Speculative Fiction With A Historical Twist

black and white head shot Kathy L. Brown

 “Proud pied April dress’d in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.”

Cover, The Big Cinch by Kathy L. Brown with Brave New Pulp icon in corner
Find The Big Cinch in St. Louis at Main Street Books and the Missouri History Museum Gift Shop. Online, try Bookshop.org, Literary Underworld, Montag Press, and Amazon.

Welcome to award-winning speculative fiction author Kathy L. Brown’s official home page! I’m thrilled you dropped by and hope you enjoy your visit. Read my blog, check out my news, or do a little shopping. If you’re curious about me, click here, or my mission, click here. I’m on the usual social media: Facebook: @kbKathylbrown, Threads: @kathylbrownwrites, and Instagram: kathylbrownwrites. Now on Blue Sky: @KathyLBrownWrites.bsky.social, Tumblr: kathylbrownwrites, and Substack: @kathylbrown378495. However, my mailing list is the best way to stay in touch. (title quote from “Sonnet 98” by Master Will)

Here’s the media kit!

Otter Springs book images
What will you read today? Shop for stories here.
Order my new Gaming Journal here!

About Kathy L. Brown’s Stories

ORDER THE BIG CINCH HERE

News & Upcoming Events

I’ve had some press attention lately. Here’s the links:

2025 Schedule

May 4, 2025, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.: ToyMan Show. “Toys, Comics, and Con: Where BIG Kids Go to Play,” Machinist Hall, Bridgeton, Missouri. I’ll be at the “guest author” booth on the second level. Come check out this popular event because you know you need a treat! And, seriously, this is the place for “May the Force” Day collectables.

May 10, 2025, 5 to 9 p.m.: St. Chux Derby Crew Boozy Book Fair. Come meet me and other authors and shop with reading-themed artisans. Enjoy snacks and your favorite adult beverage. Grab your friends for a night out or celebrate Mother’s Day a little early with Mom and support your local roller derby team with a night of bookish goodies! May 10, 2025, free from 5 to 9 p.m., with early admission at 4 p.m. available for $15.00. American Legion Auxiliary Unit Post 312 St. Charles, Missouri.

June 6-8, 2025: Diecon, Gateway Convention Center, Collinsville, Illinois will find me hosting a tabletop roleplaying game, The Wassailing of Claus Manor. “A roleplay game of horrific holiday spirits,” I’ve love it since I spotted the gamebook at Gen Con and look forward to sharing some silliness on Saturday morning, the 7th.  My blog on April 10, 2025 featured a review of The Wassailing.

October 4-6, 2025: Archon

Recent and Upcoming Publications

The Talking Cure

The next Sean Joye Investigation, The Talking Cure, is with the cover art guy! I’m about to start final line edits, then off to the publisher. Here’s the pitch:

Haunted woman claws her way back to reality by reconnecting with her magical powers to solve a murder and protect a community from a supernatural predator. The Talking Cure follows a catatonic Violet Arwald Humphrey, one of Sean Joye’s antagonists in The Big Cinch, to her incarceration at an upscale facility for the mentally ill. Isolated on the Illinois prairie with only her own thoughts and a new voice in her head, Violet’s distress magically summons Sean, her former employee. Together they must solve a murder and face an eldritch horror lurking on the property.

Weird St Louis Anthology

The St. Louis Writers Guild 2025 Anthology, Weird St. Louis, features my short story, “Big Magick.” Legends abound explaining the fate of the giant Ferris Wheel that graced the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Here’s the “real story,” direct from one of The Big Cinch’s baddies, financier and amateur mage (retired), Joseph Arwald.

Vertical, black and white images showing the Observation Wheel at center and the Illinois pavilion at left center. St. Louis World's Fair Ferris Wheel.
1904 St. Louis World’s Fair Ferris Wheel. Image courtesy Missouri History Museum Archives.

Gaming Journal

Gamer friends, I’ve created a Gaming Journal, a handy notebook for all your convention one-shot roleplaying games and board game try-outs.

This journal captures vital details as you try new games at conventions. Make memories as you play. Suitable for fantasy, horror, and science fiction role-playing adventures. Grid, blank, and lined pages as well as generic character sheets. Plenty of room for notes. Prompts to spark your gaming thoughts and blank pages to note your adventures. Spiral bound.

Gaming Journal. You know you want to keep score.

Bullet journal your tabletop roleplaying and board games!

