Books Published in 2024

As another year comes to a close, it is that time again for me to reflect on what books I have had published this year. I know I spaced on doing a post like this for 2023 (a year in which I certainly had more books published), so I’m glad I am able to set aside some time this morning to work on putting together this post on this last day of the year.

 

The year 2024 was a spectacular year for me, as far as writing and books are concerned. For my freelance writing, I changed things up to include submitting short fiction, and I’m glad I did! I had stories accepted at online publications, print mags, and anthologies. This is in addition to the articles, essays and poems I also managed to get published this year, both online and offline. And 2024 was a whole year of me writing my column for First Chapter Plus Magazine! (I came up with 12 ideas for what to write for that column this year! Go, me!)

 

And here are the things I did not succeed in doing this year:

 

• No novel complete
• No script complete 
• No song lyrics turned into a song and released to the public
• No return to Deaf journalism

 

Well, maybe I will accomplish those goals in 2025.

 

But now, let’s talk books!

 

When I was self-publishing books, I was gung ho to publish a book in January. But this year, I took a break from self-publishing my books, so my first book published this year was not released until March. At first, I saw this as a sign that maybe I won’t get that many books published this year. (Yeah, self-publishing spoiled this author into getting used to having a lot of books published in a year!) There was one year that I self-published books when I had a book out every month and managed to get 12 books out in 12 months.

 

Well, I managed to do that this year, too – and WITHOUT self-publishing!

 

I guess you could say that it helps that I have more than one publisher. And that I had a contract for books to be published by a publisher that changed hands in ownership!

 

Yes, there were a lot of ups and downs this year. Two very big downs happened when two of my publishers shut down this year. (And I was aware of other indie publishers also shutting down this year. RIP) But that didn’t sour the rest of the year! And it did not mean that all authors were doomed to have their newly unpublished books left to collect dust on their hard drives.

 

Nah, we authors are resilient! We picked ourselves back up and found something else to do with our books!

 

Either way, I ended up with 12 books published this year. Yay! More are slated for 2025.

 

Here are my 2024 books:

 

 

The Worst Thing You Ever Did (YA horror short story collection)

 

Within the pages of this book are tales of possession and terrors too evil to imagine.

 

An urban legend about a demon-possessed killer in the woods is put to the test by a group of teens who will face the most terrifying of their lives.

 

A cursed comic book turns a young boy into a monster's pawn, all the while transforming him into an evil artist whose creations come to life.

 

A ghoul's gifts to children come with a heavy price.

 

A group of teens celebrating the last day of school awaken the next day haunted by ghostly images of their victims from cruel and horrible events from their past.

 

And a teen boy is tricked into exploring the haunted hallway of an abandoned house, unaware of the evil that lurks within.

 

Just before you think you can walk away from the worst thing you ever did, getting away with a crime no one could ever hold you accountable for, think again! These five stories will send shivers down your spine! Think twice before crossing paths with the unknown, for it will lead you to horrors lurking in the shadows.

 

 

All the Beautiful Things (psychological horror novella)

 

QL likes to collect heads. Not just any heads, mind. The heads of the things he loves. And he likes to keep them all on his special wall of beautiful things, so that even in death, they can still be his forever.

 

QL Buscemi grew up with a hard life. Abandoned at birth, he was raised by his aunt and uncle in an abusive home. That was until his fixation for collecting the heads of dead animals became a problem. Soon he started talking to a voice in his head and acting strangely around other people. Fed up with his issues, his aunt and uncle place him into a home for "special children," despite its reputation for neglecting patients. There, QL encounters even more abuse, neglect and intolerance for his mental health issues, which only get worse since he refuses to take his medication. He finally leaves "the center" after twenty brutal years.

 

Finally free to live on his own at last, a 31-year-old QL becomes infatuated with his pretty neighbor who lives across the street, 20-year-old Danielle Pinota, who is herself finally free of a home where she was a "second mom" to her kid brother. As QL's attachment to Danielle grows, he wants to get to know her better. And keep her close to him forever. But he has to be careful. He always hurts the things he loves. At least if he hurts Danielle from loving her too much, just like he had with his pets, she could still be his forever ... on his wall of beautiful things.

 

  

Watch This Space (poetry)

 

Through a captivating blend of evocative language and vivid imagery, Colclasure takes readers on a journey through the myriad landscapes of COVID and its impacts on society. From the darkest depths of despair to the radiant heights of joy, each poem in "Watch This Space" is a testament to the resilience of the spirit.

