Meet Presto!

 

It’s interesting how writers tend to get ideas for things right around the same time something else comes along where that idea could be used.

 

That’s what I was thinking recently, when my youngest sister, Millie, contacted me with a request. Millie and her wife, Allison, run an online group call Pumpkin Hill Haunters. Pumpkin Hill Haunters sells jewelry and books that fit along their themes of witchcraft, paranormal, and horror. They also post stories written by the haunters, as well as posts celebrating special events (like birthdays). And every Halloween, Pumpkin Hill hosts a spooky walk-through that is filled with awesome decorations and haunters acting out characters.

 

This year, Millie wanted to create a more kid-friendly version of Pumpkin Hill for kids. That’s actually what I suggested she call it, and so she did but without “for”: Pumpkin Hill Kids. All of us haunters get to create a post for Halloween, as well as spooky and horror stories that are more appropriate for children.

 

 

Millie is aware that I write children’s books, as well as stories for children. She reached out and asked me if I was interested in writing a series of stories for Pumpkin Hill Kids. I said yes and asked what sort of characters/animals have not yet been used for Pumpkin Hill. One of the animals Millie mentioned was a black cat, and that’s the one I chose. I told Millie that I actually had an idea of some stories to write about a black cat, but I couldn’t think of just what kind of stories they were. So a black cat it was and Millie suggested that the cat be a wizard cat. I was agreeable to that idea.

 

Next, we had to come up with a name for our cat. Millie said that maybe this cat could belong to a magician. I liked that idea so much that I instantly had that character in mind. Then we brainstormed names for the cat. We tossed around names and I looked up wizard names online. None of them grabbed me. Then, eventually, I remembered how some people use the words “hey, presto!” when talking about magic and magicians. So I suggested the name to Millie “Presto.” Then I said, “OK, you know what? I like it. Presto.” To which Millie replied: “Presto is cute! It sounds magical! Like Abracadabra.” With that decided, Allison created an image of Presto.

 

 

We all liked the picture that Allison came up with and I immediately got busy writing. I wrote two stories then and there. One of the stories was later polished and fixed up before Presto made his debut on the Pumpkin Hill Kids Instagram page on Black Cat Appreciation Day.

 

 

You can read the rest of that story at this link.

 

I am excited about this new writing opportunity and I look forward to writing more stories with Presto in the future. Hopefully, kids will like the Presto stories too. We’re already talking about creating merch for it, and now that I have a new publisher/illustrator for my children’s books, there just may be some physical books starring Presto the Wizard Cat!  

A Week of Scrambling

 Last week was quite a week for me. I was REALLY glad when the work part of it was over with! Especially since I have author-related and freelance writing related stuff to do this weekend!

 

The week began with a holiday for Canadians. It was Thanksgiving. Because my business partner is located in Canada, she had the day off from the press. But, unfortunately, I had to deal with a situation. At Twisted Dreams Press, we are publishing an anthology series called Week of Terrors. Each book has one theme for every day of the week: Monster Monday (monsters), Terrifying Tuesday (horror clowns), Werewolf Wednesday (werewolves), Thriller Thursday (zombies), Frightening Friday (a combination of different themes as well as horror subgenres), Slasher Saturday (slasher horror) and Spooky Sunday (ghost stories).

 

The thing that interrupted my business partner’s Thanksgiving was me ranting about one of the writers in the Wednesday book withdrawing her story last Friday. I was really upset because, with the recent publication of the Tuesday book, we were ready to send out contracts for the Wednesday book. The release of the books in this series has been long delayed and we are both excited to get these books out as soon as possible. And because one writer withdrew her story, we were now a story short in an anthology that had to have ten stories. That put the brakes on sending out the contracts. Since I am handling the editing for the Wednesday book, I also had to postpone this task.

 

We talked about this situation. I had two choices: I could either announce the now open spot for another story in the Werewolf Wednesday book on our Facebook page, or I could reach out to one of the many other horror writers I know to see if any of them wanted to contribute a werewolf story. (Alas, I have yet to write a werewolf story myself! But I’m working on a children’s horror book that has a werewolf in it.) Well, first, I did post the announcement, but then I remembered a writer whose work we are huge fans of, so I messaged him to see if he could write a werewolf story for the book. That conversation went from him sharing an idea he had for just such a story to laying out the details about it. His agreement to write the story got us really excited and I was thrilled that he said he could do it. This helped me feel so much better and I was glad I was able to turn a bad situation into a good situation. This writer delivered the story the next day and we are VERY excited to have one of his stories in this book. (He also has work in some of the other WOT anthologies – Terrifying Tuesday among them.)

 

Then, on Tuesday, I had something terrifying happen myself.

