Halloween Haunts

 

Once again, the Horror Writers Association (HWA) is featuring a month of Halloween-themed blog posts under "Halloween Haunts" on the HWA Dark Whispers blog. The posts allow authors to share Halloween memories and stories and thoughts on writing horror.
 

  You can see the schedule of posts on the HWA Facebook page at  https://www.facebook.com/events/343214352507365/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular.

My blog post entitled "The Enduring Popularity of Vampires" will appear on October 15. Please check it out at the HWA blog site.  I am giving away three digital  copies of The Ghost Man.

    

Halloween Events

Happy Thanksgiving to those readers who celebrate the holiday today. I'd also like to advise you of some ongoing Halloween events in which I'm happy to participate.

 Halloween Haunts 

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is once again sponsoring a month-long Halloween Haunts feature on their Dark Whispers blog at http://www.horror.org/blog/.

The HWA has also set up a Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/14177.... This page provides updates on Halloween Haunt posts and giveaways by your favorite horror writers.

If you're interested in sharing my reminiscences of Halloween as a kid, my post will appear in Halloween Haunts on October 16. I will also be giving away five digital (Kindle) copies of The Ghost Man.


Paranormal Palooza

The YA author Ruth Silver is hosting a Paranormal Palooza this month on her blog Write Away Bliss, featuring books which have a paranormal element to them. The Ghost Man will be featured on October 26 if you'd like to check out my submission. The weblink is http://writeawaybliss.com/.






 A special thanks to the HWA and Ruth Silver for making these features available to writers in the horror/supernatural genre!

Paranormal Palooza will feature books with a paranormal element to them, including but not limited to: werewolves, vampires, zombies, witches, warlocks, ghosts, bigfoot, and aliens. - See more at: http://writeawaybliss.com/paranormal-palooza-coming-in-october/#sthash.jeqKEyMk.dpuf

Paranormal Palooza will feature books with a paranormal element to them, including but not limited to: werewolves, vampires, zombies, witches, warlocks, ghosts, bigfoot, and aliens.
If you’re an author, please choose a button and add it to your website.

- See more at: http://writeawaybliss.com/paranormal-palooza-coming-in-october/#sthash.jeqKEyMk.dpuf

A Recent Book-Signing

Photo from the Kemptville Advance

I had the pleasure last weekend of doing a book-signing at Brewed Awakenings in Kemptville, one of the local-area shops carrying my books. I enjoy these events because I have a chance to chat with people and to offer advice to aspiring writers, such as the young man pictured in this photo, who wants to write supernatural fiction. It's always a pleasure to meet someone who is interested in writing, and I hope I can provide them with some encouragement.

The novel I am signing in the photo is The Ghost Man, a supernatural thriller set in Ontario, Canada. It tells the story of Simon Guthrie, recently widowed and trying to come to terms with his new life after spending months in a hospital recuperating from a head injury. I did a lot of research when writing The Ghost Man, and it has elements of the classic ghost story, while also examining other subjects, including near-death experiences and passive mediums.

If you'd like to read an excerpt from the novel, please click here. The novel is available electronically as a Kindle Direct Publishing selection and in trade paperback format. For the relevant purchasing information, please visit http://www.mjmccann.com/buytheghostman.htm or click on the buy link to the right of your screen to order the KDP Select version.

For those of you who are also interested in reading about crime fiction, please see my blog The Overnight Bestseller  and my Goodreads blog Open Investigations.

Welcome to Behind the Walls of Nightmare!

Welcome to my new horror blog, which heralds the publication of the revised and updated edition of my first novel, The Ghost Man.  It is now available for purchase as a KDP Select eBook: just click on the cover image on the right. If you prefer paperbacks, rest assured that the trade paperback edition is on its way.

The Ghost Man is a supernatural thriller that I wrote for my son Tim. He grew up reading ghost stories and watching paranormal television shows. As well, he has an impressive collection of horror DVDs, both the campy kind and those that are downright scary. My son provided ongoing feedback for the first edition of this novel, which was published in 2008. If he liked a scene, he'd tell me “that sounds pretty cool,” and it was sure to survive the cut.

The Ghost Man is set in eastern Ontario. It tells the story of Simon Guthrie, a chef de cuisine and the owner of a popular restaurant that bears his name. His life changes forever in a car accident that kills his wife and leaves him with a serious head injury. While recuperating in the hospital, he tries to make sense of a near-death experience in which he encounters a malevolent presence he cannot identify. Once he's discharged from hospital, he discovers that he's become a beacon for ghosts still trapped in this world. The novel is structured on eight days of his present life in which events come to a head, culminating in his showdown with the malevolent force controlling his destiny and that of his friends and neighbors.

I plan to continue writing horror novels as a separate stream from my crime fiction. In this way I'll be able to draw from a wealth of sources concerning the supernatural and paranormal, including myths and legends, oral story-telling traditions, and modern paranormal investigations. I'll set the horror stories in Canada, which has its own abundance of lore concerning hauntings and the supernatural. As I always say, ghosts can appear anywhere, so why not right around here?

I've set up this blog to talk about horror writing, the themes and writers I admire, and stories of the supernatural culled from various sources that will appeal to lovers of the genre. I'd enjoy hearing from you and would welcome any suggestions you have on subjects for this new blog.

Here's to sharing many good scares together!!!!