In 2006, for his first separate title, John D. Haefele contributed the third number to The Cimmerian Library chapbook series with A Bibliography of Books and Articles Written by August W. Derleth, Concerning Derleth and the Weird Tale and Arkham House Publishing. Going to press in a limited edition of 100 copies, the chapbook cited approximately 400 nonfiction pieces written by Derleth. The research comes from decades of delving into every Arkham House book and piece of ephemera, along with much else, by the weird fiction scholar.
A new edition published by The Cimmerian Press is now available on Amazon. August Derleth: A Bibliography of His Nonfiction, with about 900 entries, is the most complete checklist ever compiled on the writings the founder of Arkham House did over the years on such subjects as H.P. Lovecraft and the Weird Tale—and on Arkham House itself. For the first time, Haefele provides page numbers from the original source on most entries, as well as annotations for context, all in a clear, readable format.
Derleth’s influence in the field eventually spread to millions of readers around the world, in particular his lionization of H. P. Lovecraft and championship of weird fantasy as literature. See the story of Derleth’s efforts as they appeared year by year—and sometimes week by week—in this all-new master list of his ongoing articles and reviews.
Good Company’s newest quest takes Sir Larpsalot, Elvish Presley, and their allies from the printed page to the family room.
Fans of The Lost Tale of Sir Larpsalot novel can now step into the boots of their favorite Mezzo-Earth heroes with a new tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) from fantasy author David Michael Williams.
The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd is a Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons-compatible adventure designed for first-time TTRPG players as well as longtime gamers who crave a streamlined, self-contained experience with more humor than horror. The game presents challenges in the form of combat, diplomacy, and puzzle solving.
“While The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd builds on the characters and setting first introduced in The Lost Tale of Sir Larpsalot, the novel itself is not required reading,” Williams said. “When I thought about creating a game for teens and other newcomers to TTRPGs, I realized I already had all the ingredients for an irreverent fantasy game right in front of me.”
“Part homage and part parody, Mezzo-Earth is a setting rife with re-engineered cliches, meta commentary, and plenty of eye-rolling puns,” he added.
In addition to the main three-act adventure, The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd includes six pre-generated player characters, more than a dozen maps and optional encounters, 16 original creatures, 22 unique items, and 30 new spells. Unlike many other TTRPGs, The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd encourages multiple playthroughs, allowing players to try different characters, choose new allies, battle unique foes, and experience unexplored encounters.
The game can be played with a gamemaster and one to six players.
The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd is Williams’ first published game, following a few homebrewed one-shot adventures for friends and family. Additionally, he has contributed his writing and editing talents to Fifth Edition products published by Goodman Games.
“Whether you’re running a TTRPG for the first time, running a game for new players, searching for a streamlined adventure that favors storytelling over and complex rules, or simply craving a fresh—and sometimes funny—take on fantasy tropes, you’ve come to the right place,” Williams said.
One Million Words, Williams’ indie publishing company, released The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd on March 15, 2023. The hardcover and digital editions are available at DriveThruRPG.com.
Williams is the author of eight novels, including The Renegade Chronicles, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy series, and The Soul Sleep Cycle, a dreampunk trilogy. Ghost Mode & Other Strange Stories, a collection of his short fiction, was released in 2021. His fiction also has appeared in various anthologies. He joined the Allied Authors of Wisconsin in 2005.
Fans of police procedurals can finally say “hello” to Hannah Morrissey’s first novel at a launch event next month.
In celebration of the release of Hello, Transcriber, Morrissey will speak about her book and sign copies starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30, at Barnes & Noble, 95 N. Moorland Road, Milwaukee, Wis. The public is welcome.
Morrissey’s compelling new crime thriller features a female police transcriber who goes beyond her daily duties and deep into danger to help solve a harrowing case. According to the book jacket:
“Every night, while the street lamps shed the only light on Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, police transcriber Hazel Greenlee listens as detectives divulge Black Harbor’s gruesome secrets. As an aspiring writer, Hazel believes that writing a novel could be her only ticket out of this frozen hellscape.
