So here’s the back story: when Mike was a kid, some independent station out of North Jersey used to show a Hammer Films Dracula movie marathon every Christmas Day. (Because nothing says, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” quite like Christopher Lee drinking virgin blood.) This planted in his young editorial brain the idea that the various winter holidays should be celebrated with something really cool that also has almost nothing to do with, well, the various winter holidays. And that’s why the December Issue of Jersey Devil Press consists solely of a novella about ninjas…in the suburbs.

It’s by new writer, Jimmy Grist, and it’s one of our favorite things we’ve read in a long, long time. We’re happy to be sharing it with you while Hannukah is in full swing, Kwanzaa, Solstice and Christmas are only two weeks away, and — if our reading of The Pergamum Codex is accurate — Gurnenthar’s Ascendance is next Tuesday.

So, “Happy Holidays!”

Enjoy Jimmy’s first novella. “Keeley Kunoichi” is fifty-five pages of awesome. Share it with someone you love.

December 10th is International Human Rights Day and we’re publishing a special standalone story in its honor.

No, Jersey Devil Press has not gone overtly political. (And hopefully never will)

So why are we publishing this story? Three reasons.

First, one of our missions at JDP is to publish stuff that deserves to be published that a lot of other people won’t touch. We like being the indie lit community’s Isle of Misfit Toys. Sometimes that means publishing a novella about poo-eating aliens. Sometimes it’s a story about peeing on a magical unicorn. And sometimes, it’s something a lot, lot darker.

Second, we think we have a thoughtful readership that can handle this story, that can see why we had to publish this incredibly dark piece of satire once it was submitted to us.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, we’re publishing this because it’s about something truly awful that actually happened to a real person. As we weighed the pros and cons of publishing this, that’s the thing that kept coming up: the chance to give a voice – even a satirical one – to a woman who died young and horribly.

And that’s why we decided to publish this story even though it violates many of our guidelines and particularly the one about rape. (We probably should say TRIGGER WARNING, by way of preface.)

It’s not an easy read, by any means, but we do think it’s a worthwhile one.

With all that said, we present Robert Buswell’s “How I Upstaged Anne Frank.”