Who? What? Where?

Earlier today I found myself suddenly (and really inexplicably) nostalgic for the old Doctor Who Magazine. I subscribed for several years back when I was in high school, the same years when I would spend every Saturday night watching the show on New Jersey Network (I didn't date much). I remember how each issue would come in a brown air mail envelope from the UK. I'd tear open each envelope and tear through each issue, sucking down every bit of information that I read.

Of course, I barely remember any of it now. Strange bits and pieces flash into my memory now and then, especially when watching the new episodes, but most of what I read is gone to the sands of time. I do remember a few covers, and I think the one shown here was from the first issue that I read back in the day. This cover gallery has inspired a few more memory flashes. I wish that I remembered more.

I also used to subscribe to some sort of Doctor Who fan club newsletter. I can't find anything that looks familiar online, so I'm pretty confused as to what that might have been. Oh, time, you're a harsh mistress.

Magazines like this didn't last through the 57 moves I have made over the years. That's probably a good thing, or I'd be re-reading them all right now, along with issues of Dynamite, Bananas, Dragon, and whatever other geeky stuff I used to have piled around my teenaged self's room. But all the same, it's nice looking back and remembering what was, and who I used to be.

Lore Four

Hey, it's here! The fourth edition of LORE -- the anthology series for which I serve is contributing editor -- is now available. There are some great stories in this volume. I hope you'll check it out. (It should also be available through Amazon soon.)

Dreams of Loss and the Nightmares of Discovery

We never forget our first loves. Sometimes they haunt our dreams. Sometimes those dreams become nightmares.

That's "Dream Girl" in a nutshell. This short story -- originally published in the anthology Dark Territories -- is now available again for Kindle. As with all of these resurrected short stories, I have added a new essay about the tale.

"Dream Girl" is kind of a hard story to nail down. It's definitely not horror, although it harkens back to the best of my horror stories. It qualifies as crime or mystery, although it isn't really all that mysterious. It's about love, but it's certainly not a romance. Whatever it is, I think it's one of my better tales. I hope you'll check it out.

New e-books galore

My previously published short stories continue to reappear as new e-books for Kindle. I'm having a lot of fun revisiting these old tales -- which I still think are pretty darned good. I'm also have a good time adding new essays to each story and designing the covers. My earliest book cover designs were, I'll admit, fairly weak, but the latest few are actually pretty good. 

Anyway, these stories are all just 99 cents each. Check 'em out through my Amazon Author page here. I hope you enjoy them!

"Before the Beginning" was actually the beginning

Another short story from my archive has been resurrected. This time around I went all the way back to the beginning and resurrected my very first published short story, "Before the Beginning." This caveman horror/fantasy story first saw print way back in 1994. It hasn't been seen since.

But now it's back in an affordable Kindle edition, complete with a new afterword talking about the story's history and putting it into context with my own history. Yes, I wrote a history for a story set during pre-history. How meta of me.

This story doesn't display any of the humor that I started bringing to my work just a few years later, but it does showcase some of the themes that have been present in my writing from day one. I think it's a pretty solid tale and I hope you'll give it a look.

Is this the bleakest story I ever wrote?

Another of my old short stories is now available again. This time around it's "Learning to Fly," a bleak crime story about a man who has hit rock bottom. I think this happens to be one of the best stories I have ever written. In a lot of ways, it's even more relevant today than when I wrote it 15 years ago. I hope you'll check it out.

PS -- I also think this is the best cover I have designed to date. It's fun learning new things!

Oldest Living American Serial Killer Tells All

The resurrection of my older horror and crime short stories continues. This week it's "Oldest Living American Serial Killer Tells All," which is now available for Kindle for just 99 cents.

I always liked this story, and it stayed in print for a lot of years in the Barnes & Noble anthology 100 Menacing Little Murder Stories. That book finally went where all such books go -- into the ether -- so now it's time to bring the tale back into print. In addition to the story itself, this e-edition includes an exclusive new afterword about the titular serial killer -- Rockwell, who's just as American as apple pie and the painter that shared his name.

By the way, I think the cover for this one came out pretty well. I wanted something striking, with bold but simple typography since the title is so long. I thought about playing around with splashes of blood or something more violent, but this is actually a fairly sedate crime story, so I think I struck the right balance.

