Wouldn’t you like to hang with these charming characters?

Hello, friends!
The wonderful folks over at Zombies Need Brains press are launching (or re-launching) another themed anthology on Kickstarter ! It’s called Were-2 (there’s a pun in there, somewhere), and it will feature myself (and a bunch of other very talented authors) as an anchor author! Here’s the pitch:

It’s the night of the full moon, but there are more than mere werewolves skulking the streets. In WERE-2, we return to the back alleys in the dead of night to discover what other were-creatures might see you as prey. A were-raven? Were-squirrel? Were-octopus? You won’t know until you hear that rustle of feathers next to your ear or smell the brine of the sea in that gust from the window. Writers are asked to give us their most creative were-creature, with only one rule: No werewolves allowed! Edited by S.C. Butler & Joshua Palmatier, WERE-2 will contain approximately fourteen stories with an average length of 6,000 words each. Anchor authors include: Randee Dawn, Auston Habershaw, Gini Koch, Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin, Harry Turtledove, Tim Waggoner, Jean Marie Ward.

Doesn’t that sound fun? Well, if you want to bring it to fruition, you’ll need to back the kickstarter, which is starting up very soon! There are lots of rewards and perks for being an early adopter, too, including lots of opportunities to have your name tuckerized into various stories.

As a final incentive, I’ll give you a sneak peak at the story I’m preparing for the anthology. It’s titled “Were-Brad.” Here’s a brief excerpt:

The night I first changed, I was at home in my bed because I am a good boy. I was not being bad at all. I was not chewing on the kitchen table leg, even though it is fun, and I was not barking at raccoons outside, even though they should be the ones in trouble and not me.

No. I was being good. I was sleeping in my warm bed in the kitchen while Brad was in his warm bed and asleep, and I was not even trying to get into Brad’s warm bed, even though his bed is warmer and softer than mine. And also big enough for both of us. That is not me being bad. That is just true.

The moon was very big that night, and it shone on me in my bed, and instead of nothing happening, which is what is supposed to happen, the moon decided to make me different, which is not what is supposed to happen. I grew large and my fur fell off and my nose got small and my teeth got blunt and my paws became long and floppy while my ears got short and stiff, and I felt cold even though I was in my warm bed.

I stood up, but standing up was wrong because my hind legs were stuck on wrong and my forepaws hurt when I pushed them against the kitchen floor and so, instead of standing on all of my legs, I stood up only on my back two.

I had changed.

I had become a Brad.

I just figured – why not go the other way? Why can’t the beast become the man? This story is for all of you who love dogs and also all of you who enjoy silly animal-related hijinks and heartwarming fun, which I feel represents a solid sliver of my fan demographic. Or, at least it should (I have no actual idea).

You may recall that ZNB tried to launch this same anthology a year or two ago, but with two other books connected. That one failed (a bridge too far, it seemed), so they’ve been re-launching them one at a time, to make the upfront costs lower and increase the odds of success. Skull X Bones, their pirate anthology, just launched last year to great success, so we’re hoping to do it again with this one. Won’t you help us out? Keep tabs on this Kickstarter, folks–you won’t want to miss it!