 

Dreamweaver Press, a division of Twisted Dreams Press, re-released the novel The House That Echoed Madness by Destiny Pifer on Tuesday. This book was previously published by Baynam Books Press in 2025, but Baynam Books Press shut down this spring and all of us authors received an email from the owner, Crystal Baynam, informing us that all rights to our books were returned to us. At the time that we were directly informed of the closure by Crystal in a group chat, I let Crystal know about the Twisted Dreams Press imprint that was going to launch later that year, and she passed this information along to the authors. We both let them know that they were welcome to have their books republished by Dreamweaver Press. Many of the authors contacted me saying they were interested, and Destiny was one of them. So Destiny’s book was published a bit later than the date I planned to release it (sorry, Destiny!), but I finally got the book back out there.

 

Then, on that day I made the announcement about her book, I discovered that the audiobook of the previous edition of her book was still for sale on Apple Books. Oops! I contacted both my business partner, Jennifer, and Crystal to talk to them about what to do. Jennifer encouraged me to check the contract Baynam Books Press sent out to authors, as well as the wording in the cancellation document. Crystal and I had talked about audiobook files of the books she published in the past, and at that time, she encouraged me to create an account with ACX, the audiobook arm of Amazon. I did create the account, but nothing else happened afterward. So I contacted Crystal on Tuesday asking about the audiobook files. We had a chat about the technical details of getting audiobook file transfers made and she let me know that ACX makes audiobooks available through Apple Books, and not just through Amazon. I did NOT know that! (I am completely new to the audiobook world). Crystal also suggested I contact customer support about transferring files, and that’s what I did. Currently, they are working with me to get my new account straightened out. So, it’s just a matter of time of getting all audiobook files transferred and THEN I can move forward in getting audiobooks made for the other Dreamweaver Press authors.  

 

Then, on Wednesday, I had MORE things to deal with!

 

I received an email from that writer who had withdrawn her story claiming that I had called her names. When I asked for proof, she couldn’t provide anything in which I ACTUALLY called her those names. When I asked her for an apology since she was proven wrong, she went ballistic on my business partner. That infuriated me. NO ONE crosses Jennifer; she is not just my business partner but also my best friend. I will ALWAYS have her back and will always defend her. To take this crap and throw it at her was the last straw. She didn’t NEED that! I realized that not only was this writer being deceptive in going behind my back to say a bunch of angry things about this whole tiff she was having with me, but the fact that she took the matter to someone else instead of trying to resolve it with me just made it ten times worse. I could no longer trust this person or work with her in good faith. If she wants to smear my character (and she also threatened legal action), then there is no way I can in good faith continue to honor our agreement to publish her book. So I had to cancel her contract with Dreamweaver Press. She just became impossible to work with. Seriously, if she had acknowledged that she was in the wrong and apologized, then this drama would have ended then and there and we could have moved forward. But, no, she had to act like she didn’t owe me an apology and how DARE I even expect one from her. She had to go behind my back and unload all of it onto someone else. So, goodbye to all that! I will never work with her again.

 

That business with that writer was drawn out on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Friday is the day that I canceled her contract.

 

Also on Thursday, I had an early morning interview for an article I am writing for Able News, but in addition to that, I had to FIND A WRITER TO INTERVIEW FOR THE SPARREW NEWSLETTER! Here it was, October 15, and I didn’t have a writer interview for the October issue of the newsletter yet! Eek! It’s a Halloween issue, so I wanted to find a writer of horror stories to interview.

 

And, wouldn’t you know it, I found that writer on that Thursday morning, after I was done with the Able News interview and was reading on my Substack app. I recalled how I am subscribed to Newton Webb’s Substack, and have enjoyed reading many of his horror stories. That particular memory grabbed my attention. Wait a minute, he writes horror stories! And I was looking for a writer of horror stories to interview!

 

 

So I logged in at Facebook to see if I could find him on there. I do follow him on Facebook, and I got the link to his website. But, unfortunately, on his website, I couldn’t find a way to contact him by email. Since his Facebook page is a professional page, he might not be the one reading any messages on it. So I bit the bullet and sent him a message on Substack to see if he was interested in being interviewed. He accepted my message request and replied that he would be “honoured” to be interviewed for the newsletter. YAY!! I got his email address and sent him the questions. (Thank you, Newton!)

 

Then on Friday, the only scrambling that I did was hustling to get to a doctor appointment, because I got so busy with everything going on that morning that I ended up running laaate for that appointment.

 

An appointment that ended up being rescheduled anyway.  

 

So, how was YOUR week??

 

I guess you could say I have had my own week of terrors – but I just hope that Saturday and Sunday are better.