I hope you'll give "Oldest Living American Serial Killer Tells All" a read. Who knows, I may even revisit Rockwell one of these days. I'm sure he's still got some mischief up his aged sleeves.

Strom Front resurrected

It's time to bring another of my old horror stories back into print! This time it's "Storm Front," one of my favorites. "Storm Front" is an old-school horror story, high on dread and mood and featuring a monster unlike just about anything else you've ever seen. The tale is now available for Kindle for just 99 cents. In addition to the story itself I have also included a brief bit of background about the story that ties it to the days gone by when it when it was first written.

I think I did a pretty good job designing the cover on this one. Again, it isn't the greatest cover in the history of books, but I think it does the trick.

Look for more stories soon. It's fun revisiting these old tales and I think they'll appeal to a new set of readers years after they were first published.

Would you sell your soul for a full head of hair?

Some of my short stories have been out of print for way too long. It's time to fix that. I'm going to start bringing a few of my older tales back into "print" as Kindle e-books. Here's the first: A Hell-Fire Cure for Baldness.

This new edition doesn't change a word of the original story (I think it stands up pretty well), but I did add a nice little piece about the origins of the story and its long and varied publication history.

This has long been one of my most popular short stories. I hope you'll check it out if it's new to you.

(PS -- I had fun designing that cover. It's not New York publishing-house quality, but I think it came out pretty well and I learned a few things in the process of creating it. You can't ask for more than that.)

I have a secret

Secret time... Another writer and I are sharing this pseudonym as an excuse to have some creative fun. We have each written a book of complete nonsense poetry. This one is mine. Thirty poems, not one of which makes a lick of sense. I think it's fun and funny and more than a little odd. I hope you'll check it out.

Even better, I hope you'll add a review that makes as little sense as the book itself. Set yourself free of meaning. Have fun. The sad-faced pug demands it.

Poems That Don't Make Any Sense

I wrote the marketing copy for this new e-book, which also features one of my photographs on the cover:

Poems That Don't Make Any Sense is free for the next three days on Kindle. After that, it's just 99 cents. Check it out. It's funny...and more than a little odd.

Ghosts of books past

Ghosts of books past, a photo by JohnPlatt on Flickr.

Albino raccoon

Albino raccoon, a photo by JohnPlatt on Flickr.

I have words in my blood

1969. The year I was born, and the year my great-grandfather self-published his one and only novel, Jake, Hessian Soldier.

Clarence H. Nickerson was a civil engineer who founded C.H. Nickerson & Company, a general contractor that still employs a lot of people in northwest Connecticut. He also wrote a lot of articles about antiques and New England history, several of which my brother (the genealogist and historian in the family) has been able to track down.

Of course I never knew any of this while my great-grandfather was alive (he died when I was just a few years old), but here I am today, a writer who often covers engineering-related topics in my articles. It's amazing how connected we often are in ways we don't ever realize, sometimes until it's too late.

We only had one copy of Jake in the house growing up. That was my dad's copy, which now resides on my mother's bookshelf. My brother tracked down several other copies for family members a few years ago, and this particular copy came to me a few days ago from my grandmother's house after she passed away two weeks ago at the age of 97. It's inscribed to her, and dated just a few months after I was born.

With my grandmother's passing, another link to the past is gone. But with cherished items like this, some of the memories remain.

Lore!

Lore is back!

Back in the misty days of yore (the 1990s), Lore was the cream of the crop of horror and fantasy magazines. Like so many things it went away for a few years, but now it's back as a regular series of paperback anthologies. This time around founders Rod Heather and Sean O'Leary invited me to join them as contributing editor, starting with the third volume, which has now been released. It's a pretty darned impressive collection of all-new horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

This is -- choke! -- the first fiction I have edited in -- gasp! -- nearly 15 years. I think it was worth the wait.

I hope you'll check it out.

MECAF Loot

This past weekend I had a table at the Maine Comic Arts Festival, the amazing annual celebration of the comical arts put on by the fine folks at Casablanca Comics. I'll get to my full report in a few days, but for now, I just want to take a moment to share off the cool comics I carried home.

Now, the problem with tabling at a show like MECAF is that you can't also get around to every other table and snap up all of the cool items for sale every few feet. I should have picked up about 127 other comics, prints, books, drawings and more, but oh well, I'll just have to live with myself.

Anyway, here's the loot:

(Click on the photo if you want to see stuff more clearly.)

