Oh, hello.

If you’re here, I’m assuming it’s because you’ve heard the news that Your Humble Narrator will be staining the next three issues of Needle with a novella/novel type thing called Wolf Tickets.

I know, what a shocker, eh?

Bit of background for you: back in the good old days when I was young and arrogant, I wrote a book called Wolf Tickets. This was to be the start of a series of books in the Chester Himes / Joe Lansdale vein - my two protagonists were to be borderline sociopaths and their adventures bloody and absurd. I think I had ten or so briefly outlined at one point. Anyway, what happened was … nothing. Sales matter in this game, and mine have always been on the wrong side of the bowery, so the idea of pitching a series where one of the “heroes” takes a sock full of batteries to someone’s knees and the other shoots a dog point-blank in the head didn’t seem to be much of a career move.

Then Needle came along, and blew me away with that first issue. I tried to wangle my way into the second. I wangled well. Then I realised I got a contributor’s copy, so my grey cells got to working, and I came up with a plan: these sick bastards might be that niche who actually like Wolf Tickets. And that would mean three free issues, so I subbed.

And so here we are.

You know what I’d like to happen? I’d like it to shift a few more copies of Needle, because the writers in there deserve to be read. Beyond that, if there’s some demand, I might put it on the Kindle as a single book. Beyond that (and we’re through the looking glass now, people), if there’s loads of demand, then I’m happy to write some more until that demand peters out.

For right now, though, spreading the word that this might be a good thing is enough.