We Made It

Saying good riddance to 2025 and making horror anyway.

Photo by Alexandre Daoust on Unsplash

Goodbye, 2025—and good riddance.

You didn’t just crawl out the door at the stroke of midnight, ruined dress dragging the floor behind you. You limped away, bruised, bleeding, and annoyingly still alive, but you’re officially history. Frankly, I don’t think I’m alone in celebrating 2025’s move to past tense. I think many of us—most of us?—made it across the finish line of the year with soot under ours nails, blood on our palms, salt on our cheeks.

Last year asked too much of everyone. So many of us white-knuckled our way through the last twelve months—through jobs, caretaking, illness, heartbreak, fear, grief, and everything else, doing our best to get through the slow grind of trying to keep going when rest felt impossible. If 2025 felt like hell, that’s because—for a lot of us—it was. And yet, despite everything: here we are. Not untouched. Not unscarred. But here—and sometimes, here is enough.

Back at Dark Ink 2 in August in Doylestown, on a panel with author-friends Chuck Wendig, Nat Cassidy, and Todd Keisling, I said: “Horror is a genre of hope—make that horror hope to survive you.” And friends, we did it. We survived. 2025 put us through it, but as the sun rises on the new year, we’re still here. Still creating. Still sharpening our knives and our sentences. Still baring our teeth. Still fighting.

And with that, so long 2025 and hello 2026.

What I’m Making in 2026

First and foremost: books. Plural. Always plural.

DOLLFACE is coming February 24

A suburban slasher with a glossy smile and a razor-sharp bite, Dollface is my love letter to slashers—slicing through beauty, performative friendships, and the quiet rage simmering beneath picture-perfect suburban lives. Campy, furious, and unapologetic, it’s for anyone who’s ever wanted to smash the mask instead of wear it.

Dollface is a most anticipated read from SheReads, Macabre Daily, Capes + Tights, and more!

UK Releases and Paperbacks

The US paperback edition of Another Fine Mess arrives with the dolls in February, and the UK edition of Dollface drops from Solaris Books in March.

A Very Big, Very Secret, Super Exciting Project in 2027

This one’s enormous and still under wraps—a dream project built around the stories we cling to when the light go out, and am homage to the horror that raised us. It’s communal, deeply rooted in why horror endures, and coming together like a jumble of grave-robbed body parts on a madman’s table. More soon!

A New Novel for 2027

It’s still under wraps for now, but what I can say is this: a washed-up scream queen, a Southern McMansion, and a comeback plan that goes spectacularly wrong. Surviving the killer is only the beginning in this bloody romp where fame, legacy, and being forgotten might be the real monsters. Oh, and there’s a demon—because why shouldn’t there be a demon? More soon!

Community, Chaos & Craft

This year will look a little different for me. With Finn’s passing in November, I’ll be training with a new service pup in Spring. Because last year was a year that kept the punches coming, a family death over the holiday has given me a new caretaker role. So, I’ll be traveling less this year and spending more time at home—but I’ll still be teaching, still talking horror (good thing I moved back to Substack, eh?), and still popping up at book festivals and signings as often as I possibly can.

Kicking off 2026 in Doylestown, PA on January 16

I’ll join my good friends at Doylestown Bookshop to help celebrate the launch of TikTok sensation CelinaSpookyBoo—aka debut author Celina Myers’s—yummy new vampire book, HOLLOW. This is a ticketed event. More info here.

Southern Voices Festival: Hoover, AL on February 28

Catch me in February in Hoover as party of this years’ Southern Voices festival, hosted by Hoover Public Library. A jam-packed day of panels, readings, and book signings with some very cool authors. This is a ticketed event. More info here.

DOLLFACE Tour Kicks Off March 5

I’ll be circling Texas in March as part of the official DOLLFACE tour schedule, as well as popping in around the country—and logging into some virtual events—to celebrate the book’s release. Stay tuned for the full tour schedule!

And With That: Onward

2026 isn’t about reinvention so much as it is persistence—about tending the beautiful, haunted lives we’ve built, protecting the what (and who) we love, and making the work anyway. It’s about staying soft where we can, and sharp where we must.

Thank you for being here. For reading. For writing. For caring about strange stories and stranger women, for continuing to show up even when the dark feels close. I’m grateful for this little haunted community more than I can say.

So, here’s to 2026.

We’re still here 🖤