Every month I send out a John Everson ~ Dark Arts e-newsletter. Subscribers get free fiction every month, as well as chances to win free books and other stuff.
So go ahead and sign up. It won't kill you, and it's free!
My fourth short story collection, Creeptych, released by Delirium Books as a 150-copy limited edition mini-hardcover in Spring 2010 is available as an e-book via DarkFuse.
My first short story collection, Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions, released by Delirium Books way back in 2000, is now back in print as an e-book via DarkFuse!
Also reissued in e-book format is my novelette Failure, originally issued as a limited hardcover chapbook by Delirium in 2006.
Download a copy at DarkFuse.
I was psyched last year to write a story about The Green Hornet, and I'm even more psyched that the anthology is finally out! You can read my story "The Black Widow" now in The Green Hornet Casefiles, from Moonstone Books.
Comet Press compiles "Two Decades of Extreme Horror" and I'm proud to say that my story "Every Last Drop" appears there alongside tales by Ray Garton, Joe R. Lansdale, Bentley Little, George R.R. Martin and more.
Books of the Dead Press has been compiling a bunch of great short horror story collections of late, and my story "When Barrettes Brought Justice to a Burning Heart" appears in Best New Vampire Tales Vol. 1.

Needles & Sins has been translated into Polish, and was released as Igly i grzechy in Poland in 2010 by Replika Books. Click the cover thumbnail for a larger image.
You can also hear a Polish reading from Igly i grzechy on YouTube.
Sacrifice has been translated into Polish, and was released as Ofiara in Poland in 2009 by Replika Books. Click the cover thumbnail for a larger image.
Click here to read more about Ofiara at Replika's website!
You can also find a Polish translation of Covenant, titled Demoniczne Przymierze, from Red Horse Books.
My 3rd short story collection, Needles & Sins, was released in late 2007 by Necro Publications.
It includes 19 of my best short horror and dark fantasy tales, including "Letting Go," a 2007 Bram Stoker Award nominee.
>>READ MORE in BOOKS...
The four-author collection featuring 3 of my stories (including the perrenial favorite, "Pumpkin Head") was intended as a convention keepsake for WHC 2006... but Candy in the Dumpster ended up launching Dark Arts Books.
>>READ MORE in BOOKS...
I launched this website back in 1996, originally hosted in a folder on AOL(!), and coded by hand using Windows Notepad as the editor. The current version, launched on August 15, 2008, makes the leap from 800 pixel width to 1024. For the true web geeks in the audience, it's also completely CSS-driven, using no table structures. The swirl chains in the banner and the ghosted blue-purple swirl behind the bottom of the middle column provide the "bridge" from the last iteration. Thanks to Travis Anthony Soumis for letting me adapt his dark angel image from the cover of my Needles & Sins collection as my banner.
>> View All Dates/Locations
>> View List of Past Appearances
Read/listen to the essays and interviews from my October Blog Tour to support The Pumpkin Man here:
October 10 - Horrorbid
October 11 - HorrorWorld
October 13 - Dorchester Blog
October 14 - Fang-Tastic
October 15 - Basement Radio (audio)
October 17 - Dreadful Tales (audio)
October 18 - Famous Monsters
October 19 - Insatiable Readers
October 20 - Jenn's Bookshelves
October 24 - Horror-Web
October 25 - This Is My World
October 26 - Curling Up By The Fire
October 27 - Lorelei's Muse
October 28 - Hartford Books Examiner
October 30 - Writers Chatroom
(live chat)
You can read interviews with me at the following websites:

y sixth novel, NightWhere has been nominated for a 2012 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel!
The Bram Stoker Awards are given out by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) every year in a number of categories, and the winners will be announced at an awards banquet in New Orleans in June, 2013. You can see the full ballot on the HWA site. Needless to say, I'm excited and honored by the nomination!
There's a nice feature on the novel over at the KindleBoards, and my publisher issued a press release about the award nomination.
This is my first release from the new horror imprint of Samhain Publishing headed up by Don D'Auria, the editor for my first five novels at Leisure Books. Now that Leisure's 40-year run as a mass market publisher has ended, Samhain has picked up the horror flag, and I'm proud to be part of this new line. (They will be releasing my seventh novel, Violet Eyes, this fall).
NightWhere is an erotic horror novel that I first envisioned over 10 years ago, before I finished the final draft of my first novel, Covenant. I spent a good part of 2011 finally writing it, and it's been gratifying to see the positive reviews that have popped up over the past few months since it was published.