“And then her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster.
“The suspicious death is linked to Candy Man, a notorious drug dealer. Now Hazel has a first-row seat to the investigation and becomes captivated by the lead detective, Nikolai Kole. Intrigued by the prospects of gathering eyewitness intel for her book, Hazel joins Kole in exploring Black Harbor’s darkest side.”
As the investigation unfolds, Hazel will learn just how far she’ll go for a good story—even if it means destroying her marriage and luring the killer to her as she plunges deeper into the city she’s desperate to claw her way out of.
Hello, Transcriber will be available in hardcover, for Kindle, and as an audiobook on Nov. 30, courtesy of Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press and premier publisher of crime fiction.
An angel, an android and an alien walk into a book…
Ghost Mode & Other Strange Stories, a new collection by speculative fiction author David Michael Williams, contains 13 short stories spanning such genres as fantasy, science fiction, paranormal and dreampunk.
From ambitious extraterrestrials to a denizen of the darkweb to a mighty spellcaster with the mind of a child, every story includes an element of the supernatural. Each tale also challenges the traditional notions of what defines a hero or a villain by spotlighting complex characters caught up in complicated circumstances.
Ghost Mode & Other Strange Stories is the first short fiction collection by the Wisconsin novelist.
“Longform storytelling has always been my preferred medium for fiction, but I had amassed many ideas for shorter, self-contained tales while writing books and series over the years,” Williams said. “Creatively speaking, this collection is a confident step out of my comfort zone while exploring genres, themes and characters that have been waiting in the wings for far too long.”
While each story stands on its own, several of them tie into Williams’ existing works of fiction, including The Renegade Chronicles, The Soul Sleep Cycle, and The Lost Tale of Sir Larpsalot, a YA portal fantasy released in 2020.
“Several of these stories started as ideas, writing exercises and rough drafts as far back as a decade ago, and others resulted from my personal challenge to compose eight tales in eight weeks late last year,” Williams said.
“And even though the collection celebrates the strange and supernatural, each story attempts to define what it means to be human.”
One Million Words, Williams’ indie publishing company, published Ghost Mode & Other Strange Stories on June 22. The paperback and e-book are available at Amazon.com.
In addition to the short story collection, Williams is the author of eight novels, including a sword-and-sorcery series and a dreampunk trilogy. A 1999 graduate of UW-Fond du Lac and a 2001 graduate of UW-Milwaukee’s creative writing program, his fiction also appears in various anthologies. He has been a member of the Allied Authors of Wisconsin, one of the state’s oldest writing collectives, for the past 15 years.
Booklovers received two gifts this February with a pair of publications penned by Allied Authors.
Charming
Christopher Whitmore published his third novel, Charming, on Feb. 4. The standalone adventure is a temporary step away from his ongoing post-apocalyptic fantasy series.
Charming spins fairytale tropes on their heads and features larger-than-life characters caught up in a madcap misadventure. The back-cover blurb teases a story unlike any readers have ever encountered:
Leo Fairchild’s life has been in freefall since high school. His parents died abruptly during his senior year, his football scholarship fizzled when he blew his knee out, and now, he’s crashing on his best friend’s couch because he can’t seem to hold down a job for more than five minutes.
What Leo doesn’t realize is that there’s a reason for his streak of awful, awful luck — and her name is Vesper.
In order to uncover the truth behind his multiple misfortunes, Leo and his best friend David must travel to an astonishing new world, a brilliant reflection of our own modern society, where a marriage of magic and technology are able to solve most any problem… or so it seems…
It is there that Leo will discover his strange destiny and just what it means to be a Charming.
But will his fantastic new life be worth the price that must be paid?
Whitmore is also the author of Saviour and Children of the Saviour, which combine complex religious themes, thrilling action, and a generous measure of comedy to keep readers turning pages. His books are available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com.
