CHRIS HOLM

I'm thrilled to report that my thirty-first short story—a seasonally appropriate crime tale called "Christmas, 1983"—is now  live for your reading pleasure at Beat to a Pulp ! Editor David Cranmer and I go way back, so I'm delighted to once more grace the pages of his publication. Oddly, this is my third Christmas story, after 2011's "The Final Bough" (for my former publisher's website) and 2018's "Con Season" (for the gun-control charity anthology UNLOADED 2). Nine more, and I'll have enough for a TWELVE CRIMES OF CHRISTMAS themed collection!

Though CHILD ZERO 's release date is still five months away, advance reading copies have begun making their way into the world. I'm elated comma terrified. Don't get me wrong; I think the book is good. I worked hard to make it so, and early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. But, after five years of obsessing over every plot point and punctuation mark, I'm finding it a challenge to cede control—particularly knowing that the version many peers, reviewers, and book bloggers are going to see is not final. For the uninitiated, ARCs are typically printed from uncorrected proofs, meaning the text has been copyedited, but not yet reread—and, having since reviewed my proof pages, I know  CHILD ZERO 's ARCs contain errors. Intellectually speaking, I'm aware  all books contain errors, and CHILD ZERO 's are relatively minor. Hell, of the twenty items I flagged for correction, at least seven aren't technically errors , so much as clumsy writing—and another ...