Andrew K. Clark and Nathan Ballingrud will visit City Lights Bookstore on Saturday, October 5th at 3:00pm to share their new books, Where Dark Things Grow and Crypt of the Moon Spider.

“If you’re a fan of magical realism and Appalachian Gothic, Andrew K. Clark’s Where Dark Things Grow is a must-read—a high and haunting tale of highland lore that burns with forces both dark and light, rendered with a poet’s eye for detail and wild sparks of wonder.”—Taylor Brown, author of Rednecks

In his debut novel, Where Dark Things Grow, poet Andrew K. Clark blends magical realism, horror, and Southern Gothic to create a beautifully rendered and dark tale. Leo is a troubled fifteen-year-old growing up in rural, Depression-era Appalachia with unstable parents, two useless brothers, his sick baby sister, Goldfish, and the memory of his deceased brother, Jacob. When his father goes missing, Leo’s attempts to help his family and find his father bring him into contact with mythical beasts, alchemists, prostitutes, and Jacob’s ghost, who may or may not be an evil spirit.

As Leo navigates his place in the physical world and magical realms around him, he struggles with the legacy of his father and his own dark desires. Will he be able to save those touched by illness, insanity, and greed? Can he shake his own connection to an ancient evil and find a better path? Step into the world of Andrew K. Clark’s Where Dark Things Grow to find out.

Crypt of the Moon Spider is a dark and dreamy tale of horror, corruption, and identity spun into the stickiest of webs.

Years ago, in a cave beneath the dense forests and streams on the surface of the moon, a gargantuan spider once lived. Its silk granted its first worshippers immense faculties of power and awe.

It’s now 1923 and Veronica Brinkley is touching down on the moon for her intake at the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy. A renowned facility, Dr. Barrington Cull’s invasive and highly successful treatments have been lauded by many. And they’re so simple! All it takes is a little spider silk in the amygdala, maybe a strand or two in the prefrontal cortex, and perhaps an inch in the hippocampus for near evisceration of those troublesome thoughts and ideas.

But patients aren’t the only ones with trouble on their minds, and although the spider’s been dead for years, its denizens are not. Someone or something is up to no good, and Veronica just might be the cause.

Andrew K. Clark’s poetry collection, Jesus in the Trailer, was published by Main Street Rag Press, and his debut novel, Where Dark Things Grow, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press. His work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, and The Wrath Bearing Tree. He received his MFA from Converse College. A Western North Carolina native, Clark lives outside Asheville, NC. Connect with him at andrewkclark.com or on social media through Threads, X, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok: @theandrewkclark.

Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, is the author of The Strange, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell, and North American Lake Monsters, which was adapted into the Hulu series Monsterland. His work has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Bram Stoker awards. He lives in Asheville, NC.