Posts Tagged ‘BlueSky’

A Tribute to a Friend Who Passed Away

Posted: November 30, 2025 in Living and Life, Reflections
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A yahrtzeit candle. In my faith, they’re used to memorialize those who have passed on.

I lost a friend yesterday.

I first met MG Mason, known to his friends at Matt, on Twitter. He was running something called “Horror Writers Chat” there. On Wednesdays, horror authors would meet up on Matt’s account. Matt would then ask us a series of four or five questions over the course of an hour. These questions would be about horror, writing, our current WIPs, our favorite books or movies, and our thoughts on the craft. And at the end of it, we could post about our current publications and upcoming releases.

Obviously, it was a lot of fun, and I got quite into it. I even hosted it once. And when Twitter became a hellscape of toxic masculinity and far-right ideology, I moved over to BlueSky with Matt to continue with Horror Writers Chat. I wanted to continue enjoying Horror Writers Chat.

But more than that, I wanted to continue being part of this community. Through Horror Writers Chat, I was making so many new acquaintances and colleagues. So many new friends to talk about horror and writing with! Most of all, I was becoming friends with Matt, who I found a sort of mentor-like figure. Well, how could I not? He had basically created this community, and we were all thankful for it.

But he was more than just the Moses of our little community. He was demisexual and demiromantic, and openly talked about his struggles as someone who only feels attraction to people when he gets close to them. He also talked about his struggles with life and mental health, and about his home and living in England. As someone who is aromantic and also struggles with life and mental health on occasion, I could relate. And I enjoyed hearing about his life in England.

And of course, Matt was a horror writer. He found enjoyment and comfort in scary tales, as well as in writing them. So, obviously, we bonded over that.

The posts that let us know Matt had passed on.

Truly, Matt was a good man. He was friendly, easy to talk to, and willing to listen when you had a disagreement or misunderstanding with him. And as I said, he struggled with things, as do we all. But he had such a big heart.

He also read many of our books, including one or two of mine. When he listened to the audio book of The Pure World Comes, he honestly thought the narrator was Jenna Coleman, AKA Clara Oswald from Doctor Who! When I told Nikki Delgado, the actual narrator, that, she was flattered. And I was glad that he really enjoyed the book.

And, of course, I read his work. In fact, last month, I read his book Residents of the James Hotel, and I just bought one of his other works, The Small Bronze Carriage on the Mantelpiece, today. The former was really good, and I’m looking forward to reading the latter.

I’m talking about Matt today because he passed away this past week. A few months he revealed that he was battling cancer and that it looked to be terminal. We were all devastated to hear that, and we sent him our well-wishes, hoping he could get better. And while he didn’t respond to all of our messages, he did continue to interact online with us when he could. But yesterday, he passed away.

Honestly, I’m devastated. Matt became such a big part of many lives, and his creations, especially Horror Writers Chat, have had such an effect on people. In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve read so many posts from so many people who are mourning Matt. I’ve posted online too, but it doesn’t feel like enough. For the effect Matt has had on so many people, I feel so many more people should know his books and his story.

So, I’m writing this post. I wanted to let more people know about Matt, about his works and his effect on people. I’m hoping people will want to learn about him and his stories after reading it.

And so, if you’re looking to check out a great author, check out MG Mason’s work. I really enjoyed Residents of the James Hotel, and I’m sure to enjoy The Bronze Carriage on the Mantelpiece, but he has ten other stories available besides those. Plenty to choose from, if you ask me. I’ll include a link to Matt’s Amazon page below for those who are interested.

Thank you for reading this post. Losing author friends is never easy, but losing Matt hit me very hard, and I wanted to do something to memorialize him. And Matt, I hope wherever you are, you’re at peace. We’ll be keeping your memory alive through Horror Writers Chat and through reading your works. Thank you for everything you did for the horror writing community.

Matt’s Amazon Page

New Fan Art!!!

