Getting Ready for HIRAM GRANGE AND THE DIGITAL EUCHARIST!

From its global headquarters in Boston, the mysterious Occlusionist Movement is preparing to control the world with its Digital Eucharist, while in the serpentine bowels of the city an ancient demon is unleashed, eager for revenge against the man who imprisoned it years ago--Hiram Grange!


On the heels of the release of Hiram Grange & the Twelve Little Hitlers, Rob Davies' intelligent and uproarious novella, Hiram Grange & the Digital Eucharist, has challenged the boundaries of adventure horror fiction. Eucharist is the third installment in the Scandalous Misadventures of Hiram Grange series.


About Rob Davies:

ROBERT DAVIES writes stories about lobster girls and laser beams. Mimetic fiction is for wimps. Raised on a steady diet of weird paperbacks, Infocom games, and comic books, Rob has always wanted to be a writer (Well, actually, he first wanted to be a dinosaur, but that didn’t work out so well). When not writing, Rob likes to travel around the world, searching for the ideal pint and the perfect bookstore. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his wife Sara and two cats, Lilith and Tiamat. His favorite Horseman is Pestilence.

Visit Rob online at www.robertedavies.com.
Cover Art and illustrations by Malcolm McClinton
Layout, design, copyediting, and woodcut embellishments by Danny Evarts

What are People Saying?

"Join Hiram Grange as he negotiates with a little voodoo help an unfamiliar and scary Boston. Along the way he struggles with Black Magic rituals, creatures summoned from the Abyss, his own inner
demons, and the mysterious enslaving power of the Digital Eucharist. At stake: Saving the world from the  Occlusionist Movement. The writing is consistently authentic and compelling. An absolute  must read for fans of fast-paced, action-packed occult thrillers."

--Gene O'Neill, Stoker-winning author  of JADE and DEATHFLASH


"The Digital Eucharist is a trip in every sense of the word...dark, funny, humanistic, and surreal. While others are producing stories and characters in a familiar cookie-cutter format, the minds behind Hiram Grange are blazing a trail as unique and wonderful as the world they are working within. Hiram Grange is Absinthe for the fastidious horror reader." 

-- Michael Knost, Bram Stoker Award-winner of WRITERS WORKSHOP OF HORROR

"Vivid, engaging, and darkly humorous – Hiram Grange and the Digital Eucharist is another spectacular entry in the Hiram Grange series that you can't afford to miss.

-- Jason M. Tucker – Author of MEAT CITY & OTHER STORIES

Shroud Sunday! Free Book Bag with ANY order!

All day today, receive a free fabric book bag with any order from the Shroud site. These make perfect shopping bags as well, and with the distinctive haunted house logo, you'll be sure to attract a few stares as you hand it to the grocery store bagger.

Tailor-made* to fit two six-packs of Schlitz Bull Ice Malt Liquor, a box of frozen White Castle cheeseburgers, and four bags of Doritos.  I like Taco Flavor, how about you?

But seriously, buy anything and get a FREE tote-bag.  Plus, I'll ship all in-stock items priority mail on Monday Morning.  Out-of-stock items will ship as soon as they become in-stock.  Am I making myself clear?  Just do the math.

Order here today!

*This is an outright lie.  This is a standard-sized fabric bag, probably churned out in crappy overseas factory somewhere by eight-year-old kids chained to glue guns or whatever.  But it's free.

Thank you!

I just want to thank you all for sticking with Shroud over the past two years. Your support, friendship, and patronage have meant a lot to me. While the state of the economy has definitely impacted Shroud's sales, we continue to adapt and move forward in order to continue to provide quality literary entertainment and a home for your writing.

The ups and downs of the publishing business have been a real education for me. I sincerely believe that the biggest thing that I've learned (so far) is that there lies a close and caring community within our genre. I really, really enjoy that sense of community.

I've also learned that people are always there to help out if you need it. People like Danny Evarts, Mark Wholley, Kevin Lucia, Greg Hall, Scott McCoy, Sheldon S. Higdon, Norman Rubenstein, Ben Eads, Natalie Sin, Nate Lambert, Brian Hardin, Robert Canipe, The Hiram Five and Malcolm McClinton -- hell--all of you guys! You've ALL helped so much in promoting and supporting Shroud and I quite sincerely love you for it.

Shroud Underground Members please log into the Message Board for a little thank you gift!

An Update

Wow, March blew by, didn't it? We have one month until we are open for submissions again and we are in the process of rereading the last handful that still remain in our "second read list." Danny has done at tremendous job of getting "Hiram Grange and the Digital Eucharist" ready for review (want a .pdf ARC?).

Issue 8 is due out any day now, and will feature a cover by Danny Evarts himself. I'll see if I can dig up a cover sample for you!

Horror Writers Association Adds Shroud to the Approved Publishers List

There are few honors in dark fiction publishing as important as to be recognized by the preeminent horror author advocacy organization, The Horror Writers Association. Shroud was thrilled to be nominated for a Bram Stoker Award last year by the HWA for "Best Anthology" for Beneath the Surface. This year Rio Youers' Shroud novella, Mama Fish made the final update for the award, and since Shroud's inception several of Shroud's authors have been recommended for the award.

However, it's not always about awards. From a publisher's standpoint it is more important to be recognized for treating authors the way they should be treated. Since Shroud's first issue, first novella, and first anthology, we have always insisted on paying our authors for their efforts. In the beginning, we paid professional rates and were responsible for helping a few authors secure Active HWA status. As economic conditions got rocky, we were forced to scale back our payment scheme, and thus helped writers attain their affiliate status. We always pay advances on longer work, and we hope to return to professional rates in the very near future.

The president of the HWA, Deborah LeBlanc, has informed us that the HWA board has voted to add Shroud to their list of Approved Publishers. Our name will be added to the list in the next few weeks after the Stoker Awards process quiets down.

Thank you HWA!

D. Harlan Wilson Interview in Bull Spec

D. Harlan Wilson, the critically acclaimed other of a number of works within Bizarro and Irreal fiction, and the author of the Bram Stoker long-listed Shroud title, Peckinpah, An Ultraviolent Romance, recently sat down with the staff at Bull Spec for an interview.

BULL SPEC (blog here)is a professionally- and royalty-paying speculative fiction market and quarterly print magazine with DRM-free, commons-friendly e-books and audiobooks available for "donate what you like" in English, Spanish, French, and Chinese, based in Durham, NC, US.

D. sent me a copy of the interview. It's compressive, intelligent, and enlightening. In it he says:

"Peckinpah is a satire that makes an explicit and absurdist critique of small town American ethics and lifestyles. I don’t know if this critique stems from events, technologies, cultural formations, etc. of the early 2000s. In many ways it could apply to the 80s and 90s. Perhaps Peckinpah’s fragmented, disjointed, unconventional style indicates a recent current in narrative—similar stylistic experimentalism is visible in, say, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas."

You can order a copy of the first issue of Bull Spec today.

Shroud Writers: Payment Processing Reminder

Just a quick note to remind Shroud's wonderful writers that (as the contract indicates) I need a simple email invoice before I can process your payment. I know it's a bit different from some fiction publishers, but it helps me track things, and then reconcile for tax season.

The invoice simply requires (in the BODY of the email):

Name

Amount Due

Type of payment (check or Paypal)

Address (if check desired)

Thank you!