AZ1

Welcome to my first newsletter! 

My name is Alexander Zelenyj, and I'm a Canadian author of cross-genre fiction—science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all things weird. This newsletter will be where I talk about projects new and old, forthcoming works, signings and events, and related matters. I'll occasionally offer exclusive content—sneak peeks at new writing, early bird access to purchase new releases, and so on. Maybe I'll even ramble about other things. We'll see. I haven't done this before and I can't predict where it will take me. Thank you for coming along for the ride—I'm honoured!

New Releases:

I have two new books that were recently released, back in mid-November. The first of these is my brand new collection of short stories, Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator, published by UK publisher, Eibonvale Press. Comprised of 26 stories, some of which have been previously published in magazines and anthologies, it's my first new full-length work since 2022, when Fourth Horseman Press released the compendium of my short fiction, These Long Teeth of the Night: The Best Short Stories 1999-2019. Currently, the book is available in a hardcover edition only, with both trade paperback and digital editions coming soon.

Here's the full dust jacket spread of the cover, featuring the stunning artworks of Carl Lavoie on the front ("Night") and the back ("Dusk"), as well as additional artwork and design by David Rix, editor-in-chief of Eibonvale Press and artist extraordinaire. It even features a miniature version of an event poster for Weird Windsor by my friend Greg Maxwell, a.k.a. The Ugly Vision. (More on WW in a moment.)

I'm fortunate in knowing a lot of incredible artists, including my wife, Elizabeth J.M. Walker who, besides being an author herself (The Boy Who Owned the Forest and Cindy’s Satin Slipper, to name just a couple of her books), does graphic design work as Avery Daisy Book Design. Being much more computer-savvy than myself, she also helps me by constantly creating amazing graphics for me to use in social media posts. And, among other book covers of mine, she created the cover artwork for the digital edition of my third story collection, Blacker Against the Deep Dark, here:

See what I mean? I am surrounded by immensely talented people. It's inspiring.

I mentioned that I had two new books published recently. Besides my full-length collection, Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator, Eibonvale Press also released a special limited edition hardcover book that was available only as a special free volume for anyone who pre-ordered Annihilator in the two-week period leading up to the book's November 16th release. It's a mini-collection chapbook called Beware Us Flowers of the Devil, and contains 4 new and never-before-published stories. Here's the beautiful cover artwork, featuring David Rix's design and a lovely painting by fairy tale artist Warwick Goble gracing the front. (The back cover photograph, entitled "Atomic Explosion", is taken from the US Airforce archives.)

The response to the chapbook has been great, so great that word on the street is that a limited second printing might be made available in the days ahead.

I mentioned Weird Windsor. For those who don't know, Weird Windsor was an event I helped organize, along with my wife and our good friend and fellow writer, Brittni Brinn (Misplaced and the Patch Project series). It was a celebration of science fiction, fantasy and horror writers and artists in Windsor and surrounding areas, and took place at the Green Bean Cafe, a great venue beside the University of Windsor campus. It was a daylong get-together that featured over 25 vendors selling everything from books to artwork to clothing and accessories, as well as two blocks of live readings, a musical performance by Andrew Murphy, and an interpretive dance performance by local dance theatre company, Windsor Dance eXperience (WDX).

Will there be another WW? Will it become an annual event? Well, the response to the event was wonderful, and everyone I've spoken with, both vendors and visitors, either assumes there is going to be one, or actively thinks there should be one. So...we'll see. Although it was stressful, and a lot of work to organize, it was also a lot of fun, and a nice way to bring together a lot of people who share similar interests and passions. The genre fiction writing community here is a very rich one, and it certainly deserves recognition. Here's the event poster that Greg did for WW, as well as a picture of yours truly reading on-stage at the Green Bean Cafe:

I read from my new book—the story was “Sister-Biter”—and it went well. My friend Andrew, who was DJing the event when he wasn’t playing live, played a pre-reading entrance song for me: “Wrathchild” by the mighty Iron Maiden. Maiden has been my favourite band since around seventh grade and, as I’ve said in previous social media posts on the subject, there’s nothing in the world that I can’t do when that song is my soundtrack. So my social anxiety was beaten down and my reading went ahead as planned.