So what is all of that cool stuff?

Ms. Bean's Art Class is a great big mini-comic by Cara Bean, a really cool inside look at a teacher and her students (and how they impact each other).

Raconteur # 4 is the latest issue of this fun anthology of short comics stories and prose by David Jacobson, John Klossner, Jeff Pert and Mike Lynch -- all cartoonists better known for their single-panel gag cartoons.

Mark and the Aliens is a well-done little five-page mini-comic by Aya Rothwell.

Adrian Pijoan is responsible for Fig, a neat science comic about the cycle of life. Great stuff.

Those two rhinos are a fantastic little sketch card by Eric Boeker and a full-color greeting card by John Klossner (him again). Both rhinos are wearing hats. I don't know what to make of that.

Cathy Leamy is responsible for the hilarious (and educational) Diabetes is After Your Dick! I hope we see a lot more health comics from her.

Those four folded items along the top-right are a group of innovative mini-comics by Kenan Rubenstein. Each issue folds out as the story reveals, ending in a giant full-page final panel. Great art and storytelling.

Colin Tedford collects a mix of humor comics and non-fiction (including one long piece of journalism) in Square Dance # 6. I look forward to reading more of these.

That little pink book is Hipster Robots by John Curtis Jennison Jr. Inside: six portraits of hipster robots. Truth in advertising!

Josh Lees was in the summer workshop I took a few years ago at the Center for Cartoon Studies, where he's now a student. I'm glad he reintroduced himself to me this weekend. His comic To Describe a Life in 50,000 Words is a wonderfully assured piece of work.

And finally, The Plot # 1 and 2 feature some really fun writing and cartooning by Neil Brideau. This is ambitious work and I look forward to finding out what happens in issue 3!

I can't wait for MECAF 2014, when I hope to come home with an even bigger pile of great loot!

Maine Comic Arts Festival this weekend!

Hey folks! This weekend I'll be making a rare public appearance at the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland. This is the only book signing I do each year since moving to Maine and it's always a blast. I'll be selling copies of my old, out-of-print books, as well as my handmade mini-comics and a few other goodies.

One new item I'll have this year is my newest mini-comic, Probing Questions, which collects many of the gag cartoons from the Plattitudes webcomic:

I'll also be selling some of my original art, including sketch cards like these:

And I'll have a few zines reprinting some of my conservation-themed articles, including this brand-new one about rhinos:

(Come to think of it, I might actually be wearing that same shirt on Sunday.)

Anyway, if you're around Portland this weekend, come on by. There will be all kinds of other great artists, including Jeff "Bone" Smith, Brian Wood, Jeff Pert, Rick Parker, Mike Lynch, Cara Bean, Raina Telgemeier, Bob Flynn, Maris Wicks, Jason Viola and other cool folks. I look forward to seeing some old friends and familiar faces.

Birthday? Moi?

Hey, it's my 44th birthday (gulp). What do I want for my cumpleanos?

Nothing.

What-- wait. Nothing?

Yup. I don't need a thing.

The few books and comics I want, I buy for myself.

The movies I want to watch, I get through Netflix.

The clothes I want? I don't really need them. (I work at home, who cares how good I look?)

The love I need? I already have it from all of you.

Everything else? It just doesn't matter.

So if you really, really, really need to do anything for my birthday, just go out there and do something good for someone else in the world.

That's better than a present for me. It's a gift for all of us.

Coke-head

Last year, as part of a long-term plan to cut down the amount of chemicals I put in my body, I gave up my daily (or twice-daily) can of Diet Coke. I may have had the jitters once or twice, and I'm sure I dreamed about swimming in a pool full of caramel, but within a few weeks I was fine.

Today at the grocery store, feeling both overheated and tired, I spied the little fridge next to the register, broke down, and bought myself a bottle of Diet Coke.

Oh, it tasted so good. So good.....

A few weeks from now, if you suddenly stop hearing from me, take a look in the nearest dark alley, where you may find me sprawled amongst a clattering heap of empty soda cans, moaning quietly to myself, "I can give it up any time I want....."