 

With profound insight, Colclasure delves into themes of health, love, loss, hope, and redemption. Whether reflecting on personal struggles or advocating for social change, her words resonate with authenticity and compassion, leaving an indelible impact.

 

"Watch This Space" transcends being a mere collection of poems; it is a profound exploration of the experience amidst a pandemic. With each turn of the page, readers are drawn deeper into the labyrinth of emotion, emerging with a newfound appreciation for the beauty and complexity of a sickness.

 

 

Shadows (collection of flash fiction stories)

 

What sort of horrors lurk in the shadows What monsters are waiting to attack?

 

Shadows is a collection of 20 flash fictior stories bringing our worst nightmares to life.

 

From Halloween scares to Christmas creepers, these terrifying tales will take you into worlds of fright.

 

Shadows offers stories of ghosts, zombies demons and werewolves. But not all monsters are creatures of the imagination Be careful who you trust; within these pages are people just as monstrous and evil.

 

 

Nature Therapy (poetry)

 

A gentle reminder of the solace and inspiration that nature offers, and a perfect escape from the noise.

 

In "Nature Therapy," Dawn Colclasure crafts a collection that's both raw and refreshingly earnest. Her poetry, like a breath of crisp morning air, taps into an almost primal connection to the natural world. Colclasure's verses offer a genuine experience of the seasons shifting and the earth's quiet, persistent rhythms.

 

Reading this collection feels like wandering through a serene, untouched landscape—each poem is a snapshot of the simple yet profound beauty that often goes unnoticed. Colclasure doesn't just write about nature; she invites you to feel it, to revel in its purity and to recognize its relentless resilience.

 

"Nature Therapy" is more than just a series of poems; it's an invitation to reconnect with the world outside our windows.

 

 

Monsters and Mayhem: Stories (short collection of micro fiction and one flash fiction story)

 

Beware of the monsters who will strike at every turn! They are on a rampage through neighborhoods, hiding on top of roofs, or lurking within your dreams just waiting to materialize. Beware the scary creatures that could tear you from limb to limb or steal you away into the night! These seven flash and micro fiction stories offer new tales of monsters and the destruction they leave in their wake.

 

 

Triggered:A Collection of Young Adult Horror Stories (YA horror short story collection)

 

Ten girls have been tormented by people who thought it was okay to hurt them. They never expected them to fight back.

 

But they do.

 

Not only do they fight back, but they delight in freeing their inner monsters on anyone who hurts them.

 

Ten girls who have been wronged. Who have been forced to conform. Who have been laughed at one too many times.

 

These girls find the power within themselves to fight back and get their revenge. And make their tormentors pay.

 

 

Other (poetry)

 

Woman. Asexual. Disabled. Neurodivergent. Witch.

 

Take your pick. Any one of those labels can mean rejection, punishment, judgment and even death.

 

We live in a society where women's bodies are no longer their own to do with as they please. Where religious fanaticism continues to persecute and even murder anyone who is not of the same faith. Where people with disabilities are constantly looked down upon while fighting against an ableist society. Where a highly sexualized population harasses and shames anyone who does not wish to have sex.

 

other is a short collection of poems from one such person who is all of those things, who speaks with a voice crying out for equality and acceptance.

 

Vengeance from Beyond (Collection of related horror stories)

 

Halloween is a time when the veil is at its thinnest between the living and the dead.

 

When a vengeful spirit makes contact with forensic psychologist, Essie Histor, the floodgates open for other ghosts to come through as well.

 

As Essie moves from one case to another, she realizes that if a ghost is set on revenge, nothing can stop it from making sure its attackers are delivered vengeance from beyond.

 

 

I'll Be Ghosting You (magical realism novel)

 

Warren Beauchamp wakes up one morning not realizing he’s dead.

 

He can’t figure out why most of his stuff is missing.

 

He starts rummaging through his neighbors’ personal effects and discovers their dirty secrets.

 

His frolicking comes to a screeching halt when his angel guide, Floyd, shows up. Floyd was sent to haul Warren back to “Headquarters” to stand trial.

 

Warren is given a chance to go back to Earth to fix things, and during that time, he adjusts to being a ghost.

 

When it’s time for him to return, however, he has other ideas.

 

 

Home for the Holidays (extreme horror novelette)

 

Mona Townsend was five years old when her mother tried to kill her father.