Marathonarium: Volume 2

  • “The Pixie Job” in Marathonarium: Volume 2 will appear later this summer, launched at the Imaginarium Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, July 18, 2025. Sean Joye’s first out-of-town paranormal investigation finds him in a small lead-mining town. The mine owner claims his house is infested with pixies, but Sean has his doubts the problem is that simple.

Reviews

An editorial review of Water of Life from My Writing Life. ” I always think the sign of a good voice is when I start reading in accent – or at least hear the characters in my mind – and that was pretty much from the get go. It’s a pretty unique tale. Again, I will not give much away in a review, but it’s a new perspective on the Selkie, Fae and the meeting of cultures from across the pond from each other, all carried off with great skill.”

An editorial review of The Big Cinch from Independent Book Review. “This book reads like nothing I’ve ever read before. The great writing and description really make it stand out among other books set in the same time-period. It is a great pick for anyone interested in a dark urban fantasy with inspiration from the 1920s.”

The Big Cinch

Your short, timely review of The Big Cinch on Amazon is precious to me. To write one: click the link on the book’s name, sign in, click on the number of ratings (just below the title), click “Write a customer review,” and share a few lines about the book. I thank you in advance. Our goal is twenty-five reviews as soon as possible, which will prompt the Amazon Book Promobot to push The Big Cinch with more enthusiasm.

  • E-book and paperback versions of The Big Cinch are available on Bookshop.org and Amazon. Your Bookshop.org order benefits the local independent bookshop you designate.
  • Literary Underworld provided a great selection of indie and small press physical books with themes of horror, mystery, and dark fantasy.
  • Local friends can pick up a copy at Main Street Books in St. Charles, and the Missouri History Museum gift shop. Any bookshop can order The Big Cinch for you from the Ingram catalogue.

Blog Tour

I made the mostly virtual rounds doing book promotion for The Big Cinch. On January 28, 2022, I did a reading and interview at Spine Bookstore and Cafe. In case you missed any of my guest blog appearances, here are the links:

“The Angel’s Share”

Join my email list for access to the short story, “The Angel’s Share.” A supernatural noir short story of St. Louis in the Prohibition era.

Book cover. The Angel's Share. Comic type drawing man in distillery with kegs, hands raised in surrender. Spirit and cop in the background.

“The Angel’s Share” is bonus material for subscription list members. Sign up today.

Spirits linger in a forgotten hoard. Can a lush lookout be trusted?

 In this prequel to the novel The Big Cinch, Sean tells us about his first misadventure in St. Louis. As always, hoping for an easy job, he stumbles upon unexpected dangers while exploring an abandoned whiskey warehouse for the Eagan’s Rats gang. “The Angel’s Share.” Free with email list subscription.

“The Angel’s Share,” which give us an exciting bit of Sean backstory from his first few weeks in St. Louis. Sign up via the form at the bottom of this landing page or just drop me a line at kathy@kathylbrown.com, and we’ll make sure you are subscribed. As a subscriber you’ll be the first to know about new publication and personal appearance.

Blast from the Past

I’m quite attached to these old Blogspot articles I wrote back in 2008. They are mostly about bread, entertaining, and random thoughts. Here’s a link, although I really need to rescue them in a more secure form.

Book Club Resources

Book clubs are a great way to bring folks together over our favorite things: wine, snacks, and stories! By way of thank you for book clubs that consider a Kathy L. Brown work for sharing, below are links with discussion topics and menu ideas. Kathy would love to visit your club via Zoom or in person for a more in-depth discussion of books, writing, and life in general.

When I’m Not Writing Fiction, I’m—

Reading:

Watching:

Listening To:

Kathy L. Brown’s novel from Montag Press, The Big Cinch, is a supernatural noir adventure. Sean Joye, a fae-touched young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War, aims to atone for his assassin past and make a clean, new life in America. Until he asks the wrong questions. . . Order your copy of The Big Cinch today.

