No it’s not an April Fool’s joke, it’s an April Moon antho.
Yes, my beloved Canadian publisher April Moon Books, who put out my James Bond vs. Cthulhu novel Mindbreaker is back with another inspired and unlikely pairing, this time the roly-poly denizens of Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood and the nameless entities of old H.P.
The Celery at the Threshold by John Linwood Grant
The Very Black Goat by Christine Morgan
Back to the Black Bog by Lee Clark Zumpe
Where Howls the Edgog by Pete Rawlik
In Which We Discover the 101st Acre by Robert Ottone
Eeyore Makes a Friend by Jackson Parker
When She Was Very Tired by Lisa Cunningham
The Statement Of Eeyore Carter by Kevin Wetmore
Acrewood by Jude Reid
And my entry, Head Like A Jar, in which Piglet finds himself pursued by a Heffalump.
In addition, I’m over the moon to know that Carmen Cerra, an extremely talented artist I’ve been trying to get another book off the ground with for a while now, has been brought on board to illustrate. He’s really going to elevate this collection in a way I’m not sure it quite could all on its own.
I’ve had something of a rough couple of years. At first I sort of shook my head at the idea of this book, but I very quickly warmed to the idea of attempting to write a Milne-esque story. I read Winnie The Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner to my eldest daughter Magnolia in the womb, and later reread the stories to each of my kids, so I know them like Edward Bear knows the bottom of a honey pot. They hold a Very Special Place in my heart.
Writing this story was sheer joy and went a signifcant way towards alleviating some of the real-life burdens I’ve been feeling late. Gave me my happy back for a bit, and broke through an annoyingly long spate of writer’s block I’d been allowing myself to butt up against. I hope readers will glean something useful from this silly little story, at the very least enjoyment, just as I hope my children will one day pick it up and get a smile from it, knowing their father as they do.
Here’s an excerpt….a brief one, because I don’t want to give too much away.
Piglet tumbled head-over-heels down from the top of the Forest, over the close set grass, and didn’t stop tumbling until one of the sixty something trees that surrounded the clearing kindly stepped in his way.
He lay that way for a little bit, looking up and waiting for the grass and the darkening sky to decide which was on top. The sky was very cloudy and cross, so eventually it won out. The grass stooped and apologized for having given offense. Then the sky cracked a bit of strange, red lightning like a coach whip which told Piglet he had better get on his way. So he did, though he wasn’t sure just where he was going.
It got very stormy and dark, like a spilled inkpot spreading across a sky blue sheet, but it did not rain. That was something, at least.
As he scurried along through the spinneys Piglet heard a Very Loud Sound behind him, like a large animal Sniffling and Snuffling. He remembered just then that he had been going Away, and so he continued going there with all haste.
Piglet could not recall a Dark So Total in the Forest, though admittedly he spent most nights fast asleep, dreaming of what he would do the next day or what he had done the previous day, or things he might never do however many days he had. He wished he were dreaming now in his warm bed instead of running through the trees, for he had quite forgotten the way and it was getting so very dark it was hard to see by.
If he could not be asleep, then he wished at least that he were not Alone.
Eventually he came to a place he half-recognized, though it was not a place he frequented and not the one he had been wishing to get to, it being particularly Gloomy and wet here. However, it was Away from the Very Loud Sound, and so he supposed he musn’t be ungrateful.
“Hullo, who is that?” came a sad voice that he knew somehow belonged to this place (or was it the other way around?).
“P-p-piglet,” Piglet answered, hugging himself because being Alone there was no one else to hold onto.
“Good morning P-p-piglet,” said the voice, belonging to a low gray something standing with its neck bowed in the gloom. “If it is a good morning, or morning at all, which I doubt.”
Piglet thought hard. It was as if the Dark So Total had leaked into his thinker, and he had to strike a match to see his own memories by, and the match was all wet and soggy.
“Eeyore!” he said at last, and toddled over to find the gray donkey standing to up his knees in the bog, nosing at a thistle. “Oh Eeyore!” Piglet said, and threw his arms excitedly around Eeyore’s neck. “I am so happy to see you!”
“You are?”
“Yes!”
“Me, Eeyore?”
“Yes! I was so scared, running through the Forest. I was just wishing I could find anybody at all.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose being anybody is better than being nobody.”
“Eeyore, there’s a Very Loud Sound back there,” Piglet said, nervously pointing back the way he’d come.
“What sort of a sound?” Eeyore said, cocking one of his ears in the direction Piglet had pointed.
“It’s like a sort of…Sniffling and Snuffling. I don’t want to stay here.”
“Not many do.”
“I mean, it’s so Very Loud, it hurts my ears. I’m trying to get Away, do you understand?”
“I understand wanting to be Away. Some can afford the luxury. Some can’t. But there it is.”
“There what is?”
Eeyore sighed, very long and very loud.
“Nothing. I think I hear your Sound, Little Piglet. It’s coming closer. My, all this Unexpected Company in the middle of the night.”
“I thought it was the middle of the morning,” said Piglet, nervously looking back the way he’d come.
“It may be,” said Eeyore, considering it. “One middle can look much like the other in a Dark So Total….”
Delirium Tremens 
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