Back when I was first starting to write and submit fiction to magazines, Lucy Taylor was one of my writing idols. She wrote some amazingly evocative, twisted prose, and was frequently cited as the "Queen of Erotic Horror." So I'm really psyched that she agreed to read - and provide a blurb - for the cover of the book. Only a snippet appears on the cover, but here's the full text that she wrote:
“One thing John Everson’s many fans already know—he’s a writer who does nothing by half-measures. And Nightwhere, his latest foray into sex, sadism, and the supernatural, takes the reader on a nail-biting ride into the depths of bloodlust and sexual obsession.
On the surface, Rae and Mark might seem just your ‘average’ swingers, out to spice up their marriage with some kinky thrills. Little does Mark realize that while his idea of a wild time might be sex with a couple of hotties and a light whipping, Rae’s tastes are infinitely more perverse.
And while Mark fights desperately to save Rae from the thrall of Nightwhere, aided in his quest by the mysterious Selena, Rae learns how to test the limits of taking and dishing out pain—and finds herself terrifyingly adept at both! Addicted to the rush of sex and slaughter and spurred on by a malevolent mentor named Kharon, she descends into a nightmare realm of depravity and mayhem.
A master of twisted imagery, Everson doesn’t shy away from graphic gore: Nightwhere is an erotic horrorfest you won’t be able to put down!”
-Lucy Taylor, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of
The Safety of Unknown Cities
Read more about NightWhere (including an excerpt) at the Samhain Website.
Download a copy today at:
mazon picked my 4th novel, Siren to feature in their February 2013 "hot 100" list! They put the e-book on sale for just $.99, which sent it to the #1 spot on the Kindle Horror bestsellers list!
The promotion is over now (after selling a staggering 7,000 copies!) but you can still get a copy here:
SIREN: http://www.amazon.com/Siren-ebook/dp/B003YUCGAA/
y son and I sometimes tell silly stories to each other, and when he was five, I came up with one that he really liked called Peteyboo and the Worm. He kept asking me to re-tell it to him, and I kept forgetting things each time I did (which he vehemently complained about). Finally, I wrote the whole story down and when he saw the pages he said "when will it be in a book, like your other books?"
So... I created a little chapbook edition of it for him last year and he drew the artwork, based on his ideas of what Peteyboo, a hungry bug with 18 legs and 37 eyes, might look like.
He loved the little chapbook, and it ended up being read a couple times to his kindergarten and first grade classes... which resulted in his friends asking: "how can I get a copy of Peteyboo on my iPad?"
So this month, I went back and worked on Peteyboo again and e-booked the story. If you have kids from 5-7 years old (or know parents who do), I hope you'll take a peek at Peteyboo! That silly extemporaneous story I wrote for my son is now a full-fledged ebook for sale on Amazon for just $0.99:
http://www.amazon.com/Peteyboo-and-the-Worm-ebook/dp/B0082UE600/

Visit the web site dedicated to The Pumpkin Man!
Visit The Pumpkin Man at www.ThePumpkinMan-Horror.com!
DEADLY NIGHTLUSTS DEADLY NIGHTLUSTS
A Collection of Forbidden Magic
(Blasphemous Books, November 2010)
$2.99 (e-book short fiction collection)
y fifth short fiction collection has just launched the new imprint Blasphemous Books!
This collection began as a quick ebook "two-fer" download of a couple of my older stories that I really liked but had never previously been collected. Somehow it grew to become a seven-story collection with a brand new tale, "Green Apples, Red Nails" written specifically for the book, inspired by the cover art. The reprints include "Pumpkin Head," "A Lack of Signs," "Star on the Beach," "To Earn His Love," "Sacrificing Virgins," and "Body & Blood."
Here's the back cover description of the collection:
Lust has a powerful hold on us. It can be a beautiful thing, but also quite dangerous. With this collection from John Everson, author of Covenant (winner of the Bram Stoker award), and Siren, you'll meet those who have succumbed to lust through black magic and deals with the Devil. You'll read six treats from the vault of John's early years as an author, plus a brand new story.
Lust consumes us all, but what depths would you go to satiate it? Start with a green apple, lick your lips, and add a pinch (or more) of Deadly Nightlusts.
SIREN
(Leisure Books, July 2010 / June 2011)
(Bad Moon Collectors Ed., September 2010)
$60.00 (limited numbered hardcover)
$14.00 (trade paperback)
$7.99 (mass market paperback)
$6.99 (e-book)
y fourth novel was released in mass market paperback from Leisure Books (and available in the horror section of bookstores everywhere!) at the end of July 2010. The novel was previewed with an early debut at the Famous Monsters convention the 2nd weekend of July. Due to distribution issues with the original mass market paperback, Siren was relaunched in trade paperback by Leisure Books in June 2011. And audiobook is due in summer 2011 as well, and the novel is available on all the usual e-book sites.
