On July 15, 2026 my Backerkit campaign to fund The Moonhound will go live! It's a cozy fantasy novella suitable for all ages, with spectacular cover art by Canadian artist Logan Volkmann.
Right now, there's a teaser page up that tells you more about the book. If you want to get notified when the campaign goes live, please go click the button that says "Follow."
Here's another, longer excerpt from early in the book.
EXCERPT starts here:
Somehow, Alan not only agreed to join Zeke that night to spy on the moonhounds, he also agreed to bring snacks. Otto’s boy had delivered the rest of his groceries the previous day, so Alan spent the afternoon baking.
He made bread with his grandmother’s recipe, proofing the yeast with local honey. The honey tasted of mountain wildflowers and made him think of the lazy drone of bees on a hot afternoon. It was a welcome reminder that the rain, and the clammy chill it brought, wouldn’t last forever.
Indeed, by the time the dough was ready to go in the oven, the rain was barely a drizzle and pieces of blue sky were visible through the clouds. Alan’s spirits rose like yeast dough.
He was rolling out pastry for a vegetable pie when someone rapped on the door. “Come in!” he called.
He heard the latch raise and Sarah said, “Hello? It smells good in here.”
“I’m in the kitchen.” Alan looked over his shoulder and smiled at Sarah. She wore a blue shawl over her flower-printed dress, and took the shawl off as she entered the room.
“You’ve been busy,” she said. “I brought you some snow peas from my garden. Do you like them?”
“Love them, thanks! Have a seat; I’ll put the kettle on.”
Alan checked on the bread and decided it was done, so for the next few minutes he was occupied with getting it out of the oven and getting the pie ready to go in. Sarah made tea for them while he was busy.
Finally he collapsed onto the chair across from Sarah and accepted the cup she poured him. His paws were floury, as was the apron Sarah had given him. “Why is cooking so exhausting?” he said.
Sarah’s whiskers twitched as she smiled into her own cup. “At least you don’t have a passel of kits ready to gobble up the bread as fast as you can bake it.”
“We’ll taste it once it’s had a chance to cool,” Alan said. “Have a slice of applesauce bread. Margaret brought it over yesterday and there’s a lot left.”
“She did, did she?” Sarah sounded disapproving. Alan cut them each a thick slice and set Sarah’s in front of her along with a fork. She took a bite and said, “Well, damn it, it’s good. I can’t fault her on her cooking.”
“Why don’t you like her?”
“I like her just fine,” Sarah snapped. “I saw you walk by in the rain earlier. Out exploring?”
“Yes, I was looking for the statue but couldn’t find the old school at first.” Alan suspected the cat wouldn’t approve of Zeke, so he left him out of his account.
“I’m pretty sure that school burned down before my grandmother’s time,” Sarah said. “I heard tell it was struck by lightning one summer night. The statue’s supposed to be haunted by one of the folks who lived here in the olden days.”
Alan shuddered. “When was that?”
“No one knows. A thousand years ago, maybe, although my husband thought it wasn’t that old, just weathered from all the rain. I don’t know that I agree with that. There’s marble headstones in the graveyard that’re three hunnert years old and you can still read them. The slate ones are all smoothed out.”
Alan sipped his tea, wondering if he dared ask Sarah about the moonhounds. She was perceptive and he didn’t want her to suspect he was up to something—not to mention that it might make her feel bad about her husband’s death. He decided to approach the topic obliquely and said, “What other folk live outside of town, and why? Someone mentioned bears.”
“Bears and wolves,” Sarah said. “And the moonhounds, of course. They all keep to themselves, the bears with the bears, the wolves with the wolves.” She set her cup down and Alan refilled it from the teapot. “You don’t have to worry about the wolves if you run into one; they’re polite and sometimes come to town to trade game for flour or corn. They don’t like coyotes, mind, but the only coyote here in the holler is old Charlie and no one hardly ever sees him. He has a shack down by the river.”
“And the bears?” Alan asked.
Sarah gave a little shrug. “Can’t really say, to be honest. The only time I met a bear was when my oldest was just a young’un. We were picking blackberries up on Sharp Mountain when we met a bear doing the same with her own cub. I grabbed my Jim and apologized for taking their berries—not that anyone owns wild-growing plants, mind. I’m just not inclined to argue with someone who has claws longer than my entire paw. We high-tailed it out of there, I can tell you, and I didn’t dare go back for a few years.”
“But she didn’t chase you, right?”
“No, just ignored us, but other folks haven’t been so lucky.” Sarah looked at Alan and said quickly, “Don’t worry, there’s never once been a bear in the holler. They like the wild places and the mountaintops, and if they’re going to roam far they do it at night. You’ll probably never meet one.”
