Posts Tagged ‘fan art’

“Symphony for Walpurgis:” Two Months Since Release!!!

Posted: July 1, 2025 in Novelette, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

These past two months have gone by so quickly, it’s hard to believe we’re already in July. Not surprising, given how busy I’ve been lately. I mean, I just got done with another con, and I’m preparing for another one the weekend after this!

And yet, two months have indeed passed, and that means that Symphony for Walpurgis is two months old now.

Now, if you don’t know (though at this point, you’re probably so familiar with Symphony, you’re sick of it), Symphony for Walpurgis is my newest collection. It is a collection of nine novelettes that include tales of cryptids, malevolent spirits, and even a Jewish exorcism, and has plenty of LGBT, Jewish, and disabled representation.

And I’m very happy to say that it’s slowly growing a readership. Just the other day, I received fan art from my fellow horror writer and Follower of Fear, Louise C, for one of the stories, “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand.” It’s of the Akolouthos, the main villain of the story (or one of them). Isn’t it awesome?! I mean, look at it!

And at Big Ohio Book Con this past weekend (which went better than any event I’ve done before, which is even more amazing when you consider that this was the first year this event happened and nobody knew how it would go, but I digress), I sold so many copies, I even sold out on the first day! The same day, someone bought a copy online, which means they were interested enough to get it for their Kindle.

Given all that, plus some glowing reviews and some authors I admire with copies of the book, I’d say that’s been a good first two months. And it makes me hopeful for month number three (especially with the Columbus Book Fest just around the corner). I mean, who knows? Maybe I’ll get to that goal of five-hundred sales and fifty reviews by May 1st, 2026, the one year release anniversary.

And if you enjoy or are curious about scary stories involving cryptids and giant bats, spirits plaguing families with parasites, mermaids, untold masses of spiders, mutating viruses, and, again, a Jewish exorcism, then you should check out Symphony for Walpurgis. It’s nine amazing and terrifying novelettes, and I’m working hard to make sure as many people discover it and enjoy it as possible. And I would love it if you were among those people who discovered and maybe even loved it.

I’ll include links for the book below. And if you end up getting a copy and read it, I hope you’ll let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me out in the long run.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a busy couple of days ahead of me, but I hope I can have a few more blog posts (including a few I’ve wanted to write for a while now) out soon. Until next time, good night, pleasant nightmares, and I hope you have a great month of July. It’s what I’m planning on.

Amazon
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
Kobo

New Fan Art!!!

Posted: June 16, 2025 in Living and Life, Novelette, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4

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.

Amazon
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
Kobo

*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.

New Author Fan Art!!!

Posted: March 12, 2023 in Living and Life, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
7

Back in 2021, I got my first author fan art. Iseult Murphy, my friend and colleague, created a couple of pictures based on a made-up creature I mentioned in a tweet, the dragon bats. You can see them below.

Pretty cool, especially since they didn’t belong to any story. At least, not then. The fan art inspired me to write a novelette, “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand.” That story was published in Ink Stains: A Dark Fiction Literary Anthology in October 2022.

And this past month, Iseult created some more fan art, which she’s sent me. The first is a story-accurate picture of the dragon bats, down to the orange fur and cat-like faces. Even their scaly, armored bellies are featured! Now imagine if one of these were real, and as big as a large dog! Now imagine hundreds of them, flying around and feeding upon you. Did I mention they may be venomous? A single bite can be deadly!

But that’s not the only piece of art Iseult sent me. Yesterday, she sent me this picture based on my story “The Dedication of the High Priestess.” That story is a fusion of ballet horror with the cosmic horror entity The King in Yellow. Check it out:

DAAAAMN! That is beautiful! The dancing figure of Anastasia in yellow, her shadow underneath her, and the giant form of her master, the King in Yellow, watching over her as she dances. It’s just an amazing piece of art. Also, was that painted with oil pastels? Because it looks like it, but I’m no art expert. Iseult, please let me know.