Posted: June 16, 2025 in Living and Life, Novelette, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Hello, my Followers of Fear. I’m back from StokerCon and I’m sure you’re expecting me to go into detail about that. I plan to do so, believe me, but I need a little more time to process what’s happened, so I won’t be doing that this post.*

Instead, I want to talk about something else this weekend, which hasn’t happened in a long time: I got new fan art!

I’ve long believed that fan art is one of the most honest expressions of love from a fan to a creator, so I’m very touched to have received a new piece. This piece comes from Louise C, a fellow horror writer and a Follower of Fear I met over on BlueSky. She’s been reading several of my stories since we met, and I’m glad not only to have her among the Followers, but that she gave me this amazing piece of fan art, which was intended as a birthday present for me (my birthday was quite recent, if you didn’t know).

Not only that, but she had the fan art created by a commissioned artist! Yeah, really. According to Louise, she somehow won a free commissioned art piece and decided to use it to give me a birthday present. I told her I was really flattered and that, if she wanted to do this, I would be honored. I also told her she could choose whatever the fan art was of.

The result is below.

Pretty awesome, isn’t it? I love the expression on the character’s face. So cocky and full of pride and self-assurance.

If you don’t recognize the character, it’s the Akolouthos, the master of the dragon bats in my novelette “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand.” He’s described as an extremely tall man of eight or nine feet, with yellow eyes and teeth and wearing a long black coat and broad-brimmed hat. And, as you can guess from one of my stories, he’s not exactly human.

You know, this isn’t the first time that this particular story, which was one of the previously published ones in Symphony for Walpurgis, has had fan art created for it. When I first came up with dragon bats (they came before the story), Iseult Murphy, another friend, fellow writer, and Follower of Fear, created the fan art you see below. It was the first time I ever received fan art, and spurred me to write a story about dragon bats.

I’m glad to know the story is still scaring enough people to generate new fan art.

Thank you again, Louise, for this deliciously scary fan art. It’s such a wonderful birthday present, and there’s a good chance it’s going to end up on my wall, in the spot where my favorite pieces of fan art go. If it does, I’ll be sure to send you a photo.

And, because I would be remiss if I didn’t do this, if you would like to read “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand” and see this villain in action, you can grab a copy of Symphony for Walpurgis using the links below. It’s the second story in the collection. And if you end up liking what you read, please leave me a review and let me know what you think! After all, reviews help both me and other readers in the long run.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time (which will hopefully be later this week), good night and pleasant nightmares.

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Apple Books
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*I will say, however, that I did get a chance to pitch The Shape of Evil to some agents and editors. And I got instructions from four of them on how to send the manuscript to them. Which, yeah, is great, no doubt. However, if one of them wants to work with me to get The Shape of Evil published, that’s when we’ll have a real celebration.

The Communities That Keep Me Going

Posted: March 30, 2025 in Living and Life, Reflections, Uncategorized
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Photo by Leah Newhouse on Pexels.com

You may have heard of BlueSky as an alternative to Twitter. What you may have not heard is that  there’s a weekly event on BlueSky for horror writers called “Horror Writers Chat.” It started on Twitter and then moved to BlueSky after Twitter became a hellscape. Every week, authors gather to discuss horror, writing and their work posed by Matt Mason and Eryn McConnell. We answer questions, and even get to share links to our works.

I’ve been doing it for quite some time, and it’s become one of the highlights of my week. In fact, some weeks, I really need it.

During the past couple of months, life has been extremely rough. Yeah, there have been reasons to smile, but there’s also been a ton of stuff that just wears down my soul. Work, for one thing, has been absolutely insane since January, to the point where I come home a lot of days very exhausted. And with all the time I need after work to get ready for the next day, as well as get some sleep, my writing time has been cut down drastically.

Which sucks, because writing is one of my ways of de-stressing, as well as how I move forward this career I’m so devoted to.