After years of painstaking toil, John D. Haefele released his literary-criticism masterpiece Lovecraft: The Great Tales on Feb. 9.
According to Publishers Weekly, “Haefele’s interpretations are sure to spark debate among scholars of this influential author. Lovecraftians won’t want to miss this one.” Excerpts from the synopsis shed additional light on this comprehensive — and potentially controversial — book:
Tracing the development of HPL’s fictional universe, John D. Haefele ranges from childhood readings of the Arabian Nights to the seismic encounter with the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
After a lifetime of studying and appreciating Lovecraft, John D. Haefele finally sits down and does an unprecedented excavation of the texts, revealing years of startling discoveries, smashing the tame boilerplate criticism of recent decades.
Haefele’s revolutionary ways of looking at HPL’s work defy generations of critical orthodoxy. New ideas — but when you check the stories, suddenly evident and logical.
You won’t find a more masterful handling of the case of Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
Haefele is a well-known figure in Lovecraft and Derleth literary circles. In addition to contributing numerous nonfiction articles in blogs, reviews, and periodicals, he is the author of A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos.
His books are available in paperback on Amazon.com.
St. Martin’s Press has released details about Hannah Morrissey’s debut novel, including the cover for the compelling new crime thriller.
Hello, Transcriber features a police transcriber who goes beyond her daily duties to help solve a harrowing case. A teaser posted at criminalelement.com reveals more about the plot:
“Every night, while the street lamps shed the only light on Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, police transcriber Hazel Greenlee listens as detectives divulge Black Harbor’s gruesome secrets. As an aspiring writer, Hazel believes that writing a novel could be her only ticket out of this frozen hellscape.
“And then her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster.
“The suspicious death is linked to Candy Man, a notorious drug dealer. Now Hazel has a first-row seat to the investigation and becomes captivated by the lead detective, Nikolai Kole. Intrigued by the prospects of gathering eyewitness intel for her book, Hazel joins Kole in exploring Black Harbor’s darkest side.
“As the investigation unfolds, Hazel will learn just how far she’ll go for a good story–even if it means destroying her marriage and luring the killer to her as she plunges deeper into the city she’s desperate to claw her way out of.”
Hello, Transcriber will be available in paperback and e-book editions on Nov. 30, 2021, courtesy of Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press and premier publisher in the bestselling category of crime fiction.
Morrissey joined the Allied Authors in 2019. She is currently working on her follow-up novel, Widowmaker,which also takes place in the apocryphal city of Black Harbor.
Those were the first words he spoke to me. My newlywed wife, Stephanie, and I were having a rummage sale in the summer of 2005, and a man old enough to be my grandfather asked the question while holding up the outdated copy of Writer’s Market we’d hoped to sell for a quarter.
We quickly learned a few things about Tom Ramirez:
He was a local author with more than a hundred paperbacks to his name (and pen names).
He was a former journalist, even as I was getting my feet wet at the local newspaper.
He and his wife, Fern, had grown up here in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and lived in nearby St. Peter.
At some point in the conversation, we exchanged contact information, and it wasn’t long before the Ramirezes invited Steph—whom Tom quickly dubbed “Steffers”—and I to dinner at their beautiful home. Somehow Fern was even friendlier than Tom. In addition to learning more about their fascinating lives and sharing a bit about our own backgrounds, we were taught how to play Mexican Train.
Thomas P. Ramirez
A month or so later, we had them over for dinner at our place.
Early on, I shared some of my writing with Tom, and while he was the furthest thing to a fantasy fan, he must have seen some promise in my work because he invited Steph and I to accompany him and Fern to an Allied Authors meeting in the Milwaukee area. We eagerly took them up on the offer.
I remember feeling like a fish out of water—or maybe a better metaphor would be a goldfish swimming among monolithic ocean dwellers. We were so young, and here we were in the company of published authors and writers who had accomplished so much!