New Story Release:

Among other magazine and anthology publications this year, I had the honour of recently having a story published by Amazing Stories Magazine, the world's oldest magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction! I couldn't be more ecstatic. The story is a new one titled "These Streets Are Bruised". It's a self-contained tale and standalone chapter from a novel manuscript that I'm a couple of drafts into. It stars my recurring detective partners, Clark and Kessel, who have appeared in several other stories of mine over the years, including my dark near-future SF/Horror/Noir novella, “Journey to the End of a Burning Girl” (available in my story collections, Blacker Against the Deep Dark and These Long Teeth of the Night, as well as in serialized form in various issues of Helion Science Fiction Magazine). This new C&K story was originally slated to appear in my new collection but when it was accepted by Amazing Stories I was more than happy to take it out so that it could appear in such a legendary magazine.

Even better, besides appearing in print form, the story also appears in audio format on the AS website. David Rix, the man behind Eibonvale Press, did me the honour of reading/recording the story, and he does a fantastic job of it. Check it out at Amazing Stories!

Free Fiction:

I now have a story available to read for free on Payhip, here. “The Priests” has been published in a few different places, both in my books as well as elsewhere, most recently in Dark Horses Magazine and in the Weird Windsor Anthology, the companion volume to the WW event. The synopsis describes this weird horror/dark fantasy story as “the tale of an extraordinary person—conjoined triplets who act with a single mind—living in a dark world of judgement”. It seemed like a good sampler of my work. Here’s the accompanying artwork for the story:

Foxhill Doubles:

Starting in January 2025, Foxhill Press will be releasing an ongoing series of chapbooks pairing a previously published story of mine with an unpublished or otherwise scarce story. The chapbooks will be published as both digital and print editions. The physical books will be available in both paperback and limited edition hardcover versions. I fell in love with the chapbook format after having several published by Eibonvale Press. They're small and cute and make for quick reads—the opposite to my usual colossal full-length collections. If the full-lengths are the equivalent of a record LP, then the chapbooks are their analogous EPs. I love them. I love both formats.

In fact, keeping with the musical analogies, this series of two-tale volumes is, to my mind, a little bit like 7-inch vinyl singles which, traditionally, have two songs—an A-side and a B-side. It's a fun way to reissue older material while searching through my seemingly endless files for long-forgotten stories, those diamonds in the rough that I can polish into publishable stories.

The first release in the series—which will be numbered, beginning here with Foxhill Doubles No. 1—will feature my story “Blue Love Maria”, which originally appeared in my first collection, Experiments at 3 Billion A.M. (Eibonvale Press, 2009). Prior to this, the story appeared in a couple of now-defunct magazines dating back to 2004 and 2005. It's my version of an urban legend tale, dark and haunting and with a deep sense of sadness hanging over it. This version has been slightly reworked from the original, and features a tweak to the ending that changes the tone of the tale a lot. It seems it took me two decades to finally get this one right. Better late than never.

The second story here is called "Maria’s Comet". It's a very old tale, unearthed from my files because I'd always wanted it to have a home but it never seemed to fit into my various collections. It's a mix of western, dark fantasy and science fiction, with a healthy dose of the surreal thrown in for good measure. It seemed appropriate to pair "Maria" with "Maria", despite or maybe because they're such different stories in style and genre. I love variety, after all, plus thematically there are clear threads tying these two together, outside of the obvious reference to the name “Maria”: family, displacement, the quest for something better than the world we know, and maybe even fulfilling that quest, albeit via dark methods and with dire consequences.

Here's the full front and back cover of the print edition (barcode coming soon), featuring the fantastic design work of Elizabeth J.M. Walker/Avery Daisy Book Design:

I’m really looking forward to completing further entries in the Foxhill Doubles series down the road.

New Book News:

That’s right, I have a new book due to be released in 2025! I can’t say too much about it yet, though I am able to give a couple of details. The book will be published by a press that I have never worked with before, but who I am ecstatic to have publish my work. I’ve seen the finished cover artwork, and it’s fabulous. I can’t wait to share more details…soon!

That’s all for this inaugural issue of my newsletter. I hope you’ve enjoyed, and that you’ll come back next time. Thanks for reading—I appreciate it. 

And with that, I bid goodbye to 2024, and offer many thanks to all those who made it such a great year for me—friends and family and fellow writers, and all my Weirdo comrades. Here’s to a happy, healthy and creatively productive 2025 for all!

Onwards!

- AZ