2020 Writing Projects

Without any intention on my part 2019 turned into the Year of the Short Story, a medium I generally avoid, and it appears this trend will continue at least into 2020 with a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and a Holmes-meets-Feril Nightlinger mash-up on slate to appear in two anthologies before the summer. I am also working on yet another Holmes pastiche that may see publication before the end of this year.

What can I say? I’ve got a Jones for Holmes.

The Holmes-Nightlinger story “The Adventure of the Ambitious Task” will appear in Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives from Belanger Books early this year. The Holmes pastiche “A Case of Unfinished Business” is an adaptation of my audio script produced by Jim French Productions and broadcast over Imagination Theater in 2014 and will appear in the spring MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XX: 2020 Annual (1891 – 1897)  from MX Publishing.  (And in case you haven’t heard the good news, as of October 2019 Imagination Theater is back on the air!  Get all the 4-1-1 or just check them out at harrynile.com! You’ll be glad you did!) A Feril Nightlinger short story as well as a Dirk Pitt review article may also be published this year, but I am still waiting to hear about those. Keep your fingers crossed!

Another big project I worked on in 2019 is a new draft of my screenplay for Max Q being represented by Caliber Entertainment. As I have written in the past, Max Q is a project near and dear to my heart. Whether this screenplay will ever see the light of day, I do not know, but it was great revisiting the series and characters.

Novels remain my first writing passion, and, as Lovecraftian: The Shipwright Circle proved in 2019, I am not forsaking this medium. (Speaking of The Shipwright Circle, one or two interesting possibilities may be on the horizon, and, if anything pans out, I will provide more information here.)

Because I just cannot seem to get enough of the Great Detective, I am writing a full-length Holmes novel set during the Great Hiatus that ties together every Holmes pastiche I have written.  I also am writing the second Lovecraftian novel, The Whippoorwill Clutch, and my plans are to have both of these manuscripts completed before year’s end.

Perhaps the biggest news for 2020 is the release of my first new comics story in over a decade and first Lovecraft adaptation is over twenty years.  As I am typing this artist and letterer Trey Baldwin is nearing the finish line on The Shadow over Innsmouth. Like my previous Lovecraft adaptations, The Shadow over Innsmouth will be released in a graphic novel format by Caliber Comics that will include Lovecraft’s original story along with some ancillary material by me. Trey is doing a fantastic job on this adaptation and I cannot wait for Lovecraft fans to see our adaptation.

That is everything on the burner right now, but if the past has taught me anything it is that opportunities and projects will arise when we least expect them, and I will let you know here if anything like that develops. In the meantime I hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas and have a happy and productive 2020.

Paratus fortuna iuvat!