It was a lot to aspire to, but Tom was about as down-to-earth as a man could get. A child of the Great Depression, he had a knack for telling it like it is, praise and criticism alike, which made his feedback on my fiction tough but fair. Meanwhile, Fern was the perfect counterbalance, always ready with a cache of compliments due to her passion for reading.
Steph and I often carpooled with the Ramirezes for these monthly Allied Authors meetings. In the beginning, she and I worried we’d run out of things to talk about with the elderly couple. That never happened. Not even close.
Was it because Tom and Fern were so young at heart? Were Steph and I old souls? Or was the truth, perhaps, somewhere in the middle?
Whatever the case, the trips to and from Milwaukee never devolved into awkward silence. Indeed, the rides were always at least as fun as the meetings themselves, despite the half-century difference in our ages.
My friendship with Tom stretched across 15 years—through the birth of both my children, a couple of career changes, and the publication of my first novels. When it came time for him to self-publish his memoirs, I passed along to my mentor what I had gleaned from my own experiences, assisting him with proofing, layout, the back-cover blurb, and the publishing itself. In some ways, it seemed like a role-reversal, but, really, it was just one good friend helping another.
Up until Tom’s death, we were talking about the possibility of publishing a novel he’d been working on for the past few years, a horror novel that was outside his wheelhouse but of which he was quite proud. I was proud, too—not only because he was writing well into his 90s, but because he wasn’t afraid to tackle something new and unfamiliar.
A recurring theme in a life both long and lush.
If Tom Ramirez hadn’t shown up at our rummage sale, I doubt I would have crossed paths with the Allied Authors, let alone joined the group. My own writing journey would have suffered for that as well as the absence of his stalwart encouragement. Aside from Steph, he was my staunchest supporter, always predicting I had what it took to make it.
“Who’s the writer?”
I am—and I’m a much better one for having known you, Tom. Moreover, you made my life richer beyond the page. I’m blessed to have known you and Fern and to have played some small part in the incredible story that was your life.
Enjoy your epilogue, old friend.
Thomas P. Ramirez passed away on December 18, 2020 at the age of 94. The former teacher, reporter, and author of more than 150 novels and 250 short stories joined the Allied Authors of Wisconsin in 1955. His most recent book was That Wonderful Mexican Band, a memoir about growing up a poor member of a minority group in Fond du Lac during the Great Depression, which was published in 2017.
Wizards and wannabes star in new novel geared toward gamers
Fans of fantasy roleplaying games (RPGs) can learn what not to do when exploring a new world, thanks to David Michael Williams’ latest novel.
The Lost Tale of Sir Larpsalot features a handful of would-be heroes who find themselves woefully unprepared for the adventure they always hoped for.
“It’s what’s called a portal fantasy,” Williams said. “Five Midwestern teens are pulled into another world by a sorceress who confuses them for actual champions. They have to complete her perilous quest in order to get back home.”
“In some ways, it’s every gamer’s dream come true and nightmare rolled into one,” he added.
The Wisconsin author describes his new novel as Galaxy Quest meets Dungeons & Dragons. The characters are all live-action roleplaying gamers—aka LARPers—and include Sir Larpsalot, the party leader; musical storyteller Elvish Presley; Brutus the Bullheaded, a surly minotaur; know-it-all Master Prospero; and Tom Foolery, the team’s not-so-stealthy sneak.
While the coming-of-age tale is classified as YA fiction, the book was written to appeal to fantasy aficionados both young and old as well as anyone who enjoys fun-filled, action-heavy adventures—such as teen gamers who aren’t typically drawn to reading.
Unlike Williams’ earlier sword-and-sorcery novels, which all took place in the magical world of Altaerra, The Lost Tale of Sir Larpsalot straddles the real world, the fictional setting that the LARPers invented for their game and a brand-new realm filled with creatures they have never encountered, not even in their imaginations.
“The teens have to decide which fantasy clichés can help them overcome obstacles and which could get them killed,” Williams said. “Every chapter starts with a snippet of gaming slang, which somehow fits into the next segment of their crazy quest.”