10 ways to get away with murder

10. Wear a really bad, distracting disguise, like a pink bunny costume or golf pants.
9. Pick targets that nobody cares about, like novelists or cartoonists.
8. Don't leave behind any DNA. Cover your entire body with duct tape ahead of time. (Note: make sure to leave holes for at least one eye and maybe a nostril.)
7. Do not live-Tweet the crime. #amateurhour
6. Have no motive. (Does not having a motive count as a motive?)
5. Don't kill anyone in any place where you have ever been before. (Bring a GPS. It's easy to get lost.)
4. Never tell anyone what you did, except for your girlfriend or wife. I'm sure she'll understand and keep your secret, right Mr. Drinks Too Much?
3. Do not purchase your stolen, untraceable gun with a credit card or personal check.
2. Never post a blog entitled '10 ways to get away with murder.'
1. Don't kill anybody. Yeah, that's probably the best way. Go play a video game or something.

Gone but not (quite) forgotten

I've been thinking a lot lately about some people whose names and faces I can't quite remember.

There's the guy who lived down the street from my parents, a blue-collar worker who walked up to a sullen kid whose hands were in his pockets (okay, it was me) and ever-so-casually lifted the kid's right hand out of his pocket to shake his own hand like a man.

There's the beautiful young woman from my first office job who wore a red dress on Valentine's day, earning the derision of every other woman in the department, something that astounded me since she was as pure and nice as a person could be.

There's the older science fiction who took me aside and gave me some wonderful advice that I have never forgotten, even if I can't remember who he was.

There's the blonde music writer who moved into my apartment building who freaked out when our landlord put her name on the doorbell for her unit. I later found out she was being stalked and had to flee to a new town every time he found out where she lived. She lasted there a few months, then disappeared in the middle of the night. (I hope she found peace.)

There's the miserable older man who hired me for my first professional writing assignment, a ghostwriting gig for a professional gambler whose name I also can't remember. I screwed that gig up on so many levels, but it worked all the same. The lessons learned have not been forgotten, even if the people are foggy in my mind.

There's the woman at the photo studio where I worked my first year after college, who spent every day dreading the upcoming marriage she didn't want to be a part of. I wonder if she ever went through with it?

There's the cousin of a cousin of a cousin I met at a family reunion three whose ear appears on the edge of all of my photos from those days. We talked and joked for hours but even when I look at our family tree I can't figure out who the hell she was.

There's the heavy-drinking, happy-go-lucky guy from my freshman or sophomore dorm floor who killed himself a few years later. None of us ever saw it coming. I remember the pain I felt when I heard the news, but everything else about him has faded away.

There's the "novelist" who showed up at a Garden State Horror Writers meeting and set off all of our creep radar. I later heard he was found wandering the halls of an elementary school. I really don't want to remember his name.

There's the sad old man who lived in the townhouse below us in New Jersey, who told me that his life caring for his disable wife was so miserable he wanted to die. A few weeks later, he did, and his wife was shuffled off to a nursing home by herself.

There's the couple who gave me my fist kitten the first summer I lived on my own. I think they may have been friends of a friend, but I'm not even sure of that. At least I remember the cat's name.

There are so many people who enter our lives on a daily basis. So many faces, so many names, so many ways that they touch us. Some of the encounters are fleeting, yet they leave an impression. Other people stay in our lives for weeks or months or years but are easily forgotten the moment they are out of eyesight.

I have never been great with names, or all that good at keeping in touch with people. For all of the ones that I have forgotten, or almost forgotten, there are so many more that I remember. Even if I don't talk to them ever day, I think about them often. And I wonder how (or if) they all think of me.

Back in the editorial saddle

I'm happy to announce that editors Rod Heather and Sean O'Leary have asked me to come on board with the recently relaunched Lore, a quarterly anthology of weird fiction.

Rod and Sean and Lore and I go way back. Lore got its starts a small-press magazine around the same time that I was editing my own White Knuckles magazine, back in the mid-to-late Nineties. I think we each ran the same number of issues over roughly the same amount of time. Lore always had a unique identity and published truly quality fiction and many of the tales that appeared in its pages remain some of my all-time favorites.

As these things go, Lore's original shelf life came and went. But you can't keep a good horror publication down: they often find a way to come shambling back.

The new Lore -- which already has two anthologies under its belt, plus a "greatest hits" collection from the magazine days -- is a great mix of horror, SF and fantasy. I'm helping to read stories for the third edition right now. It's already a blast.

More as things progress. In the meantime, check out the site for submission guidelines and ordering information.

Impact

How cool -- one of my articles inspired students in Singapore to learn more about their native biodiversity!

