Withered
A queer paranormal horror novel showing the complex real-life terror inherent in grief and mental illness.
After the tragic death of their father and surviving a life-threatening eating disorder, eighteen-year-old Ellis moves with their mother to the small town of Black Stone, seeking a simpler life and some space to recover. But Black Stone feels off, and it doesn’t help that everyone says Ellis’s new house is haunted—everyone including Quinn, a local girl who has quickly captured Ellis’s attention. And Ellis has started to believe what people are saying: they see pulsing veins in their bedroom walls and spectres in dark corners of the cellar. Together, Ellis and Quinn dig deep into Black Stone’s past and soon discover that their town, and Ellis’s house in particular, is the battleground in a decades-long spectral war, one that will claim their family—and the town—if it’s allowed to continue.
Withered is queer psychological horror, a compelling tale of heartache, loss, and revenge that tackles important issues of mental health in the way that only horror can: by delving deep into them, cracking them open, and exposing their gruesome entrails.
Advance Praise
"Withered is a slow burn psychological horror that will consume its readers through its exploration of the toxicity and timelessness of grief and the way it chokes all those it touches. The time-paused town of Black Stone reveals to readers what it means to conquer death and what it means to be alive. Wilmot elegantly illuminates the power of art and its impact on identity and memory, while painting a vivid definition of a ghost town with their prose."
– Ai Jiang, Nebula finalist and author of Linghun and I Am Ai
"Unwinding like a bandage from an old wound, Withered explores the cost of living with ourselves and our fragile histories. Wilmot deconstructs the haunted house and finds a home worth saving."
– Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold and The Handyman Method
"Withered is a compassionate exploration of mental health, hauntings,
and the way grief can pull, stretch, or erode our sense of self. Told with wit
and warmth, it is a triumph of love in the face of heartache and death."
– Suzan Palumbo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award finalist
"Withered is the very best kind of horror novel, a book that makes visible
the challenges of mental illness and grief and gives them a story that
deeply acknowledges that pain and trauma. Beautiful, sad, and scary, and
I couldn’t have asked for anything more."
– Jen Sookfong Lee, author of Superfan
"In this clever mix of The Haunting of Hill House, Stranger Things, and
Death with Interruptions, A.G.A. Wilmot has created a narrative that
digs beyond the abyss and provides something entirely new, merely by asking a simple question: What if we just said ‘no’ to Death? It’s a beautiful examination not just of grief, but of the will to live—something we sorely need."
– Adam Pottle, author of Apparitions
Awards
*Winner, ECW Press's Best New Speculative Novel Contest 2022.
Purchase a copy of Withered via ECW Press.
Purchase a copy of Withered via Amazon.
The Death Scene Artist
M_____ is dying of cancer. Only thirty-two, an extra with a meagre list of credits to their name and afraid of being forgotten, M_____ starts recounting the strange, fantastic and ultimately tragic path of their love affair with the world's greatest living "redshirt"—a man who has died or appeared dead in nearly eight hundred film and television roles.
In a compelling narrative of blog entries interspersed with film script excerpts, The Death Scene Artist immerses readers in a three-act surrealist exploration of the obsessive fault-finding of body dysmorphia and the dangerous desires of a man who has lived several hundred half-minute lives without having ever experienced his own.
Advance Praise
"From the jaw-dropping opening pages when we meet a protagonist perusing their remarkable inventory of 'outfits,' up to the very last page, this novel kept me riveted. This is a wonderful book, surreal, disturbing and liberating in the very best way."
– Suzette Mayr, author of Monoceros
"Wilmot brings a sensually complete sense of reality to the unreal worlds of on- and off-screen Hollywood. Wilmot's serious play with language and with form makes The Death Scene Artist a hypnotic, surprising novel that doesn't sacrifice emotion for irony."
– Nathan Ripley, author of Find You in the Dark
Purchase a copy of The Death Scene Artist via Wolsak & Wynn.