Whatever it’s made with, I LOVE this picture. I’ve said it before, but I feel like “Dedication of the High Priestess” is one of my favorite and best stories. And fan art is one of the sincerest forms of flattery you can give a creative, as well as showing your love and appreciation for that creative and their work. And from this, I really felt the love Iseult has for this story. So, I printed out a copy of this picture, bought a frame for it, and am now trying to find a good place to hang it up.

Check my Instagram to find out where I eventually hang it up.

Anyway, I wanted to post this fan art for you all to see. Iseult’s art needs to be appreciated by more people, so I made sure to put it on my social media and on my blog.

And I hope to receive more fan art in the future. Not just from Iseult, though I would be happy to see more of her work. I hope, as I continue to publish more stories and reach more readers, I’ll see more fan art based on my work. And, as long as it’s manageable to do so, I may even post more fan art to this blog and to my social media.

Perhaps there will be more fan art once Hannah and Other Stories releases later this year. I can see the stories Queen Alice and Fuselli’s Horses getting some fan art.

In the meantime, I have plenty of stories that are worth reading. You don’t have to create fan art from them if you don’t want to. I just want you to read them. And maybe let me know what you think. And you should also check out Iseult Murphy’s stories, which you can find links to on her blog. I recommend 7 Days in Hell and 7 Weeks in Hell.

Anyway, for my books, here are my links. For starters, if you want to check out “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand-in-Hand,” you can grab a copy of Ink Stains here. If you want to check out “The Dedication of the High Priestess,” you can listen to it on the Tales to Terrify podcast here. And below are the links for my books.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m off to work on a new short story while trying to figure out where to hang Iseult’s picture. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.

The Quiet Game: Five Tales to Chill Your Bones: Amazon, Createspace, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo.

Snake: Amazon, Createspace, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo

Rose: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Audible, B&N

The Pure World Comes: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Goodreads, Audible, Chirp, BingeBooks, LIbro.Fm, Storytel, Palace Marketplace, Hoopla, Vivlio, Smashwords, Thalia, Scribd, Spotify

Mother of the King: Amazon

Agoraphobia: Amazon

The Dragon Bat Story is Getting Published!!!

Posted: August 14, 2022 in Novelette, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4

Hide in your homes and pray for mercy! I got an acceptance this weekend! “Trauma and Disillusionment Sometimes Go Hand in Hand,” AKA the dragon bat story, is going to be published! It’ll appear in this year’s upcoming Ink Stains anthology from Dark Alley Press!

So, a little background for those of you who weren’t reading this blog last year. About a year ago, I posted on my social media about “releasing the dragon bats!” No reason, I just like to post weird stuff on my social media feeds to remind people that I love the scary and the macabre. But apparently this caught the eye of my friend, fellow author and Follower of Fear Iseult Murphy (you can check out her blog here), who ended up creating some fan art of these dragon bats. Here’s the art she drew.

Pretty neat, right? These were my first pieces of fan art ever, and I absolutely loved it! And I really wanted to make a story about these dragon bats now that they had art based on them. Which I did: “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand in Hand,” a novelette about a teen girl who gets wrapped up in a revenge plot involving calling on some dangerous supernatural forces.

I had a blast writing the story, but was worried that I’d be able to find it a home. There are more publications accepting novelettes now, but it’s still hard to find homes for them. But I kept plugging away and submitting, and lo and behold, it’s found a home!

And what a home it is! Ink Stains: A Dark Fiction Literary Anthology used to be a twice-yearly anthology of horror and dark fiction that produced some great horror fiction, but stopped producing due to the pandemic. Now it’s back for the first time since the pandemic began, and I’m so excited and honored to be part of the new edition.

As for when you can expect to read “Disillusionment and Trauma,” as well as the rest of the stories in the latest edition of Ink Stains, it appears to be on track for an October release. As soon as I have news, you can expect me to post about it. Or, you can follow Dark Alley Press on their website and Facebook, as well as their parent company, Vagabondage Press, on Twitter.

