John Chrostek
@johnchrostek.com
2.3K followers 1.7K following 2.3K posts
FEAST OF THE PALE LEVIATHAN, novel: https://shorturl.at/WeXfh BOXCUTTERS, short stories: https://malarkeybooks.com/store/boxcutters Co-owner @eveninghouse.bsky.social EIC @cold-signal.com Buffalo, NY johnchrostek.com
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johnchrostek.com
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION!!!
for literary awards, reviews, readership & general good vibes:
my 2025 books!
promo graphic for my books

text says:
"for your consideration in the categories of literary awards, reviews, readership & general good vibes:

up and coming underground artist and general societal burden John Chrostek's 2025 releases, offering never-before-seen literary adventures of the strange and sincere variety"

all in retro 70's font, then the covers of boxcutters and feast of the pale leviathan boxcutters
malarkey books

for those adventurous souls who enjoy the variety of short stories, Boxcutters promises a diverse set of tales, spanning the shocking, sad, hilarious and odd. 

find tales of cosmic horror, dystopic science fiction and mythic fantasy tied together with simpler tales of small town fight clubs, a possessed Richard Nixon and much more. Boxcutters is there to help cut through the boundaries and get you to the open air."

available at evening house books, asterism, malarkey books, Powell's, and at your local library and indie bookstore if you ask nicely FEAST OF THE PALE LEVIATHAN
Deep Overstock Books

A man falls asleep on a river 
raft tube and drifts out to sea, 
where he is found & devoured 
by a titan of unbelievable size. 
But rather than death, what Owen 
finds inside is a community of 
fellow survivors carving out a life 
amidst the flotsam and flesh 
of the impossible Leviathan.

There seems to be no hope of escape 
until a chain of events reveals to 
the survivors that their damnable 
fates are  tied to a mysterious cult 
that lives in deathless splendor 
in the ivory halls of New Atlantis.

So begins a war between dimensions, culminating in the awakening of the Leviathan and its march to the shore...

available at evening house books, little ghost books, bookshop.org, powell's and at your local library & indie bookstore if you ask nicely
Reposted by John Chrostek
markpopham.bsky.social
if pep boys said that now the pep boys could call you up and talk sexy to you you wouldn't think that pep boys was doing really well, as a company
Reposted by John Chrostek
kjy1066.bsky.social
Forgive the cobbled-together feel of this, but eat up!

Nine stories in this TropiWeird combo - including two stories never before seen! As they say in PR: buen provecho!

kyr-1066.itch.io/a-series-of-...
johnchrostek.com
Exhalation should be read in schools, ngl
johnchrostek.com
The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang
asherelbein.bsky.social
I'm increasingly convinced that the moral arc of "artificial intelligence" bends inevitably toward sex slavery
mattburgess1.bsky.social
Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year
Reposted by John Chrostek
rollingstone.com
D’Angelo, the neo-soul trailblazer and modern visionary whose three albums were all heralded as classic works of art, has died at age 51.

Access the free article here: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
johnchrostek.com
+1 for the Mub even though I really love Old Wells
Reposted by John Chrostek
internethippo.bsky.social
Watching people being brutalized by the state, secure in the knowledge that I'm safe because I don't do anything wrong. And the best part? The state can't suddenly and arbitrarily redefine what "wrong" means
Reposted by John Chrostek
mrmaresca.com
Publishers should be invested in promoting the books they publish.
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
Reposted by John Chrostek
johnchrostek.com
fingers crossed we come through the other side!
johnchrostek.com
I know rn we can barely agree on anything en masse but maybe if we workshopped culture conversations through well-funded art and criticism we could get somewhere
johnchrostek.com
Everyone's literary opinions and "taste clusters" are too set in stone and it is making everything unsexy. Art should break through to us and imho it does that by having a vitality beyond genre, tropes and assumed marketability

We need more well-paid critics hyping sophisticated, multihyphenate art
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
johnchrostek.com
Dealing with some depression-adjacent feelings about publishing and the world in general this morning but thankful for the stubborn little gremlin in me that never entertains the idea of giving up
johnchrostek.com
Congrats, Paul! Really dig the premise of the newest one, I'll definitely be checking it out!
Reposted by John Chrostek
slimyswampghost.bsky.social
Me and my friend (The incredibly talented writer Perry Ruhland) collaborated by having me draw a ghost, and then he wrote a wonderful piece of scary micro-fiction for it. Check it out here, and read some of his other work!

perryruhland.com/2025/10/13/m...
“Mouth”
What follows is “Mouth”, a ghost story written by myself, after artwork by the great Trevor Henderson (trevorhenderson.com). We’ve been trying to do something together for ages, a…
perryruhland.com
Reposted by John Chrostek
us.theconversation.com
Accept our king, our god − or else:

What colonizers presented to #IndigenousPeoples as a choice was no choice at all. The Requerimiento, a 16th-century document, sheds light on deeper ideas and laws the Spanish used to take over the New World.

buff.ly/tJvdf93
#IndigenousPeoplesDay #history
Accept our king, our god − or else: The senseless ‘requirement’ Spanish colonizers used to justify their bloodshed in the Americas
The Requerimiento, a 16th-century document, sheds light on the deeper ideas and laws that the Spanish used to take over the New World.
buff.ly
Reposted by John Chrostek
renbolger.bsky.social
Come check out this podcast ep on Horror Joy!! Had a lot of fun with this one :)
horrorjoypod.bsky.social
Our episode with @renbolger.bsky.social and Alan Good of @malarkeybooks.bsky.social is out NOW! Give it a listen to hear about Lauren's new book, The Barre Incidents, and to hear about the great work being published at Malarkey.

redcircle.com/shows/979960...

#horrorfans #horrorsky #booksky
Lauren Bolger and Alan Good on Meet Your Maker
Listen to Horror Joy on RedCircle
redcircle.com
Reposted by John Chrostek
scratchcarddust.bsky.social
If you know basic kabbalah it's actually not too hard to make a golem out of a labubu. Don't recommend it though. They have a pre-existing body-dharma. As soon as they wake they run straight for the sea. V hard to counter. Lost the first one. No idea what it's doing out there. Moved like lightning.
Reposted by John Chrostek
trentbwrites.bsky.social
Look at it 🙂

Preorder it 🙂
malarkeybooks.bsky.social
Good morning. Here is the cover, designed by @johnchrostek.com, for @trentbwrites.bsky.social’s forthcoming novel, The Walls Are Closing In On Us, which you can, which you should because it’s good, preorder now! malarkeybooks.com/store/thewal...
Book cover for The Walls Are Closing In On Us by Joshua Trent Brown. Features a winding snake over a river. Blurb by Austin Ross, author of Gloria Patri: “a book that examines not only the soul of a man but—perhaps—the soul of a nation."