Just a quick note to let all your story game fans know Don’t Walk in Winter Wood is now available for purchase!

I only contributed a bit of fiction to the book; the heavy-lifting was done by Clint Krause who has done a wonderful job crafting a spooky little game played in the tradition of folk tales.

From the official site:

Are you ready for a walk in the woods?
Don’t Walk in Winter Wood is a storytelling game of folkloric fear. Players take on the roles of hapless villagers who must enter a legend-haunted forest and uncover its sinister secrets.

In addition to my own tale, the book features contributions by Rafael Chandler (Dread), Jason Morningstar (Fiasco), Daniel Bayn (Wushu), Jeremy Keller (Technoir), and Daniel Moler (Red Mass). Add in artwork and layout by George Cotronis and you have a pretty great package here.

You can check out the game more here, and I suggest keeping an eye out for Clint’s next game, Unity Underground, currently in playtest.

Starting a new job, working on two pen-and-paper game lines, selling a home, and moving out of the state are taking up a lot of space in my calendar so this isn’t the timeliest of updates but some pretty prestigious lights were shined on some fiction anthologies my work appears in.

First, acclaimed author and editor Ellen Datlow called out Alana Joli Abbott’s “Missing Molly” and Preston DuBose’s “The Angry Stick” as honorable mentions in the latest volume of Best Horror of the Year. Those two stories were published in Haunted: Eleven Tales of Ghostly Horror last year. I’m pleased that my own story, “It Happened in the Woods at Night” shares pages with both. Huge congrats to Alana and Preston!

Second, the wild western-wuxia fiction anthology Tales of the Far West, which includes my story “Local Legend,” has been nominated for Best RPG-Related Product in the 2012 ENnie Awards. Congratulations to Gareth, TS, and everyone else involved. It’s a great collection of stories. ENnie voting is public, if you’d like to check out all the nominees and voice your opinion.

Congrats again to everybody! If you’re a fan of new voices in fiction, I hope you’ll check out both of the books.