Anyway, I want to thank N. Apythia Morges and the team at Dark Alley Press for accepting my story, and I can’t wait to be part of this amazing anthology. I also want to thank Iseult Murphy, who inspired this story and who helped me polish it up for publication. And I want to thank you, my Followers of Fear, for always supporting me and my stories. I hope you enjoy this one as much as you’ve enjoyed my stories.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and run! I’ve just released some actual dragon bats! And they’re vicious carnivores.

I Finished the Dragon Bat Story

Posted: July 18, 2021 in Novelette, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2
The common noctule bat was a big visual inspiration for the dragon bats in the story.

So, a while back, I started mentioning dragon bats on this blog and my other social media. Nothing serious, just casual mentions of releasing dragon bats when something good happens. But it apparently was more than that, because the nasty beasties stirred the imagination of friend, colleague and Follower of Fear Iseult Murphy (check out her blog here), who ended up creating fan art of the dragon bats (click here to see that art).

And for those wondering what a dragon bat is, it’s exactly as the name implies: a bat big enough to earn the descriptor “dragon.” They’re also carnivorous, aggressive, and their bite is either venomous or has lots of dangeorus pathogens in the saliva, we’re not sure. They’re like Komodo dragons, in that way.

Anyway, Iseult’s fan art inspired me in turn and I decided to create a story featuring the dragon bats. It took a bit of brainstorming, but I was eventually able to come up with a story with the nasty beasts. And this past week or two, I wrote the story, finishing it up this morning at around 4 AM.

Yeah. It’s been a while since I was up that late finishing a story. I think the last time was finishing up my novel River of Wrath around Halloween 2018.

Back to the story. The story, which I ended up naming “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand in Hand” (I couldn’t think of something short and snappy, so I took a page from Stephen King and gave the story a long, ridiculous title), follows a girl who becomes an unwilling participant in a plot to get revenge for the death of her best friend. A plot that, you guessed it, involves dragon bats.

And whoo-boy, did this story end up being a crazy one! Not only is it a decent-sized novelette at 12,645 words, but it’s also got a lot going on in it. Blood, murder, revenge, a bit of torture, some creature feature and the occult. All in all, though, I think it’s a good story. Hopefully Iseult and any other beta readers I ask agree and I can find a home for it.

So, what’s next? Well, I’ve been marketing a collection of original short stories for a while now. I think I’ll take a second look at some of them and give them another round of edits before trying to find a publisher again. After that…well, we’ll see. With The Pure World Comes accepted for publication, it’ll soon be time to start editing it and that’ll take up some time. I don’t want to commit to anything knowing it might be sidelined after starting.

At least I was able to get one more story done. And like I said, it’s one hell of a story. If kind of…batty.

Oh come on, I had to make that joke! Sue me.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time, pleasant nightmares and RELEASE THE DRAGON BATS!!!

Oh, and one more thing: you have ten more days to submit a question to my Ask Me Anything, or AMA. If you submit a question to ramiungar@ramiungarthewriter.com by 11:59 PM on July 28th, 2021, you’ll be eligible for a prize. This is all to celebrate ten years of blogging on this platform, so I hope you all send questions my way. Looking forward to reading them!

My First Author Fan Art

Posted: May 16, 2021 in Living and Life, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
5

I’ve always considered that receiving fan art is one of the highest compliments you can receive as a creator, as well as a sign that you really have made it as an author, illustrator, mangaka, YouTuber, video game designer, whatever. Last week, as I was celebrating the accomplishments of both a short story and an article being accepted by various publishers, I received another reason to celebrate: fan art.

