Hi! Wow, it's uhhh, been a while since I've posted here, hasn't it. Sorry about that!
At first, I didn't update for a while because I wanted my last post to kind of settle at the top of my blog for a while, but then I kind of lost track of time, and, well, a lot of things started changing in my life, and now it's been - holy crap, like a year and a half since then, so okay, probably time to update this website a bit. I also understand that I've been out of stock on The Key and the Crescent physical copies for a while now - there's a reason for that, which I'll get into. So here's what's been going on...
First off, in case you missed the memo, we announced my departure from Arkham Horror: The Card Game during a livestream several months ago. Two amazing developers, Duke Harrist and Nicholas Kory, will be picking up development on the Arkham Horror LCG line, and trust me, having seen what they're cooking up, it's gonna be awesome.
That doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work though! No, I can't tell you what I am working on next, but don't panic, I'm still employed with FFG. So just stay tuned, I guess! (Don't expect any news for a while, though.) I did write a pretty neat short story in the Aconyte anthology, Secrets in Scarlet, about a certain coterie member you may have confronted in The Scarlet Keys, which was a lot of fun!
Speaking of books, let's talk about Darkdrifters. Thanks to a combination of personal factors, it's taken longer than I expected to write vol 2, but it's happening! I'm in the middle of some pretty intense rewrites on Acts 1 and 2 which will obviously affect the rest of the book, but suffice it to say that it is in progress. I also have a sketch of the cover from Sofie / vacuumchan that looks absolutely incredible. I'm hoping to finish writing the initial draft by the end of summer.
But that's not all. I'm also working on a new edition of The Key and the Crescent, with brand new cover art I(below) and some additional editing polish, which will arrive in several different versions - a paperback edition, a hardcover dust jacket edition, and a "deluxe" hardcase edition, complete with a spot glossed cover and full-color interior. All three of these new editions will also come with a preview chapter of vol 2, The Thousandth Cut, and the deluxe edition will also come with the entirety of the short story anthology, A Drift Apart. That's a lot of stuff!
So when can you expect to see that new shiny edition? Well, here is my plan. As soon as the new version is ready and I've received proofs that look good, I'll make them available on my website to sell...however...drumroll...I will also be running a new Kickstarter for both the new edition of The Key and the Crescent AND The Thousandth Cut. This Kickstarter should help me alleviate some of the frankly daunting costs of self-publishing a title like this, while also drumming up some new support for the books! You'll be able to back a physical or digital copy of the new novel, or the new edition of the old novel, or both. There may even be something special for those backers who want something extra, like last time!
As for when THAT Kickstarter will happen...I don't know yet! It will depend on how quickly I'm able to truly finish The Thousandth Cut. Even though it would be mightily convenient for me to run it as soon as possible, I don't want to run the Kickstarter before it's finished. (To clarify: I will most certainly be editing it while the Kickstarter is active, but it will be written by then, for sure.)
Until then, if you'd like to stay engaged with my work, feel free to join the Darkdrifters discord server and follow me on Twitter, which I still use for some reason. I'll be looking for beta readers for The Thousandth Cut before too long, so if you're interested, definitely hop onto the discord server and you'll get updates directly from me!
As always, thanks for the support. Much love,
Maxine