Hantu Blog @ Tanjong Katong Girls School | Pulau Hantu

My gun control wish list

I didn't grow up around guns. My parents never had guns in the house, and I'm pretty sure that the only gun in either of my grandparents' houses was an ancient, dust-covered hunting rifle.

I did go shooting once or twice as a kid -- boy, did I suck -- but the defining gun-related moments of my life came in college. The first came in 1987 when I met Jim Brady, who later founded the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The second was in 1990 when a friend of mine survived a shooting that killed his step-father.

I have been around guns a bit since then -- heck, I live in Maine, where seemingly everyone hunts -- but I don't much care for them, the violence they inspire or the culture wrapped up around them. I think it's well past time that we rolled back the use of guns here in the U.S.
Along those lines -- and with the Newtown shootings and Mark Kelly's and Gabby Giffords' announcement about their new group Americans for Responsible Solutions close in our minds -- here are my thoughts on how we should move forward with gun laws in this country.

1. Create one set of federal gun laws, not a hodgepodge of varying federal and state laws that make no sense in the context of the United States of America.
2. Create a functional, nationwide system of background checks and licenses for gun owners, who will need to renew their licenses annually after proving that they meet various physical criteria (vision, etc.), mental criteria (no history of mental illness), knowledge of safety issues, and legal criteria (no criminal record, no owed taxes, no overdue child support, etc.).
3. Create a functional, nationwide system of gun ownership records. As with cars, guns should be re-registered and taxed annually.
4. Create a functional, nationwide system for tracking stolen guns.
5. Close the "gun show loophole" and require all private sales of guns by made by licensed gun dealers. People who want to get rid of them guns should only be able to sell them back to licensed dealers. No more person-to-person gun sales (or other transfers other than through inheritance) should be allowed. 
6. Ban all private ownership of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. For the first few years of this transition, let owners turn in their weapons with no punishment. After that, start increasing punishments. After 10 years, ownership of these weapons should be punishable by 10 years in prison.
7. Ban both high-capacity clips and so-called "devastator" bullets, which are intended for warfare only.
8. Tax the sale of bullets 100%. Put the money toward buying bullet-proof vests for cops.
9. Ban environmentally toxic lead bullets. We got the lead out of almost everything else, so let's do it for bullets, too.
10. Lift all "stand your ground" laws.
11. Place limits on bulk ownership of firearms and ammunition. One gun per hand ought to do it, with a possible exception for legitimate collectors.
12. No guns in the workplace, at schools, in churches or government buildings. 
13. Restrict concealed carry permits to people who have displayed a documented and certifiable commitment to safety and responsible gun ownership.
14. Create a responsible system for all other carry laws, where weapons must be fitted with trigger locks while they are are in transit.

I know a lot of people won't like my suggestions. Whatever. I think this is the direction the country is moving and I hope to see us take a few steps closer toward it every year.

Jersey music memories (WHTG edition)

Matt Pinfield's appearance last night on Portlandia brought back memories of the old WHTG, 106.3, perhaps the greatest alternative music radio station of all time.

Man, did I love 106.3 back in the early 1990s, when I lived in central New Jersey. It was the only station on my radio dial for years. They aired what would probably be referred to as "free-form" alternative rock -- whatever the DJs felt like playing, they played. You never knew what was coming next, and all of it was good. My musical tastes still skew back to what I heard in those glory days.

Pinfield was just one of the DJs at WHTG (this was before he moved to MTV, of course). I'm sure if I dug around I could find and remember many of the other DJ names, but I loved 'em all, even the ones that sounded like amateurs, which many of them were. Heck, I almost got a chance to spin there. I applied for a job in 1991 and the managers said yes, but the salary was so low it would have been like paying them for the right to work there.

Alas, WHTG is no more. They changed ownership and formats around the same time I moved further north, out of their broadcast range, playing more hits and less alternative music. Their format has shifted a few more times since then, and now they are apparently known as "Thunder 106" and play only country music. What a loss.

Portlandia always starts with their theme song "The Dream of the Nineties is Alive in Portland." For me, that dream includes the music I heard on WHTG. Maybe I'll hear it again one day.

