Our Savage Anatomies #2: Cover Art Info

 You may have seen the lovely cover art already, but the process of getting it to the final stage was interesting, to say the least. 

The first version of the cover art for OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES was a sketch. It showed much of what the final version features, except for Sasha. She was dressed for battle and had long, luxurious hair. 

Ahem!

The human form of Sasha from the book has hair trimmed almost down to stubble. 

The publisher informed the artist, Małgorzata Mika, of this detail. Shortly thereafter, we got the follow-up version...which featured Sasha as you see her now, but she was...naked. Naked and furry, of course! Sasha in full-on werewolf form. I liked this much better, but there were some questions that we had to address. I went back and forth with the publisher about perceptions in the world we live in today, and how either both characters needed to be naked, down to their furry selves, or they both needed clothing. The publisher dug Rufus's gear from the get-go, as did I, so I knew we'd leave him as he was. A couple more variations of clothes for Sasha were tried until we came up with Sasha in the dark blue dress, which works for me. There's an attitude she flaunts, and I believe her look and pose fits the attitude. 

How about the rest of the cover?

To the right we have the mysterious village with no name, set in the Marche region of Italy, just beyond another real-life tiny village called Loretello, which was the template for the mysterious village. I will show you what I mean in a future post as at the end of August, my girlfriend Alessandra and I will be staying at our friend Micheala's place...in the Marche region...a short walk from Loretallo. There will be photos highlighting some of the key elements in Loretello I used for the mysterious village in the novel.  

To the left we have the Golden Gate bridge, meaning San Francisco, which is the home to the infamous mutant vampire, Jack Pandemonium. (Oh, you're going to love him!)

Dead center, down the road from Rufus and Sasha, we have the blood trees, a triangle of trees that the werewolves and vampires and any other creatures of the night feed from if they don't want to give in to their primal instincts...and becoming killing machines. 

Dig the colors, the abundant details--all of it. This is one full-bodied cover! 

Małgorzata Mika did a fantastic job, eh? 

I think so. 

Here it is: 

Next? How in the world did I, a writer of weird fiction, end up veering into the realm of werewolves and vampires? Amusing stuff, you'll see. 

For those of you who need a fiction fix before the release of OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES, you can check out my Bram Stoker Award finalist debut novel, RIDING THE CENTIPEDE, my second, trippy horror novel, THE WILDERNESS WITHIN, and/or the expanded version of my second collection, containing 25 stories culled from that collection, all of my third collection, Occasional Beasts, and half of my debut collection, The Dark is Light Enough for Me, AUTUMN IN THE ABYSS REDUX. 

Happy reading! 

Our Savage Anatomies #1: Final Edits Info

We wrapped up editing on OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES last week. Thank the gods, I tell ya. 

That was work! 

Some pieces require minimal editing. Some require...much more. With OSA, I felt it was in great shape when I turned it in to Donald Armfield at Hybrid Sequence Media. It was...but needed cleaning up and some tightening up, which required the much more work mentioned above.

When I wrote OSA, it was right after I'd completed a hardcore, intense novel called Birdland. That one wrung out my brain. It's one of the best things I've ever written and I hope to find it a home sooner than later. That said, my brain needed a break. I needed something perhaps lighter to follow-up Birdland. I'll get to the details and events that went into the creation of OSA over the next couple of months in blog posts--there's a lot of amusing details, trust me--but for now the point is, I needed that break and rolled with something I rarely explore: the more familiar tropes of werewolves and vampires, though from an atypical perspective, as you will see.  

The novel was written fast and loose. The process was just to be open to whatever wanted to be a part of the story. I threw in the kitchen sink, the piping beneath said sink, the hair stuck in the pipes...everything. 

That is why, with the editing process, though I thought it good where it was, that fast and loose mindset required clarification and the already mentioned cleaning up...along with some of the usual editing elements. 

So, it was work, all for the greater good. For the story.

It made me step back and look at some other long pieces. As I waited for the next batch of edits from the editor/publisher, I dug into other long pieces, keeping my editing chops in high gear. I reedited three novellas: The Ouroboros Ballads, which required a fair amount of cleaning up; Souls at Zero, that required barely anything but minor tweaks (I knew this before I started the reediting for that one as it's perhaps the cleanest piece of long fiction I've written, though right now I've started a re-read and possible edit of a novel called Mother Chaos that I've spotted no edits needed so far, so perhaps I do know what I am doing); and The Great God Pollock, the latest completed novella, one that was probably just going to get another edit anyway, but with the mindset locked in hardcore, yeah, that one didn't require much editing, but is much sharper now. 

Point being, editing OSA kicked my writer's brain into top editing mode and I love being there again, seeing everything with crystal clarity and snipping away without hesitation, haha... 

So, that's my brief update, with more news about my upcoming 46000-word novel/novella/whatever soon. Excuse me, my 42000-word novel/novella/whatever; editing chopped off almost 4000 words!

Over the next couple of months until release day (September 26. 2026), I'll blog details and more about OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES, to pique your interest so perhaps you'll pick up a copy and go along for one wild ride! 

There's a lot on the way! 

This art comes courtesy of Zhou Song.