Speculative Fiction With A Historical Twist

Now is the winter of our discontent…

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. However, my mailing list is the best way to stay in touch. Here’s the media kit!

Order my new Gaming Journal here!

About Kathy L. Brown’s Stories

• Learn more about The Big Cinch.
• Learn more about The Resurrectionist.
• Learn more about Water of Life.
• Learn more about Wolfhearted.

ORDER THE BIG CINCH HERE

News & Events

February 7th, 2025, 5:00 pm. Reading. I’ll share a selection from my upcoming novel, The Talking Cure, at Spine Bookstore & Cafe. Spine is moving to an undisclosed new location soon, so this is the bon voyage party.

Coming in March, 2025: “Big Magick,” a short story. In the St. Louis Writers Guild 2025 Anthology, Weird St. Louis. 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.

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

Bullet journal your tabletop roleplaying and board games!

Handy notebook 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.

Grab the St. Louis Writers Guild Members Anthology 2024 for my Sean Joye short story: “The Haunted Guild”!

Sean can’t be too choosey about clients. But a ghost?

Sean Joye’s ghostly client has a big problem; Sean would be the first to admit she probably hired the wrong guy. Nevertheless, the St. Louis Writers Guild 1924 Halloween party is all fun and games until a mysterious stranger comes calling to challenge them both.

My new story is firmly rooted in real St. Louis people and events. I wrote about Pearl Curran and her ghost writing partner, Patience Worth, in the November 2023 newsletter. Patience Worth, who claimed to be a Puritan settler of Nantucket Island, dictated (or so Pearl Curran told everyone) well-regarded poems and novels through Pearl, a St. Louis housewife, during the early 20^th century.

Since Pearl (and Patience) were founding members of the St. Louis Writers Guild, I couldn’t resist imagining them all in my fictional 1920s world. This story was so fun to write; I’d love to share it with all of you.

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.

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.

The Big Cinch

• 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.

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.

The next Sean Joye Investigation, The Talking Cure, is with beta readers and the cover art guy!

Blog Tour

I’ve made the mostly-virtual rounds doing book promotion. 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:

• “Learning to Let Go” at CynthiaVespia.com
• “An Excerpt from The Big Cinch” at Lee’s Hall of Information
• “The Belfast Bar’s Battered Cod Recipe” at Cat Rambo’s The World Remains Mysterious
• My interview at Debbie Manber Kupfer’s blog

Reviews

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.”

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.”

2025 Schedule

I’ll be at the Spine Bookstore Farewell Party and Archon this year. I have a conflict for FoxCon and can’t attend (boo!); check it out if you can. Maybe I’ll turn up at the ToyMan Show. That was fun.

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.

• Discussion Questions for Wolfhearted

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.

Recent Reads and Watches (click the link for “recent past” reads)

• 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

• Lee Hall provides tons of great tips on social media and marketing for creatives at Lee’s Hall of Information.
• Writing duo Pete Peru and Lord Tupelo share the twisted path to The Reeking Hegs, here.
• Author Mark Miller discusses absurdist comedy fiction such as The Librarian at the End of the World and shares a frog story in an interview, here. Miller’s new novel, The Two-Headed Lady at the End of the World: A Romance Hotter than a Thousand Suns is now available. I review it here.
• Author Ed Protzel brings the American Civil War to life through history-inspired fiction. He shared some thoughts on the Storytelling Blog last fall as the final volume of his Darkhorse Trilogy, Something in Madness, debuted.
• Molten Sulphur Blog rips cool people, places, and events from the pages of history so you don’t have to. A vital resource for game masters, writers, and artists of all kinds. Author Tristan Zimmerman gave us a sample in this guest post on omens and foreshadowing. He has written a RPG, Shanty Hunters, available now. This game won and Ennie Judge’s Spotlight Award at the 2022 GenCon. Read all about it, here. The companion to Shanty Hunters, Ballad Hunters, is available now in a ‘zine form, and the regular game book is coming soon!
• Author Cynthia Vespia, Creative Synergy Blog, shares thoughts and guidance on writing and the writer’s journey. She guest blogs on overcoming self-doubt, here.
• Author Paul Jameson, My Writing Life Blog, talks with me about myth and fairy tale as well as provides a guest blog on the fairy-tale genre.
• Author Dana Lockhart is also a video game reviewer. She shares her thoughts on the storytelling elements of video games, here. Follow her blog, here.
• Author Michael Nye. I talk with Michael about writing fiction here.
• Author Brad R. Cook. I talked with Brad in late February 2020 about steampunk fantasy and writing fiction for young people.

This page last updated February 5, 2025.