 

This crime cost her and her brother, Colton, 23, twenty years with their mother.

 

Finally reunited on one December morning, the siblings are willing to forgive all and create a fresh start with their mother.

 

With Christmas coming up, Mona wants to make the occasion extra special.

 

Knowing that her mother has had a long-term rift with her own mother, she and her brother hatch a plan: Why not surprise their mother with a family reunion so that the two women can bury the hatchet and have a relationship again? After all, if she was capable of forgiving her mother for the past, why wouldn’t her own mother want to set things right with her mother too?

 

It was Christmas, after all. A time for miracles and family.

 

But what Mona and Colton don’t know is that their mother had a very good reason for severing ties with her own mother, and that some families are too toxic to appreciate the holiday spirit.

 

 

Christmas Frights (poetry)

 

Christmas is a time for cheer, joy and good memories.

 

Or is it?

 

Within these pages, you'll find a different type of Christmas, with very different Christmas characters!

 

There is the evil elf who goes on a murder spree, a homicidal snowman that comes to life on Christmas morning, and a Santa that will seek revenge on families who don't leave cookies out for him!

 

These 25 poems range from the bizarre to the horrifying. If you enjoy reading Christmas horror, check out these Christmas horror poems to add some scare to your holidays!

 

Thank you to all of the beta readers, editors, cover designers, publishers and members of the writing community who were all a part of helping me to put together these books, write them, polish them, and get them published! You are ALL rock stars!!  

What Do Writers Do? We Move On!

 This is one of my favorite quotes: “Make your comeback bigger than your setback.”

 

And if 2024 has been anything for me, it’s been a year of comebacks!

 

Before the year began, I signed a contract with an independent publisher for a collection of YA horror stories. This book would be my debut into YA horror. And not only was this book accepted, but my second collection of YA horror stories was also accepted. I was thrilled!

 

Another awesome thing happened in early 2024: This publishing company welcomed me aboard as a YA Editor. I have worked as an editor for a publishing company in the past, and since that ended, I had hoped to get a similar position with another publisher at some point. So I was excited when this happened.

 

But just as quickly as it happened, it all fell apart. That publishing company shut down in April. I was so disheartened, because now my two books with them were out of print and my job was no more.

 

Still, someone came along and bought what remained of that press. There was the promise of all books under contract getting republished, and it was a long time before that happened. But it DID happen! The result was Twisted Dreams Press. Not only were my contracts for my books renewed with this brand but, after someone stepped down as partner, I stepped up, and I became an Executive Editor for this company.

 

Ever since then, we have worked with the authors of the old press in getting their books back out there.

 

And now the books which I had under contract are out there, too! The books which I was told would be published during certain months were indeed published in these months.

 

These books were:

 

Monsters and Mayhem

Triggered (my second YA horror story collection)

I’ll Be Ghosting You

Home for the Holidays

 

And with the publication of these books, I have the invitation to submit more manuscripts in the new year.

 

Ever since that publishing company shut down, I have also noticed that some of the other people who were involved with it have gone on to do other things with their stories, their books, and their businesses. One author started to self-publish all of his books, others have completely revised their books and found another publisher for them, and another author put their stories into completely brand new books.

 

I am happy with how things have worked out, and I’m happy for the other authors who also extricated themselves from that disaster and forged a new path for themselves. These amazing people have created something bigger and better! They have found success with their new things, and they keep rocking the scene without looking back.

 

This only goes to show just how resilient authors are, and should be. The end is never “the end.” It’s more of “to be continued.”

 

If an author wants to survive in this industry, the author must be resilient. They must be able to pick themselves back up, dust themselves off, and move forward. An author must be able to gather their broken pieces and create something new out of it.

 

Publishing companies shut down. Magazines shut down. Contracts get terminated, decisions get changed and planned projects tend to fall apart. It happens. And if you are involved in something like this, just know that it’s an opportunity to find something else that will work for you. Don’t give up and don’t give in! Pick yourself back up and try again!

 

When you experience disaster in your attempts to get published, then the best thing to do with your work is to get back up again and go in another direction. Do something else with your writing. Create something else out of it, or make it brand new again and either self-publish it or take it elsewhere. Bring your writing back to life in some other way. Don’t give up just because things did not go as planned; instead, make a new plan! Do something else! Go somewhere else.

 

The point is that even after things fall apart in your plans to get published, you have the power to put your work and your plans back together again in your own way. Don’t see the closure or rejection as the end of your journey to publication; see it as an opportunity to come back bigger and better than ever. Someone somewhere else out there will accept and publish your work, giving your hard work and effort the reward it deserves.