In addition, recently I was in an accident. Don’t worry, I’m fine, but my car was totaled by the other driver. Thankfully, the other driver’s insurance company agreed to pay all the costs, but this whole experience has been very stressful.

In Tarot, the Ten of Wands represents being overburdened and weary. Matches me some days in so many ways.

Add in all the horrible things happening on the national and world stage (*cough* fascist wave sweeping America *cough*), and it’s enough that even with frequent therapy sessions and all the usual de-stressing methods aren’t enough!

That’s why I’m thankful for all the communities I happen to be a part of. They’re a soothing balm upon my soul.

Obviously, there’s the horror writing communities on social media, that’s been helpful. But there’s also been the horror and horror writing friends and communities I’ve formed IRL. These past few months, I’ve had a few opportunities to see and hang out with my colleagues, which is always a treat. In fact, we’re getting together near the end of April, and I’m super excited about that, as it’s going to be a big meeting and we’ll get to play board games while discussing cannibalism together.

And it’s not just the socializing, either. It’s the professional help. As many of you know, I’m hoping to pitch my novel The Shape of Evil to agents at StokerCon this summer. I was recently discussing this with another member of HWA, and he gave me some critical advice to keep in mind if I hoped to pitch and find someone willing to represent me. One of those pieces was to research each person taking pitches thoroughly to see if they were a good fit for me.

A few weeks later, when the agents and editors taking pitches were announced, I did my research, and reached out to authors who had worked with them, as my friend advised me. Some of these authors have become good friends of mine, so I was able to get some amazing feedback from them and make my choices about whom to pitch to from there.

Community saves me, in more ways than one.

And it’s not just the horror communities that have been helping me. My Jewish community, my family and friends community, and even my work community. Yeah, as tough as work has been, I’m surrounded by a team of people who know what we’re going through and are willing to help me when I ask for it. Not to mention, if we deal with a difficult customer (that happens, sadly), my leadership don’t mind going to bat for us. And when my car got hit, my workmates were among the most concerned about me.

So, despite all the hardships, I’m really happy to have all these people around me in the same situation. We’ve already gotten together once for some much-needed R&R, and have plans for the near future as well.

And guess what? The Followers of Fear community is a wonderful community, too. While engagement and growth changes over time, many of you still take the time to read every post, and provide helpful comments as well. Some of you even read my books and provide reviews, and one or two even created fan art of my work, which was a big honor! In addition, many of you have become dear friends of mine.

All that keeps me going, and holds the doubts that threaten my writing career at bay like no wall can.

So yeah, life’s been hard lately, and therapy and anime and writing can only do so much. But then, there are the people around me who give me encouragement and listen when I vent, or who go to see shows and movies or to grab dinner and drinks with me, or the ones without whom I would not be where I am today. They give me a much needed boost when I need it.

With that in mind, thank you, Followers of Fear. As I said, life’s been a chaotic rollercoaster lately, but you being there makes it somewhat more manageable. So, never forget: I am endlessly grateful for you.

Also, if you would like to take part in “Horror Writers Chat” on BlueSky, make an account and follow Matt Mason (username @chaoticauthor.online) and Eryn McConnell (@erynmcconnell.bsky.social). They switch off hosting every other week, so following both is a good idea. The actual event happens every Wednesday at 2 PM EST, with four questions posted every twenty minutes or so. You quote-post your answers from the post with the original question, and like and repost the ones you like from other participants. And don’t forget to use the hashtag #HorrorWritersChat.

(You can also find BlueSky my account here.)

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Hope to see some of you on BlueSky. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

The Crazy “Die Hard” Viral Incident

Posted: December 14, 2024 in Living and Life
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So, it’s been a bit of a strange week for me. Most of it was work, where my workload somehow doubled this week and a bunch of other things occurred, but the thing that I want to talk about is about Die Hard. As many of you know, there’s a big debate over whether or not Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie. This humble Jew not only counts it as a Christmas movie, but as many of you know, has the tradition of getting takeout and watching the movie every Christmas Eve.