SIREN is also available in a limited 100-copy signed and numbered hardcover edition via Bad Moon Books.
Here's the back cover description of the novel:
Night after night, Evan walked along the desolate beach, grieving over the loss of his son, drowned in an accident more than a year before.
Then one night he was drawn to the luminous sound of a beautiful, naked woman singing near the shore in the moonlight. He watched mesmerized as the mysterious woman disappeared into the sea. Driven by desire and temptation, Evan returned to the spot every night until he found her again. Now he has begun a bizarre, otherworldly affair. A deadly affair. For Evan will soon realize that his seductive lover is a being far more evil…and more terrifying…than he ever imagined.
He will learn the danger of falling into the clutches of the… SIREN
Now Available! The 13TH
(Leisure Books, October 2009)
$7.99 (mass market paperback)
y third novel, The 13th, was released the last week of October - you can see a full website about the book at www.the13th-horror.com.
A limited hardcover edition was also issued over the summer from Necro Publications. That edition (see thumbnail below) features evocative art on the cover and signature page from Travis Anthony Soumis, who also did the cover art for my short story collection Needles & Sins (also from Necro).
The 13th pairs Christy, a rookie cop and David, a failed Olympic cyclist, in a race against time to find David's girlfriend and stop her from becoming a victim of the ceremony of The 13th.
Watch THE 13TH "Book Trailer"
by noted Chicago filmmaker John Borowski, director of H. H. Holmes, America's First Serial Killer and Albert Fish:
Here's the actual back cover description of the novel:
Castle House Lodge. A century ago it was an exclusive resort hotel. But for years it’s stood empty, a haunting shadow of its former glories.
Now, after twenty-five years of rumors and ghost stories, the overgrown grounds are showing signs of being tended. The building itself has been repaired. Castle House has new occupants. What was once a haven for the elite is now a madhouse, a private asylum for pregnant women.
But are all the patients really insane?
And is it just a coincidence that people have begun to disappear from the nearby town?
David Shale’s girlfriend is one of the missing, and he’s determined to find the truth behind the mysterious Dr. Rockford and his house of secrets. He will learn the meaning of the red X painted on the basement door…and he will know the ultimate fear, the horror of…
THE 13TH.
Visit www.the13th-horror.com to learn more!
Now Available!SACRIFICE
(Leisure Books, April 2009)
$7.99 (mass market paperback)
y second novel, Sacrifice, hit the shelves in April 2009 from Leisure Books! You can find it through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble and more! Sacrifice is the sequel to Covenant (though it's written as a standalone novel, so you don't need to read Covenant to enjoy it).
The book follows a sexy serial killer, Ariana, as she seeks to lure the Curburide demons into our world through a series of ritual sacrifices. The novel was originally released in 2007 in hardcover by Delirium Books. Here's the back cover copy:
They're coming. They are a race of sadistic spirits known as the Curburide, and they are about to arrive in our world, bringing with them horrors beyond imagination. The secret to summoning—and controlling—them has fallen into the hands of a beautiful, sexy and dangerously insane woman.
Ariana has dedicated her life to unleashing the demons in our realm through a series of human sacrifices, erotic rituals of seduction and slaughter. As she crosses the country, getting ever closer to completing her blood-drenched mission, only three figures stand in her way: an unwilling hero who has seen the horrors of the Curburide before, a burgeoning witch...and a spiteful demon with plans of his own.
Covenant in paperback!
y first novel, Covenant was released as one of the September 2008 Featured Horror paperback titles from Leisure Books!
A mix of mystery, the occult and horror, Covenant was first issued in November 2004 from Delirium Books in a signed & numbered, hardcover format, and on June 25, 2005 the Horror Writers Association presented Covenant with a Bram Stoker Award in the "First Novel" category in a ceremony in Burbank, California. You can see articles, photos, and watch a video of my award acceptance here.
The novel follows Joe Kieran, an investigative reporter who discovers a web of mysterious teen suicides that somehow connect five women in a small coastal town. Is there really a malevolent presence inside Terrel Cliff that holds all of the town in thrall?
Or is there a murderous covenant
between five women to sacrifice their first-born? Beneath the remains of a long-demolished lighthouse, Joe discovers Terrel's
secret history and salvation and puts his own soul in deadly danger.