Hints about the books I may be writing in 2013

I have quite a few books in mind that need to come out of my head and onto my keyboard in 2013, and then make their ways to your eyeballs at some point after that. I don't want to give anything away, but here are a few hints about the books bouncing around in my brain right now:

1. A nonfiction graphic novel (for lack of a better term) very closely tied in to one of the subjects for which I am best known as a journalist.
2. A book-length instruction guide for people to interested in taking action in another area for which I am well known. 
3. A slightly risque (depending on your viewpoint) illustrated humor book, somewhat akin to (but at the same time nothing like) the fantastic All My Friends Are Dead and its sequel. 
4. A creative nonfiction kids' book that an award-winning author and I started writing last year but had to set aside while other deadlines loomed.
5. A second kid's book, this time fiction, for which I have written -- and illustrated -- the first page. (Now I just need to figure out where it goes from there.)
6. An incredibly short and weird graphic novel. (I've already written the first and second drafts of this one, but I need to tweak a few pages in the middle before I'm comfortable taking it to the next step.)
7. I'm not sure yet, but I think the seed of a new idea is about to sprout. I know it's there, but I can't quite see it yet. The anticipation is killing me!

Will it be a busy year for me? I sure think so -- but I wouldn't have it any other way!

The books I read in 2012 (and some backstory from 1982)

My grandparents never threw anything useful away. My grandfather worked in a machine shop and my grandmother was a school librarian. Their home was always full of great stuff that still had a potential purpose. What I remember most about this was that there was always plenty of paper for us grandkids to draw or write on whenever we came for a visit. A great deal of that paper came from leftover journals or ledger books, and one item in particular has been in my life since 1982.

That was the year my grandmother gave me an old library binder full of pages that were designed to log in books acquired by the library. I -- a geeky kid if there ever was one -- started using it to keep track of every book that I read.

Here's a picture of that wonderful journal (a bit worse for wear, but not too bad for something I have owned and used for more than 30 years and transported from one home to another at least a half-dozen times):

And here are the first few entries from 1982. (As you can see, this was during my science fiction phase.)

(I should scan all of these pages one of these days -- some of the ink is starting to fade with time -- but they're much bigger than my current scanner, so that will have to wait.)

Anyway, a few years ago, I transitioned from this hand-written journal to using Goodreads, a great website (I'm sure many of you already use it) that lets you log in, rate and review any books you read and/or own. I still refer to the journal fairly often -- most recently to figure out which Max Allan Collins and Joe R. Lansdale novels I have read in the 1990s and which ones I still need to read -- but for the most part, Goodreads has now taken its place.

Yes, that's sad, but the good news is that both Goodreads and the old ledger have a big role in my life and are pretty tightly linked to my reading life, which remains as important me as ever.

Looking at Goodreads this New Year's morning, I find that read an amazing 115 books in 2012. That's way, way, way above the number of books I have read over the last few years and much closer to the number of books I was reading in the 1980s, when I often approached 100 books a year.

(I think you can see all of the books I read here. I'm not positive that Goodreads will share it with you if you're not my friend there, but give it a shot.)

I credit a few things with this massive increase in books. First, we moved in 2011 to a bigger, brighter house where it's just physically easier to read. Second, I read a lot of graphic novels, which are shorter and can usually be read in one or two sittings. Third, I read most of the physical books I acquired this year as soon as they came into the house, rather than letting them sit around for years like I used to. Fourth, my Kindle -- which I bought shortly after we moved here -- made reading novels a hell of a lot easier. The vast majority of my physical books are still in boxes after several moves and a lack of space to display them. Even though I still own hundreds of physical books that I haven't read, sorting through those boxes to find any of them is next to impossible. With the Kindle, I can quickly find the next book I want to read and dive in.

Oh yeah, and fifth, we live kind of in the middle of nowhere and we never go anywhere, so that leaves plenty of time to read. And sixth, I just flat out made more time to read in 2012. Go figure.

So what were my favorite books of 2012? Here are a few I would highly recommend:

• Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert
• Simon's Cat: Beyond the Fence by Simon Tofield
• My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
• Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins
• The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
• Horrors! Cults, Crimes and Creepers by Stephen R. Bissette
• The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli
• Here Comes Trouble by Michael Moore
• Snarked (volumes 1 and 2) by Roger Langridge
• Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French
• All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky by Joe R. Lansdale
• Available Dark by Elizabeth Hand
• Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

That's a pretty good list. I could go on, but 14 is enough.

I don't know what 2013 will bring, but I'm sure that my future holds more than a few books, for which I am eternally grateful.