And earlier this week, I was at my chiropractor’s office getting an adjustment and was talking to the receptionist while I was paying my bill. Here’s a reproduction of the conversation:

Receptionist: “Are you doing anything for Christmas?”

Me: “Just getting Chinese food and watching Die Hard.”

Receptionist: “What’s that? Some new TV show?”

Me: “…”

Receptionist: “From the look on your face, this is something I should know about, isn’t it?”

And that was the conversation in a nutshell. And you can imagine how stunned I was. I can understand people having never seen the film (I used to be related to someone like that), but having never heard of it? And no, she wasn’t some youngster, this woman was old enough to be a few years behind my parents in high school! You’d think she would have heard of a major blockbuster that came out in 1988.

Anyway, I explained to her what the film was, and she said she’d consider checking it out (whether or not she does, I won’t know till next month). However, that’s not where the story ends. If it was, it would be amusing, but not enough to warrant a blog post.

No, what happened next was that I posted the conversation on my social media so other people could laugh at it, too. And Followers of Fear, over on Threads (Facebook’s answer to Twitter, if you didn’t know), it went viral! I kid you not, within twelve hours, I had tens of thousands of views on that post! Hundreds of people commenting every minute, talking about how old they were when they saw the movie, incidents where young and old alike were unfamiliar with something that was supposed to be common knowledge, and a hundred other things that, more and more, strayed away from the main topic at hand.

As of writing this, that post has over 189,000 views, 2,700 likes, 1,100 comments, and twelve reposts. And I’ve still no idea why it went viral like that. I mean, I know Die Hard and whether it’s a Christmas movie or not is big around this time of year, but holy shit! If any post about one of my books gets even a hundredth of that sort of attention, I would be in heaven!

So yeah, that happened. As did a post about the Disney Princesses duking it out to the death getting nearly 17,000 views (Mulan and Merida are the favorites to win if you force the magical ones not to use their powers), and over on BlueSky, the director of the movie Suitable Flesh saw my review of it (I found it unnecessarily horny), and was pretty much like, “Oh well, I thought it was horny enough, but to each their own. Thanks for watching.” With a GIF of Elmo shrugging. I was touched.

Like this, but with “OH WELL” over his belly.

And this is only part of what has been a weird, weird week. But this is the part that I’ve been dying to tell someone all week and which I’ve only been able to do now. Really, no deeper reason than that. Thanks for indulging me while I unloaded what’s been rolling around in my head this week.

Anyway, hope you’re all doing well as the year begins to wind down. I’m counting down the days till I’m off for two weeks and working on The Shape of Evil in the meantime (nearly halfway through the second draft). And in the meantime, if you’re looking for a good scary book for yourself or for someone else this holiday season, I’ll leave a link below. From plant/human hybrids and strange gods to Mafia-hunting serial killers and carnivorous horses, I have something for every horror fan, so be sure to check them out. They’ll make the holiday gatherings that much easier.

Rami Ungar’s Books

Also, if you would like to keep up with me on Threads, BlueSky, or any of my other social media platforms, I’ll include those as well. I post more often there than here, and it’s another way to support me, so please do check me out.

Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

Facebook
Threads
BlueSky
Instagram
YouTube

My Writing Goals for 2024

Posted: January 1, 2024 in Reflections, Writing
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Happy New Year, my Followers of Fear. I wasn’t going to do this sort of post, let alone on New Year’s Day. After all, I went over a lot of this stuff in my “Looking Back at 2023, Looking Forward to 2024” post. But plenty of my writer friends were posting their 2023 accomplishments and their 2024 goals on social media, so I thought, “Why shouldn’t I? And why should I limit myself to however many characters?”

Thus, I’m writing a full blog post.

So, with all that said, let’s get into my writing goals and how I plan to keep busy on the writing front.

