Essays

All is well here in Koontzland, even though the neighbors continue to complain about the life-size mechanical T-Rex that enhances our front-yard decor, spits fire at odd moments, shrieks every hour on the hour, and perpetually eviscerates a faux sheep with the razor-sharp claws of its small but powerful hands. The hostility to this motorized work of art mystifies me, as I never complain about their birdbath or the metal-rooster weathervane on their roof.

This is a special month for me, not because Daylight Saving Time begins, though I’m always excited when the day grows longer at one end and shorter at the other, which proves that human beings have astounding, godlike powers. And though it is also the month when Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland in a series of limousines, that is not why this March is so special to me.

This March, my publisher is revealing the cover of The Big Dark Sky, which they will publish this summer. It’s a novel about a strange ranch in Montana, to which diverse characters are drawn by a series of amazing coincidences, toward a confrontation with evil in more than one terrifying form. This is also a special March for me because I have signed a new five-book deal with the wonderful people at Thomas & Mercer and am happily at work, more creatively inspired than I have been in years.

Together, you and I have been through some dark times over the years, but I have found that the act of writing, getting lost in a story, always brings me through to the light. I hope that the books I create will entertain and encourage you in darkness and carry you out of it. Now I must go oil the T-Rex.