“This book is my tongue-in-cheek love letter to the fantasy RPGs I grew up playing and continue playing to this day,” he said.
One Million Words, Williams’ indie publishing company, published The Lost Tale of Sir Larpsalot on Oct. 1. The paperback and e-book are available at Amazon.com. He plans to narrate and produce the audiobook edition in 2021.
Williams is also the author of four other fantasy novels, including Magic’s Daughter, which was released in paperback, e-book, and audiobook editions earlier this year, as well as The Soul Sleep Cycle, a dreampunk series that explores life, death and eternity. He joined the Allied Authors of Wisconsin in 2005.
Coming-of-age fantasy conjures up family conflict, intrigue, romance
Readers can return to the magical, medieval realm of Altaerra in David Michael Williams’ recently released seventh novel.
Magic’s Daughter, currently available in paperback and Kindle editions, tells the story of Selena Nelesti, a young aristocrat torn between her family’s expectations and her own ambition to become something more—someone who shapes the very world.
“Selena wants nothing to do with her noble name,” Williams said. “She seeks out forbidden knowledge as a means of escape, but whether magic will be the key to her freedom or the path to another prison remains to be seen.”
Rounding out the cast of characters are members of Selena’s family, including her manipulative mother, increasingly distant father, and beloved but ailing grandmother as well as a stable boy who provides a perspective from outside the castle, a combative priest, and a wizard who will change Selena’s life in ways both seen and unseen.
Magic’s Daughter takes place in Williams’ proprietary world of Altaerra, which also served as the setting for The Renegade Chronicles, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy trilogy published in 2016.
“The Renegade Chronicles introduced readers to Altaerra, and Magic’s Daughter expands on that groundwork, exploring new geography and diving deeper into how the magic of that world works,” the Wisconsin author said.
“But you don’t have to have read The Renegade Chronicles to appreciate Magic’s Daughter. It is a separate, self-contained story,” he added.
Williams’ indie publishing company, One Million Words, published Magic’s Daughter on April 14. Both the paperback and e-book editions are available at Amazon.com. He plans to release an audiobook version later in 2020.
In addition to Magic’s Daughter and The Renegade Chronicles, Williams is the author of The Soul Sleep Cycle, a dreampunk series that explores life, death and eternity. He joined the Allied Authors of Wisconsin in 2005.
Friday the 13th brought nothing but good luck for a certain member of Allied Authors.
Christopher Whitmore published his second novel, Children of The Saviour, on Sept. 13, 2019. The book is a sequel to 2017’s Saviour, a post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure.
The back-cover blurb captures where Children of The Saviour picks up and hints at new territory ahead:
“A year after the events of SAVIOUR, Miracle Ashe returns home to find her sister and friends entangled in a perilous skein of intrigue: a glorious angel, wrapped in tendrils of living flame has unexpectedly arrived in the city. He proclaims that he is the son and heir of The Saviour himself.
“Miracle isn’t convinced.
“Her journey to discover the truth behind this angel of fire reunites her with old friends and ends up introducing her to astonishing, forgotten corners of the world. However, enemies familiar and new await her, both at home and across the sea.”
Whitmore’s published works combine complex religious themes, thrilling action, and a generous measure of comedy to keep readers turning pages and craving the next installment in the series. The Fond du Lac native joined Allied Authors of Wisconsin in 2017, shortly after the release of his debut novel.
Both Saviour and Children of The Saviour are available in paperback and as e-books on Amazon.com.
The Allied Authors are published authors, up-and-comers, an agent, current and former journalists, nonfiction writers and avid readers who eagerly help one another become better fiction writers.
We are passionate about the craft and are committed to one another's success — true allies on the road to publication.
Tracing our roots back to the Milwaukee Fictioneers (1931) and the Allied Authors of Milwaukee (1937), we are among the oldest professional writing groups in the state.
Allied Authors 