My second kids book with Cemetery Gates Media, and the second in the Haunted Holidays series, is out now! A Haunted Holiday sees Hazel overwhelmed by a holiday party, escaping to the outdoors. She finds an old friend and trades ghost stories with her, and receives her own spooky holiday surprise! Featuring a return of The Thing and Pet Spider, too. Here’s a link, tell your friends!
Author: Elford Alley
A Haunt Holiday Arrives November 12th!
It’s official, my second kids book with Cemetery Gates Media is out on November 12th, and I cannot wait for you to read it! This one is a little different than A Cemetery Stroll, a little darker but still perfect for the little ones in your life who need a spooky read. Honestly, between the cold weather and the longer nights, the holiday season has always felt more like spooky season for me than October. In Texas/Oklahoma, you don’t get dead leaves wind chilly winds until then anyway. So, a horror holiday for kids in the style of M.R. James is perfect.
So, that’s Halloween and Christmas down. The next big season for kids is summer break. Maybe Hazel encounters some cryptids at a campsite? Who knows!
And reviewers! Shoot Cemetery Gates Media an email for ARCs, reviews are crucial!
The Third Volume of Dark Alleys is Here!
The third and final Dark Alleys ebook has arrived, and you’re gonna love it!
There are six stories and six dabbles, all illustrated. You have a revenge story about a final trick-or-treat for a group of small-town kids with A Texas Halloween. There’s tale of regret with The Woman in White. The Knock-Knock House is about urban legends and how they spread. Plus, When the Horizon Burns, a tale of nuclear apocalypse that I wrote because I feared I was losing my edge. It’s gruesome, people. You can also read my melancholy holiday story, The Ghost Hunter. There is so much to enjoy!
What happens next? Well, you will be able to grab the paperback edition in April, and with it will be three new additional novelettes!
Dark Alleys Volume II Has Arrived!
Volume II is here, people! From Full Zervis Press, with six illustrated dabbles and six illustrated stories! This is the second of four volumes, with the last showing up just in time for Halloween. Here’s what you get in the second volume:
Return the Stars: A child is sacrificed to appease an alien god, and wants nothing more than to see the stars again.
Fool Me Please: A ghost gets more than it bargained for when it imitates a grieving woman’s son.
Break: A final girl, tired of the fight, makes one last attempt to beat the monster.
Make Up Your Dying Bed: A Dying bluesman makes a deal with an entity to preserve his music.
Bad Dreams: Return to Vernon’s Rest Cemetery from Volume I for another tale of terror.
The Devil’s Backbone: Just released from prison, a man attempts to find his girlfriend, who disappeared along with a mysterious cabin a decade earlier.
Dark Alley’s Volume One is Here!
From now through Halloween, Full Zervis Press will be releasing four volumes of Dark Alleys, and the first volume is up now! You can preorder, and this actually will drop a little early, possibly tomorrow! This features three short stories and three drabbles, all illustrated, and is only 99 cents. You can preorder/buy here!
In the spring, you can get the full paperback with an additional novelette and illustration. There are other new releases happening soon too, so keep an eye on this site!
Dark Alleys in 2025!
Proud to announce that The Zervis Department will be publishing an illustrated collection of horror stories in 2025, called Dark Alleys! I just finished the illustrations, aside from some final touch-ups. 19 short stories/novelettes, and 19 drabbles and poems, each with their own creepy illustration. This will be an epic collection, can’t wait for you all to read it!
A Haunted Holiday in ’24
Remember how Cemetery Gates Media took a chance on my first kids book, A Cemetery Stroll? Well, there’s a sequel out in the fall! The story is simple. Hazel is overwhelmed at a family holiday and escapes to the woods, finding the cabin of her great aunt. There, her and Great Aunt Loretta exchange spooky stories, featuring Pet Spider and The Thing. I love Christmas ghost stories, and I really want this to be M.R. James for kids. I can’t wait you all to see it!
Check Out “The Alley Report”
So, recently I joined The Zervis Department and have an interview series on their YouTube page! I’ve interviewed some authors like Laura Keating, Robert Ottone, Anthony Rapino, Ronald McGillvray, Luis Paredes, and Joseph Nelson!
It’s been great, and there are a TON on the horizon. Seriously, I’m booked through August. Check them out and even better, subscribe!
Listen to The Orb Weaver
Once again proud to have one of my stories read by the great Drew Blood as part of his channel, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. You can listen here.
Visit Showman’s Rest
Once again, proud to have a 100-word drabble as part of Hungry Shadow Press‘ Deadly Drabble Tuesday! You can find it right here. This one is about a visit to Showman’s Rest in Hugo, OK, a cemetery dedicated to people who lived and worked in the circus. There’s is nothing wrong with visiting a cemetery. You can even gawk at a grave IF that was how it was meant (Near my home is a cemetery with a parking meter gravestone that is absolutely meant to be photographed and laughed at). But you have to have respects. Always.