  • The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan. Charming illustrations and case study in nature journaling practice.
  • Go, by Kazuki Kaneshiro. YA, but not annoying. Fascinating portrayal of racial prejudice against people of Korean heritage in Japan.
  • The Mayfair Witches, season two. AMC+. As freaky as you remember the novels, perhaps.
  • The Acolyte, Disney+. I loved this. And just what I need to know for my new Star Wars game character, Senator Sith Witch.
  • Arsene Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes by Maurice LeBlanc. Much more tedious than it needed to be. Sometimes old is not classic.
  • Miskatonic Missives, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Helios House Press, 2023). Charming letters from a complicated person. Lots of cool ephemera, too.
  • The Traitors, Peacock. I didn’t care for reality shows. Until now.
  • The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde (Penguin, 2003). I loved this smart alternative world in which literature has its proper place of importance in culture.
  • Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (HarperCollins, 2017). Audiobook. Fascinating look at the Space Race and sad look at women’s and minority’s rights and opportunities.
  • The Great, Hulu. (As in Catherine the Great. A comedy.) Only three seasons. This is so good.
  • Heliophobia by Christopher X. Ryan (Montage Press Transmedia Collective, 2022). See my review of this excellent novel, here and interview with the author, here.
  • Swedish Cults by Anders Fager (Valancourt International. English translation, 2022). Amazing cross-pollination of eldritch horror with a nordic noir vibe. By the acclaimed roleplaying game creator of Tales from the Loop.
  • Cartooning by Ivan Brunetti. A tiny classic.
  • Wonderworks: Literary Invention and the Science of Stories by Angus Fletcher. Neuroscience and storytelling tools. Fascinating.
  • Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys. Love, love, love Emry’s imaginative take on the Lovecraftian Deep Ones.
  • Grave Regrets by David Massengill. Smart, thoughtful horror story. Who’s really the monster? Here’s my review.
  • I’m now doing editorial reviews for Independent Book Review. These are generally prepublication reviews, but I’ll recommend the best on the blog as they become available.

My Community

Sales of Love Letters to St. Louis benefit the St. Louis Writers Guild’s young writers programs.

A portion of the proceeds from my novella, The Resurrectionist, currently benefits restoration work at the story’s inspirational setting, the historic Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, MO USA. 

A portion of the royalties from my novel, The Big Cinch, will benefit the restoration of Sugarloaf Mound in St. Louis. “The Osage Nation encourages you to visit our Historic Preservation webpage. The Osage Nation is currently engaged in the protection and preservation of one of our ancestral mounds, Sugarloaf Mound in south St. Louis. The Nation accepts donations to help support our effort to preserve one of the last remaining mounds in the St. Louis area by specifying Sugarloaf Mound support when donating to the Osage Nation Foundation. The Osage Nation respectfully request that you honor our land, thank you.” Osageculture.com

            Useful And Interesting Sites

  • If you like bargains in books, check out Story Origin for advanced review copies, audiobooks, and free or low-cost themed book bundles.
  • Blogger David Charles Bitterbaum talks about comics and all the cool stuff over at The Newest Rant. He was gracious enough to not only buy The Big Cinch but also give our blog a little shout out!
  • Mystery novelist C. Hope Clark’s newsletter, Funds for Writers is a great source of “tips and tools for serious writers to advance their careers.” Weekly market listings as well as publishing ideas and advice. I’ve had two articles published there, “Editorial Review Writing” and “Sensitivity Reading as a Business.“
  • The Cottage Witch, with Hester Makepeace, podcast. Comfy, cozy episodes on everyday, practical magic, posted fairly randomly.
  • Practical business advice for creatives! I need it and am happy to have found Josh Spector‘s website, newsletter, and social media presence.
  • Voice actor Savy Des-Etages narrated Wolfhearted‘s audiobook and brought it to life! I am so pleased.
  • Artist Maria Ninfa is some sort of mind reader, creating an amazing set of rune images for Wolfhearted in less than a day! These glyphs bring so much to the book; I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. See other examples of art on her website or hire her on Fiverr.
  • Goodminds.com is a First Nations family-owned source of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit books, located in Canada. While the shipping was rather dear for me here in the US, the wide selection of books about indigenous peoples’ experience by indigenous authors more than made up for the extra expense. Customer service was very helpful.
  • A great source of unique books, Montag Press Collective is my partner for my first novel, The Big Cinch.
  • Editor Kayla, at Orphans and Widows Media. Kayla was the sensitivity reader for The Resurrectionist. Her excellent feedback really helped me with that tale.
  • Editor Laura Ritz, The Durango Wordsmith. Laura had wonderful insights on sensitivity issues for Water Of Life.
  • Editor Meghan Pinson, My Two Cents Editing. Meghan and her team provided beta and sensitivity readers as well as editing services for The Big Cinch. Their help was invaluable.
  • Vintage Dancer. Great source of information on historical fashion and daily life.
  • St. Louis Writers Guild
  • St. Louis Publishers Association
Friends of the Blog

This page last updated April 11, 2025.