. In it, paranormal professionals are induced by a wealthy real estate holding company to investigate and neutralize a haunted house that is far more than the average haunted house. I think it’s one of my best and scariest; I look forward to seeing what you folks think. And I was honored to get some great blurbs for it from horror masters Laird Barron and Paul Tremblay:

"Mary SanGiovanni is as effective and versatile a writer as anybody working today. She knows her monsters. Of equal importance, she understands the frailties and strengths of the people who fight evil." — Laird Barron, author of SWIFT TO CHASE

"Mary SanGiovanni deftly mixes genres and voices, and her books are always creepy, unsettling, and thrilling." — Paul Tremblay, author of CABIN AT THE END OF THE WOODS

This month’s cosmic horror recommendation: MALÉFIQUE. This is a 2002 French horror film directed by Éric Valette which illustrates the versatility of cosmic horror’s ability to blend in other subgenres, like splatterpunk. In it, Carrere, a businessman convicted of fraud, shares a prison cell with three interesting cellmates (whose crimes, it seems, range from murder to cannibalism). These characters are complex, both in who they are and how they relate to and interact with each other, and also, I think, in what their conviction says about humanity and society. When they find a book of black magic hidden behind a stone in the prison cell wall, things take a dark and decidedly cosmic turn. I recommend it for a film which seems to buck subgenre trends and offer something different and unsettling.

That’s it, I think, for this month. Thanks for subscribing. I’ll see you next month.