all manner of dark things

“One Last Harvest” at The Confabulator Cafe and the Sale Continues

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My latest Confabulator Cafe short story is now available. Most of my stories have at least a hint of darkness. This one does not. It’s something a bit different. An angel falls in an apple grove. You can read “One Last Harvest” at The Confabulator Cafe.

Only 48 hours remain in my Kindle Countdown sale. You can get the All Manner of Dark Things e-book for 99 cents through my birthday, May 26th.

I had a ton of fun at ConQuest 46 and am already looking forward to next year. I’ll post a summary in the next few days.

“A Burial” at Page and Spine and My Online Store

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Several months ago, I sold “A Burial” to Page and Spine. When I decided to use the story in my collection, the editor, N.K. Wagner not only agreed to provide a blurb for the back of the book, but also said she would hold off on publishing the story so that its publication would coincide with the release of the book.

“A Burial” is the first story in the All Manner of Dark Things, and I think it provides a good example of the type of literary fiction that I write. If you are looking for a good sample before deciding whether or not to buy the book, it is free and available now.

http://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/238/post/2015/04/a-burial-jack-campbell-jr.html

They deserve your support, regardless. They’ve been extremely cooperative and supportive during the entire submission and publication process.

I’ve also set up an online store through Square. There is a link to it at the top of the page. Living in Kansas, but being from Iowa, I have had a few people who wanted to buy print copies of All Manner of Dark Things but that wanted them signed. That’s awfully hard to do if they are purchased from Amazon.

If you want a signed copy of All Manner of Dark Things, you can purchase one here: http://mkt.com/jack-campbell-jr

It’s the same system that I will be using to sell copies at conventions and appearances. The price is essentially the same as Amazon, but I will sign the book before I personally ship it out to you.The turn around is a bit faster than Amazon, because I have copies on hand and will generally get them sent out the next day.

I appreciate the positive response that I have received from everyone. I can’t tell you how much the support means to me. If you like the book, remember to review it on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you regularly do such things.

Additionally, print copies of Rejected from ACA Books, which contains my story “A Simple Device,” are now available. You can find them on Amazon.  Many of the early reviews specifically mention “A Simple Device” as one of the best stories in the book.

Thanks for reading. I should have more news shortly.

-Jack

Release day! All of the details on All Manner of Dark Things

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allmannercoverfinalIt’s April 7th, and that means it is the official release of my horror collection All Manner of Dark Things: Collected Bits and Pieces. If you pre-ordered the e-book, it should already be heading to your Kindle. If you haven’t bought it, yet, here are the details.

Twenty-nine pieces containing a wide variety of horror: gory monsters, humor pieces, emotionally-brutal literary works, poetry, vampires, werewolves, cannibal hordes, ghosts, serial killers, and all manner of dark things.

Some of the pieces appeared in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. Some are original to the anthology. They encompass a sampling of my entire writing career.

The e-book is a part of Kindle Select, which means that if you have Prime, you can borrow it from the lending library. If you have Kindle Unlimited, it is available for free in that program.

The e-book is priced at $2.99, but it is a part of the Kindle Matchbook program. That means that if you buy the print edition from Amazon, priced at $9.99, you can get the e-book for $0.99. You can have access to the book anywhere, at any time.

I am extremely proud of this book and the amount of work that went in to it.  Check it out. If you read it, review it on Amazon and Goodreads. I would really appreciate it.

Here are the links:

Amazon

Createspace

To start the release off right, here’s the book trailer to get you in the mood.


Let’s do this! There will be more news soon. I have a couple of special things planned.

Heaven’s Edge for Camp NaNoWriMo

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It is the last day of March. That means that tomorrow in the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Camp NaNo is a lot like the annual NaNoWriMo, but in April. The other major differences are that you are encouraged to set your own goal, rather than the default 50,000 words, and you can work on revisions.

During the actual NaNoWriMo in November of 2013, I wrote the first half of a book titled Heaven’s Edge. The book is the first of a planned three-book series. The titles will be Heaven’s Edge, Halo’s Slip, and Hell’s Raising. In an alternate near-future, billionaire philanthropist Dayton Fairfield builds a city that sits upon a platform above the pollution and war plaguing the surface. He calls the city Heaven’s Edge. The residents were hand-selected after an intense application process and careful screening. Book 1 takes place on the one-year anniversary of the platform’s raising. The protagonist is Mack, a wise-cracking old school detective who took a security job on Heaven’s Edge as a retirement gig. Utopia hasn’t been all it’s cracked up to be, and Mack still smokes (despite there being no nicotine in his cigarettes), drinks (despite there being no alcohol in his whiskey), and expects everything to go to hell at any given moment.

It sucks to be right. After a young man shows up murdered in Dayton Fairfield’s suite, Mack finds himself caught up in the Church’s plot to destroy the surface world and bring about the rapture.

