Strange and Dreaming Days with Eric J. Guignard

Hello!

Welcome to the April, 2026 edition of my Substack (formerly MailerLite) newsletter.

As always if you (dear subscriber) have any comments or feedback, or otherwise just wish to say hi, please do so. I’m at: eric.guignard@gmail.com. Thanks for subscribing!

My most proud news on the latest writing front is that I am being recognized as this year’s Mentor of the Year by the Horror Writers Association (HWA)!

I love mentoring and working with new writers, so being awarded this distinction for my efforts is dearly heart-felt (not to mention validating)!

I wrote more about what it means to me here: https://ericjguignard.substack.com/p/i-have-just-been-recognized-as-this

I was guest-speaker on a panel at massive WonderCon in Anaheim (sister show to San Diego’s ComicCon) two weeks ago, and it was great fun. I spoke on the topic of genre-blending Horror and Science Fiction, and it was a packed room. I’ve been fortunate to be able to speak on panels at both WonderCon and ComicCon each for the past four years, on a wide range of topics, including horror genre, finding creativity, weird westerns, and more.

I completed my latest open-call submission reading period, being for the upcoming anthology Horror Library, Volume 10. For this volume I received 938 submissions from around the world, which is slightly less than in years past (a good thing!).

I am finalizing the last of acceptance and rejection letters to go out today. It’s always such a mixed bag of subs, coming in from all levels of writing experience and covering the entire spectrum of ideas, whether standard tropes to insanely inventive takes on contemporary movements and fears.

I’m jumping up and down with excitement for many of the stories I was able to purchase this year, and cannot wait to release them to readers. I’m expecting to do so in February, 2027.

And if you haven’t already, please PLEASE(!) check out this year’s recent release, Horror Library, Volume 9 (from Dark Moon Books, February, 2026), which has had nothing but stellar reviews, and truly represents the best volume to date in this series.

I had a blast vending (selling) books last month at the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale! My 12-year-old daughter came with me and sold resin creations. She ended up selling every single item of her stock (something I have NEVER been able to do for books, haha!). So proud of her, and it was lovely to see everyone at the show and chat about writing.

Just looking at this below picture fills me with pride at the amount of books I’ve been able to be part of over the past 15 years (either as author or publisher-editor).

I wrote and sold two new short stories, to be announced in the future.

I finished up some other ancillary work as well, and now it is FULL STEAM AHEAD to complete the 1875-San Diego Weird Western Vampire novel, tentatively called Three Days Until Dawn, that I’ve been working on over the last year, and hoping to complete in mid-next month.

I’ve been working on a second volume of PW Starred-Review A WORLD OF HORROR, devoted to diverse voices around the globe. I have all its stories now contracted, and I’m planning for an early 2028 release.

I’m also working on a new Primer volume (#8) of Exploring Dark Short Fiction for a superstar that will be announced soon!

And check out my new-and-improved websites: www.darkmoonbooks.com and also www.ericjguignard.com!

Book I’m reading now: Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin

What my 17-year-old son is reading now (still from last time—it’s long, and he has school work!): The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

What my 12-year-old daughter is reading now: The Last Olympian (Book #5 in the Percy Jackson, Camp Half-Blood Chronicles series) by Rick Riordan

AND, because I love listening to music while I write, here’s what I’m listening to now: “Walking On Fire” (2016) by Rilan & The Bombardiers.

Listen here:

I’m a nerd for painting RPG Fantasy miniatures. I mean, full-on, life-long obsession. I don’t play RPG (although I “am” a former D&D Half Dark-Elf), but I LOVE painting and modelling figures at approximate 28mm scale. Here’s this month’s showcase!

“Ahoy mates, we’ve come to introduce ourselves properly—with swords and muskets!”

Thanks for reading all this and (hopefully) for your interest and/or support of any of my projects!

Please remember to leave a book review on Amazon.com for anything of mine (or any other author) that you’ve read and enjoyed. It’s a dreadful commentary that the worth of indie authors is measured by online 5-star reviews, but such is the state of current commerce.

Midnight cheers,

Eric

Eric J. Guignard is a writer and anthologist of dark and speculative fiction, operating from the shadowy outskirts of Los Angeles, where he also runs the small press Dark Moon Books. He’s twice won the Bram Stoker Award, won the Shirley Jackson Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and International Thriller Writers Award. His latest books are his novel Doorways to the Deadeye and short story collections A Graveside Gallery and That Which Grows Wild (both through Cemetery Dance). He’s also been published through HarperCollins, Cemetery Dance Online, Weird Tales Magazine, and Haunted Nights (Random House). Visit Eric at: www.ericjguignard.com or elsewhere via linktr.ee/eric_j._guignard.

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