HORROR LEGEND JOHN SKIPP RETIRES FROM PROSE, LAUNCHES NEW MUSIC AND FILM

After 25 books, a couple of million copies sold, and 41 years as an iconoclastic, legendary horror author and anthologist, two-time New York Times bestseller John Skipp has officially retired from writing and publishing fiction. His final book. DON’T PUSH THE BUTTON (published by indie press Clash Books), is an intensely personal collection of short stories, screenplays, and essays, and his “farewell message” to the horror-reading public.

The 64-year-old Skipp accompanies the book with two solo albums on his own Fungasm Records label. The first, THE ANTIDOTE TO FEAR, is a collection of songs documenting the end of the Trump era, the first years of Covid, and his own restless journey. The second, CRY ME A RAINBOW, features a wide range of instrumental music, providing an alternately haunting and hopeful soundtrack for these strange days.

With unifying art by New Zealand designer Matthew Revert, the book and two albums form a powerful visual and emotional triptych.

Meanwhile, his new short film DOPPELBANGER – which Skipp calls “half karaoke horror, half extremely dark Bizarro romantic comedy” – is now hitting the festival circuit, with a premiere last week at the Toronto Short Film Festival.

“Between the book, the film, and the two albums,” Skipp says, “it’s a crystallized record of my soul’s experience. Like an elaborate school report on ‘What I Did on My Summer Vacation’. Except the summer was Covid, and it was two years long.”

For more information, interviews, press, and so forth, contact: jmskipp@gmail.com

DON’T PUSH THE BUTTON

LOVE IS THE ONLY SHOCKING ACT LEFT.

“Startlingly honest, refreshingly revealing, funny, freaky, upsetting, unsettling. His best yet.”

– Josh Malerman, author of BIRD BOX

Order directly from Clash Books:

https://www.clashbooks.com/new-products-2/l9zyvzw5pcgtd221ig4b8il1mjkj4f

Excerpts:

Nightmare Magazine – “Bringing Out the Demons”. http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/bringing-out-the-demons/

LitReactor – “Skipp’s Self-Isolating ABCs of the Covid 19 (Stage One)”

https://litreactor.com/columns/skipps-self-isolating-abcs-of-the-covid-19-stage-one

THE ALBUMS