Of course, I’m compelled to immediately shower my beloved partner, Ali, with warmth and affection for putting up with me and suffering through my excruciating mood swings while I created this book. Also, much gratitude belongs to my mother and father for their encouragement and support. Though they may not have always understood my attraction to the ghoulish, they have gone above and beyond to see that my happiness is forever well managed.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to thank the several beta readers I corresponded with before sending off this piece to Weirdpunk for consideration. My eternal gratefulness belongs to Kyler Fey and Erica Robyn for their intelligent and thoughtful feedback.

My heartfelt appreciation belongs to Sam Richard for believing in this macabre tale of online lust and perversion. When I first pitched the concept to him on Twitter, he immediately understood the beating, bloody heart of the story. Working with Sam has been such a seamless partnership and I am so honored to join the Weirdpunk family.

Huge thanks to my manager, Ryan Lewis, for making contacts on my behalf and helping me secure certain blurbs I would have otherwise been unable to procure.

That said, I need to take this time to thank the very kind and talented writers who read early versions of the manuscript and provided blurbs. My endless gratitude belongs to Josh Malerman, John Skipp, Max Booth III, Hailey Piper, Tyler Jones, and Ross Jeffery for their encouragement, their mentorship, and their time.

I’d like to dedicate this book to anybody who has gone searching for something, someone in the glittering darkness of cyberspace just to feel a little less lonely. Perhaps you found something truly wondrous. Perhaps you didn’t. Regardless, this book belongs to you.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric LaRocca's fiction has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies in the US and abroad. He is the author of several novellas and collections including Fanged Dandelion and Starving Ghosts in Every Thread. He is represented by Ryan Lewis/Spin a Black Yarn. For more information, please follow him on Twitter @ejlarocca or visit him at ericlarocca.com.

Also by Weirdpunk Books

ALSO BY WEIRDPUNK BOOKS

Beautiful/Grotesque - Edited by Sam Richard

Five authors of strange fiction, Roland Blackburn (Seventeen Names For Skin), Jo Quenell (The Mud Ballad), Katy Michelle Quinn (Girl in the Walls), Joanna Koch (The Wingspan of Severed Hands), and Sam Richard (Sabbath of the Fox-Devils) each bring you their own unique vision of the macabre and the glorious violently colliding. From full-on hardcore horror, to decadently surreal nightmares, and noir-fueled psychosis, to an eerie meditation on grief, and familial quiet horror, Beautiful/Grotesque guides us through the murky waters where the monstrous and the breathtaking meet.

They are all beautiful. They are all grotesque.

The Wingspan of Severed Hands by Joanna Koch