 

Make your comeback bigger than your setback. That’s what professional authors who have been in this situation have done, and this is what every aspiring author or writer hoping to get published should do as well. Get back up again, dust yourself off, and move forward.

Have Yourself a Toxic Family Christmas: NEW RELEASE of Home for the Holidays!

 

No, I am not ACTUALLY wishing this upon you. I am merely suggesting you read about a toxic family Christmas – in my new book!

 

I hope you have an awesome Christmas, if you celebrate it. And if you don’t? Please check out my new book anyway!

 

Some stories have a very interesting way of appearing to writers. They come as ideas, a feeling, a gentle nudge at our brain, a memory, an experience, an impression from something – or even as a scene!

 

That is what happened for me, with my new extreme horror novelette, Home for the Holidays. (Which is my FIRST extreme horror book! I am not new to writing extreme horror; I have done it with short stories. And I challenged myself to write extreme horror in a book-length story. I hope I succeeded!)

 

But, yes, this story came to me as one scene. The scene in question? A mother sitting at the table with her adult children and the three of them talking about what they wanted to do while they all had a break from school and work. That’s it! That was the scene!

 

So I wrote it. And at the end of the scene, the daughter says she wants to see Grandma, to which her mother looks at her with horror, then stands from the table and says “Absolutely not.”

 

Yep. That’s how the scene ended. And I was curious, too. Why was the mother saying they could not see her mother? Why did she want to keep her children away from their grandmother during Christmas?

 

These and other questions are what I pondered, explored and toyed around with as I tried to figure out the rest of this story.

 

One thing I observed during that particular holiday season that I wrote this story was that there were a lot of people posting online about how the holidays were not so cheerful for them, because they could not celebrate Christmas with their toxic families. I know people who have had to sever ties with their parents and siblings because of toxicity, homophobia/transphobia, or because of past abuse that seeps into the present. I myself have had to unfortunately sever ties with a couple of siblings who are toxic. (And, believe me, I have given them many chances, only because they are siblings. Family is hard, dammit.) This made me realize, you know, that not everyone gets to go home for the holidays.

 

And that’s where I got the title for my story. That’s also where the rest of my story started to unfold!

 

Toxic family + Christmas + the expectation (illusion?) of being with family during Christmas = the perfect Christmas horror story! I decided to make it extreme horror based on some of the things happening in the story.

 

I used some of my own experiences of past abuse from my dad in the story, and I combined it with other things I have read in books of abusive and toxic families, in creating the past of the mother of the adult children in the story. There’s also a dream I had of one scene in particular that I used in the story (writing that scene made me nauseous). And the amazing cover by the very talented Christy Aldridge of Grim Poppy Design gave me the nudge to write yet another scene. And, finally, an idea I had for another scene I added during the revision stage of this story came from my original idea of what the cover looked like.

 

But other than that, the story took on a life of its own. It’s definitely not the same story that was originally accepted by a publisher that now no longer exists but it ended up being the story I was satisfied with when it was published by Twisted Dreams Press on Friday the 13^th.

 

As a writer of horror, I challenge myself to try my hand at writing the different subgenres of horror. I will probably do the same when the time comes that I start writing fantasy, romance, suspense, etc. But for now, I am writing in the horror genre, and I’m happy that I made the leap to try writing an extreme horror book. It’s a novelette, sure, and maybe I’ll take it as far as writing an extreme horror novel at some point. For now, this is my contribution to the horror community, and I can only hope that it is a good one.

 

Blurb:

 

Mona Townsend was five years old when her mother tried to kill her father.

 

This crime cost her and her brother, Colton, 23, twenty years with their mother.

Finally reunited on one December morning, the siblings are willing to forgive all and create a fresh start with their mother.

With Christmas coming up, Mona wants to make the occasion extra special.

Knowing that her mother has had a long-term rift with her own mother, she and her brother hatch a plan: Why not surprise their mother with a family reunion so that the two women can bury the hatchet and have a relationship again? After all, if she was capable of forgiving her mother for the past, why wouldn’t her own mother want to set things right with her mother too?

It was Christmas, after all. A time for miracles and family.

But what Mona and Colton don’t know is that their mother had a very good reason for severing ties with her own mother, and that some families are too toxic to appreciate the holiday spirit.

 

Buy link