2024 Summary / Awards Eligibility Post
In which I ask you once again to read my new short story collection.
Closing out 2024 already?
I’m going to get back to using this blog regularly in 2025. You’ve been warned.
But this time I wanted to do a quick 2024 summary, or as the cool kids call it, my 2024 awards eligibility post!
This was a fantastic year for my writing! I sold a novel (The Unkillable Frank Lightning) and a novella (Summer in the House of Departed) that will both be published this summer. And I sold three short stories, all of which will roll out in 2025 as well. And my story “Till the Greenteeth Draw us Down” that originally appeared in The Deadlands, was republished in Paula Guran’s The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. My first Year’s Best selection in twenty years of publishing stories. All of that is to say, things have been busy.
As for awards eligibility, that’s pretty easy this year.
Underland Press released my third short story collection, Death Aesthetic. This book collects many of my recent stories of death and grief and transformation, and includes one new story, “The Green Realm.”
From the publisher:
"This whole collection is obsessed with death."
Josh Rountree makes no bones about the mood in Death Aesthetic, his third collection of short fiction. Rountree explores the boundaries set by grief and guilt. He cracks open all manner of skeletons to peer inside the chest cavity, wondering what remains after everything else has left. He sniffs the night air, leaps and transforms into something both more human and not human at all. He knows all the words to the songs that bring us back from the edge.
We are never ready for that final transition. Rountree offers no assurances with Death Aesthetic, no promises about what lies beyond that black veil. But, as a compassionate psychopomp, he will be at your side for this journey.
This collection contains the following stories:
• "See That my Grave is Kept Clean"
• "The Cure for Boyhood"
• "Sounds Like Forever"
• "Their Blood Smells of Love and Terror"
• "A Red Promise in the Palm of Your Hand"
• "We Share Our Rage with the River"
• "Love Kills"
• "Constellation Burn"
• "The Green Realm"
• "Till the Greenteeth Draw Us Down"
And here’s what some really awesome folks had to say about Death Aesthetic:
“Rountree is killing it with his brand of mythic folk horror.” – Laird Barron, author of Not a Speck of Light
“Death Aesthetic reads like a treatise penned from the world next to this one. Rountree scours the wilds of death and finds, continually, new roads to explore, new landscapes. A moving, measured collection.”
—Keith Rosson, author of Fever House
“The stories in Death Aesthetic craft stark poetry out of a world that is deeply unsettling even in its familiarity. Yet, in the face of man and nature’s cruelty, Rountree’s America preserves hope between its bloodstained teeth. This is an unforgettable collection that will settle in your marrow.”
—J.A.W. McCarthy, Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award finalist, author of Sleep Alone
“Death Aesthetic is textural magic. Razor-toothed prose that slits and gorgeous stitches that are pulled tight, bringing the lips of the wounds together. I say wounds because these stories hurt. Their beauty and depth and their words. My God, the words. The first tale made me gasp aloud. The second made tears flow . . . by the last one, I was wet-faced and smiling and ready to go back and do it all again. It is absolutely perfect!”
—John Boden, author of Snarl and Jedi Summer
“Josh Rountree’s stories shine a light on the human condition and its inevitable conclusion. But death is not the villain here. It is a shapeshifter. A friend and an enemy. In Josh’s deft hand, it is haunting, familiar, and endlessly fascinating.”
—Elad Haber, author of The World Outside
“I’ve rarely had so much fun feeling such absolute grief.”
—FanFiAddict
I’m grateful for everyone who took the time to read Death Aesthetic, and help spread the word. If you liked it, please consider letting someone know. And if you loved it, please consider recommending it for your favorite award. Or not. Regardless, thanks for giving this book a shot. I think these stories are some of my strongest, and I hope new readers keep finding them.
In summary:
Death Aesthetic -- new short story collection!
“The Green Realm” – new short story!
Now on to 2025.