FINISH THE SHORT WORKS I STARTED

After the Great Editing ended last year, I went through my list of ideas and chose seven story ideas I thought would be fun to work on (and hopefully had a chance of getting published). I’ve already finished two stories: a surprisingly short weird horror story called “White Leaves,” and a Jewish exorcism story called “The House on Lafayette Square.” And at the moment, I’m working on a story about owls under the temporary title “Strigiformes.”

With this particular goal, I aim to finish “Strigiformes” by Martin Luther King Day, and then get the other four stories done by around May. Don’t know if I will, but God knows I’m going to try. I’m already at the halfway point of “Strigiformes,” so assuming nothing messes with my life between now and the 15th, I should be off to a good start.

FINISH CRAWLER

My big project for 2024, assuming nothing else pops up, is to finally return to my mummy novel Crawler and finish it. Hopefully after I finish these last four and a half short works, and around May-ish. I want to go over what’s already been written, then get around to finishing the first draft.

Don’t know if it’ll get published at some point, but I definitely want it to be at least finished. I hate the feeling of it being left undone when I feel it has great potential.

GROW MY AUDIENCE

This one should be pretty self-explanatory. I love my Followers of Fear and how ardent you all can be, but I am a writer. We love having people enjoying our work. So, I’m trying to build my audience and the number of people who I can claim to be Followers of Fear.

Part of this will be done by selling books at events, which are great places to meet new readers, and another part will be some slight changes to how I do things on social media.* With a bit of luck, the right interactions, and sympathetic algorithms, maybe more people will come to love and look forward to my stories when they release.

*BTW, I’ve left Twitter due to Elon Musk going full anti-Semite and have moved to Threads and BlueSky. So, if you want to follow me there, click on the links.

GET SOME ACCEPTANCES

Again, this is also self-explanatory. While I do self-publish some of my work, I still like to get publishers to release some of my stories. There are benefits to going indie and going through a publisher. And all that being said, I hope to have some presses accept my stories and help me polish them up to their most beautiful before letting them out into the world.

And I may self-publish some stuff, as well. If the circumstances are right.

HAVE A GOOD 2024 FISCALLY

Writing is a passion and a calling, but it is also a job and a business. That’s especially true during tax time. And while this past year, I had the most income from writing ever, I also had a lot of expenses. Not enough to overtake my income, but still, a lot. For 2024, I hope to have fewer expenses. Or that my income far outpaces my expenses. It’s something I’ll be working on throughout the year, so hopefully it goes well.

MAYBE ANOTHER COLLECTION?

Yeah, putting together and editing Hannah was difficult at times, but it was gratifying, too. And I’m thinking of maybe putting together another collection. If I do, what stories will be in it, what it’ll be called, if there will be a theme, and if I self-publish it or not, we’ll see. This part of the future, at least, is still up in the air.

MAYBE AN ADAPTATION?

I know, I know. Getting any of my stories adapted into any medium is a long shot. Still, some things happened in 2023 that give me hope that it could happen. (And if you’re lucky, you’ll hear about what later this year.) So, I’m putting it on this list as a goal.

GET THAT MUCH CLOSER TO WRITING FULL-TIME

This is my overall goal for 2024. Granted, this is my overall goal every year. But I feel like I made significant progress this year towards this goal in 2023, and I feel like 2024 will take me even further. I want to get to the point where I can actually see a path to eventually being able to write full-time. Where it stops being just a dream and starts to morph into a reality.

If the majority of these go these goals go well, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll end 2024 with goals towards making dreams reality in 2025. And wouldn’t that be glorious?

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope 2024 treats us all very well (though honestly, I feel like roaring at the year to intimidate it instead of hoping it’s nice to us is a better move). Thank you for all the support you guys showed me in 2023. I hope you continue to do so in 2024. And one way to do that is to read my books and leave reviews, and/or follow my social media. I’ll leave buttons that’ll take you to where you can find both.

Book Links and Excerpts
About Me

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! RAWR!!!