Now, you might have seen on my blog, as well as on some of my social media accounts, mentions of my dragon bats. What are the dragon bats? Well, they’re bats, obviously. They’re big enough to earn the designation dragon, with a ten-foot wingspan. They have tough skin on their bellies that looks kind of scaly. They are carnivorous, and while they don’t breathe fire, their bites are either full of potent venom or very dangerous pathogens that can kill you in minutes. Either way, they’re like Komodo dragons: they’re the biggest of their kind, we’re not sure what’s in their bite, and we have to be very careful while finding out. And they have dragon in the name, though neither are proper dragons (Komodo dragons are actually the largest species of monitor lizards).

Also, a group of dragon bats is known as a coven. Just worth mentioning.

Anyway, the mention of my beautiful dragon bats inspired the artistic side of a particular Follower of Fear, my friend and fellow author Iseult Murphy. Before I knew it, she’d created a couple of pieces of fan art featuring her interpretation of the dragon bats. The first, which I received Friday, is below.

Pretty neat, huh? As you can see, I am on the right unleashing my dragon bats on what I can only assume is either a hapless victim or one of my noisier neighbors (I have a few, unfortunately). Said victim has lost their head while blood spurts out, which the dragon bats are slurping up. And at the top of the picture is “Congrats,” referring to my story and article being accepted.

Obviously, I loved it, so I went ahead and shared it across my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram profiles. Besides being from a friend, I was flattered that anyone was interested enough to create art based on my ideas and stories. And it was good artwork too, to boot.

Then yesterday, I got another surprise from Iseult. She made another piece of fan art!

I like this one too. It shows three dragon bats on a branch having a nap after gorging on blood and meat from helpless victims. I love the sheer amount of detail in this picture. The branches have a lot of detail you would expect from tree branches in real life, and I love how all three have different colors and characteristics. Kind of like Danaerys Targaryen’s dragon babies.

I love this artwork too, and obviously spread it around the social media channels too. And, as you can see, I decided to post both pieces here on my blog so they could be appreciated by a wider audience. But I also got to thinking. If the dragon bats were getting fan art, I should really write them into a story. Maybe give Iseult and other potential readers something for their creatives sides to cogitate on.

And yesterday, I did come up with a story. A short story or novelette featuring the dragon bats that I might work on later this year. It’ll be dark, creepy, and yes, very bloody and gory. And don’t worry Iseult, I’ll let you beta read it when it’s done. I won’t put you into the story, however. I only do that to people who have really wronged me in the past.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Iseult’s interpretations of the dragon bats. If you see one or a coven in the future, please find some sort of shelter and hide, because they are vicious. And if you want to check out Iseult’s blog, which you can find here, I recommend you do. She does great fiction reviews and publishes her own dark and creepy fiction as well.

And thanks again for the fan art, Iseult. It means a lot to me and makes me really feel like I’ve made it as an author. I hope my strange ideas and stories continue to inspire you and many other creators in the future.

One last thing: I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this, but ParaPsyCon will be held this coming weekend, May 22nd and 23rd, at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, OH. This is the biggest convention of authors, ghost hunters, psychics and mediums, and more around, at one of America’s most historic and haunted prisons. Cost of admission is one ticket for a self-guided tour of the prison, $25. I’ll be there selling copies of my books, reading Tarot, and hopefully having fun, so stop by if you can and say hi. More information on the website here.

Also, I’ll be in Chicago for Indie Author Book Expo Chicago at the Quarry Chi on June 19th, 2021. This is a small expo of an eclectic gathering of authors, so you’re bound to find something there that’s up your alley. So if you’re in the area, please stop by and say hi. You can find out more information on the website here.

And if you’re unable to make either of those events but still want to support me, I’ve got links to my books below. Please consider checking them out and, if you like what you read, please consider leaving a review somewhere. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback and it helps me, as well as other readers looking for something to read, in the long run.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I have to go feed my coven of dragon bats and then work on some of my side projects. Until next time, stay safe, hope to see you soon, and pleasant nightmares!

Agoraphobia: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada

Mother of the King: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada

Rose: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Audible

Snake: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo

The Quiet Game: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo.