“Oh no,” you wail, grabbing me by the shoulders. “What am I going to get my friends and loved ones for Christmas?” you beseech me, tears in your eyes. “I want to get them novels that are weird and interesting, in the genres of fantasy and sci-fi and horror,” you weep, grinding your teeth in frustration. “But I also want these books to be non-obvious picks that showcase my good taste,” you fret, and before I can reply, you hold up your hand and interrupt, “No, James, listen! Because I also want these books to have the reputation of being kind of bizarre, so folks don’t think I’ve lost my edge . . . and gosh darn it, I also want to support independent bookstores! What can I do, James Kennedy? What can I do??”

First of all: calm down. You’re making a spectacle of yourself. Secondly: I have all your holiday gift-giving problems SOLVED. Done and dusted, my friend. Ship-shape and Bristol fashion. All wrapped up, in the bag, over and out, sorted.

“HOW??!?” you essentially shriek, having lost all dignity at this point. And after I give you a big hug, and tuck you in for a long nap, and wake you up hours later with some tea and a chaste kiss on your fevered brow—but alarmingly enough, no longer in the bed you fell asleep in, but rather in a featureless concrete room in a mazelike complex fifty miles beneath my hometown of Troy, Michigan—I whisper to you: “You can get all my books from the indie bookseller The Book Cellar in Chicago. Signed by me, and personalized by me. Shipped anywhere you want. All your problems are over.”

And since you were never a very good friend to begin with, you reply, “Oh really? You write books?” or “Actually I never got around to reading your stuff,” or “Could you please untie these straps holding me to this gurney?”, and as I gently apply the chloroform rag to your nose, and you begin to lose consciousness again, you have a vision of the three books that I’ve written that would be perfect holiday gifts for your cool, creative, and good-looking friends, or punishing gifts for your dull, unimaginative enemies:

How about my adult horror novel Bride of the Tornado? You’ve got small-town creepiness, malevolent tornadoes, a love story gone horribly wrong, and a cult that makes Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” feel like an innocent afternoon of wholesome fun. No less than Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times-bestselling author of Bloom and much more, praised it as “a twisty, startling, atmospheric Midwest Gothic with the unstoppable power of a freight train and the moody ambience of a mist-shrouded diner at midnight. I could not put it down, and the ending left me in pieces.” Get your signed, personalized copy from the Book Cellar here.

“But what if I want to give a gift to my friend is more of a trippy, Philip K. Dick-loving sci-fi fan?” you whimper as your brain dims and you blurrily glimpse me opening my case of exotic surgical instruments. Then you can’t go wrong with . . .

Yes, it’s my adult sci-fi novel Dare to Know! There’s a company that can predict with perfect accuracy the exact time and date that you die. Our washed-up hero is a salesman for the company, where there’s just one rule: you can’t look up your own death-date. At a desperate low point, though, our hero does look himself up, and discovers he had died twenty-three minutes ago. The algorithm is never wrong, but he’s not a ghost, so why does the math fail only for him? This sets him on a quest across America and through his own memories—a phantasmagoria of haunted video games, an occult alternative history of science, the evil side of startup culture, an ancient curse from pre-Columbian America, and dark conspiracy theories about Top 40 music. Get your signed, personalized copy from the Book Cellar here.

“But I want something lighthearted that even children can enjoy—cool children with a healthy sense of the absurd!” you say with your last flicker of consciousness. Buddy, I got ya covered:

It’s my young-adult fantasy The Order of Odd-Fish! Folks, there’s a reason this book is still in print, even though it came out way back in 2008. It’s got a cult following—folks made tons of amazing fan art for it back in the day, and I still get emails every once in a while from people who read it as kids and tracked me down to tell me how much they enjoyed it. But don’t take my word for it, here’s what bestselling author Cory Doctorow had to say: “An extraordinary and delightfully weird romp that’s one part China Mieville, one part Lemony Snicket, with trace amounts of Madeline L’Engle and Roald Dahl . . . Kennedy has filled 400+ pages with a series of strange turn-ups and adventures that grow progressively more outlandish and funny, such that when you think he’s surely run out of runway and must crash, he finds new, unsuspected weirdness to explore.” Yowza! Get your signed, personalized copy from the Book Cellar here.

And that’s it! Your entire holiday shopping list, taken care of! Thank me later! Or thank me when you wake up from your drugged slumber, claw your way out of your leather straps, and somehow escape the nightmarish underground maze beneath my cursed hometown!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, AMERICA!

It’s hard not to feel angry and demoralized at the results of this election. I do. And to once again be reminded that this country isn’t the country I hoped it was. My instinct is to freeze and go numb, so I really appreciate those who are sending out messages of hope and solidarity. And talking to people in real life has helped me too. Reminding each other that we’re not alone.

Last night I did a spooky event at my neighborhood library, the Sulzer Regional Library in Lincoln Square in Chicago. The premise was “Northside Nightmares,” and I was joined by Chicago ghosts-and-grisly lore expert Adam Selzer and Bram Stoker award-winning horror novelist Cynthia Pelayo for readings and talks and fun! Thanks to Kyle Watson of the Sulzer Library for setting this all up.

And thanks to the Chicago Public Library’s very capable publicity for getting the word out. We had a pretty good crowd!

I went first, and did readings from Bride of the Tornado and a tornado trivia contest, and of course I wore my tornado costume while singing the plot of the book to the tune of “Rock You Like A Hurricane”:

We had spooky treats, thanks to Heather’s last-minute baking! Check out these ghost brownies:

After I did my shtick, Adam Selzer regaled us with true scary stories about the north side of Chicago—the haunted tattoo parlor on Irving Park Avenue! the 19th-century murderer Adolph Luetgert who disposed of his wife’s corpse in a vat in his sausage factory! a reputed northside Chicago body dumping-ground of the infamous H.H. Holmes! the St. Valentine’s Day massacre!—and more. Adam is famous for the ghost tours he leads all around Chicago. Learn more about him and what he does at Mysterious Chicago.

Cynthia Pelayo followed up with readings from her books, such as her newest Forgotten Sisters, which is set right around the corner in Ravenswood Gardens!

We got to hang out with friends old and new, and take pictures with the strangely creepy art that’s all around the Sulzer. I really hope they never change it, it’s so bizarre and idiosyncratic . . .

Thanks to everyone who came and made this event such a success!