I wrote the first half of the first book and was sad that I didn’t have time to finish it while I was in grad school. Now that I’m out, I can’t wait to get back to it. The story has an old school feel with snappy, quick dialogue. It is a lot of fun to write. Hopefully, by the end of April, Heaven’s Edge will be ready for full revisions, and we will be that much closer to seeing Mack raise some Hell in Dayton Fairfield’s paradise.

I will be sure to keep you all updated on how it is going. I am expecting some other news in the next couple of weeks, as well. The release date for All Manner of Dark Things is fast approaching. You can pre-order the e-book now. The print edition proofs are being reviewed and I am hoping it will be ready for the official April 7th release.

Thank you everyone for your support. It means the world to me.

All Manner of Dark Things Available for Pre-Order and Release Details

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allmannercoverfinalAll Manner of Dark Things is available for pre-order on Kindle, right now. It contains almost thirty pieces written over the entirety of my writing career. I like to think of it as my senior thesis as a short story writer. Over the last ten years, I’ve experimented with several forms of dark fiction. Horror is a diverse genre, and I had a ton of fun experimenting with its capabilities. I know that I am nowhere near the completion of my literary experimentation, but the collection is a nice summary of what I’ve done, so far. From poetry, to flash fiction, to short stories. It is all there, in several styles ranging from dark literary to straight up creature horror, from quiet psychological to gritty and brutal. I’ve tried it all, and I want to share it with all of you before I move my focus on to longer work. I will still write shorts, but there will be fewer of them. Go check out the collection, and let me know how you like it.

The official release date will be April 7th. The e-book will be available exclusively on Kindle for at least the first three months. I am taking part in Kindle Select, which means if you are a Prime member, the book will be available to borrow, if if you have Kindle Unlimited, you are golden there, as well. Don’t have a Kindle? Fear not. The print edition will be available through print-on-demand. I will post links as I get them.  As a special deal, I have also signed up for the Kindle Matchbook program, which means that people who by the print edition will get a discount on the e-book.

I am expecting to have much more news in the next few months, so stay tuned.

As always, thanks for reading.

Jack

I’m Not Romeo at The Confabulator Cafe and News Updates

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The Confabulator Cafe is back with a short story focus. This month, all the contributors wrote short stories inspired by Valentine’s Day. My story, “I’m Not Romeo” is now available. It’s the story of a guy who takes credit for secret admirer gifts that he didn’t leave. You can read it at The Confabulator Cafe.

In other news, Faed, the anthology “The Polka Man” appeared in, is now available in all e-book formats as well as in print from A Murder of Storytellers.

I will have news on another anthology in the next month or so.

In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, check out the cover for  All Manner of Dark Things, which will contain “I’m Not Romeo,” “The Polka Man,” and many other stories. It’s pretty cool, and I will be excited to see it out in a couple of months.

All Manner of Dark Things Front

Literary Archaeology

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I’ve been working on putting together a collection of short stories. The book, which is tentatively titled All Manner of Dark Things, will be a sort of retrospective of everything I have written over the last ten years. It won’t have everything in it, but will be representative of my development as a writer. Reading through the old stuff, I found two things to be amazing. First off, I don’t remember writing some of it. I know I wrote it because my name sits on the by-line and its stored in my dropbox in a file of stuff that was recovered from an old computer hard drive that wore out its welcome several years ago. Second, it’s pretty obvious what I was reading around the time and what I styles I was experimenting with.

While I classify myself as a horror writer, in general, I write a fair amount of dark literary fiction. In the beginning, nearly all of my stuff was more literary than horror, although all share elements that appear again and again in my horror writing. As I read through the stories, I could almost see myself struggling to figure out who I was and trying to find my voice. I have tried nearly every style of dark writing there is from neo-noir to supernatural horror to quiet atmospheric tension to splatterpunk. I still experiment a lot and have fun paying tribute to all of my literary loves.

From Updike to Hornby to King to Bradbury to Blackwood to Poe to Hammett, I paid constant tribute to the masters and attempted to emulate them. I’ve always thought that emulation is a big part of a writer’s education. You begin by emulation, and then one day you find that you have reached actual innovation.

Looking back at all of that work, I realized that I have reached a transition point as a writer, one in which I will change my focus from short work to long work (although I love the short story form and will continue to write it.) I have also reached a point where I am no longer a mimic, but am myself. I have developed an identity as a writer that will continue to grow and develop as I continue writing.

I can’t imagine my life without writing. Hopefully I have a long career ahead of me. I hope that in another ten years, I can look back on another decade of work and still see progress and productivity. Maybe I will have enough work for another collection, so that I can stake another signpost it the long road of being a writer. Till then, the first major intersection has been reached, and I am excited to see what new roads lie ahead.