AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, publishing, SNAFU, Writing

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  NICK MANNING

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For today’s Author Spotlight from Cohesion Press, we’re heading back Down Under and a little north to the sunshine state to catch up with Nick Manning. Does he know we’re coming? Probably not. But we have suitcases and caffeine and sunblock – we’re good.  

While we settle in (ie take over, as we’re wont to do), I’ll invite Nick to the stage to talk about all things Nick. He’s funny, succinct, and has absolutely outdone us when it comes to travelling.

Nick Manning is a Brisbane-based LitRPG author and gamer. He’s travelled to 40+ countries, holds four Guinness World Records, and once got a letter from the Queen.

He’s also a former officer in the Royal Australian Navy. His story in this anthology has kick-ass undersea mechs and monster encounters – two things his actual time in uniform was sadly lacking.

He puts the discrepancy down to an administrative oversight.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Nick dove deep into the depths with NEW HEBRIDES: When a deep-sea rescue goes wrong, an elite naval clearance team must pilot alien mechs through a gauntlet of giant sea monsters to reach the surface.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU, Writing

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  MALORY

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Aaaaaand we’re boarding another plane on Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight, and this time we’re heading over to the UK (we’re truly globe-trotting) to have a wee antipodean chat with Malory. There could be tea. There could be coffee (it’s definitely coffee). But there are always TimTams.

While I clean chocolate from my face (you eat biscuits your way, I’ll gorge them mine), I’ll hand the sparkly mic over to Malory and let him tell you a little sumpin’ sumpin’ about himself.

Malory’s the 2026 winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award and a PhD researcher exploring men’s reading habits. He writes LitRPG, sci-fi and progression fantasy, including the Morgan & Merlin and Soar Chronicles series. He’s based in Birmingham, UK.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Malory levelled-up the snark and hit-points with EXPERIENCE POINTS ARE FOR VIRGINS: A British field operative gets a combat HUD bolted to his eyeballs, a squad of streamers for backup, and a Class 4 Reality Breach to clear. The monsters are real, but the experience points are not.

You can find Malory at his website, Substack, Insta, TikTok, Facebook, and on X.

Malory also has some work coming out, which you should definitely get in your eyeballs: Arcane Galaxy Book 3, Disavowed (working title) from Aethon Books should be coming before the end of the year. Book 2, Swashbuckler, out 29 July 2026.

And if that isn’t enough for you? Here’s a free novella link.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  SUBHAM RAI

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After a day off (we all need them), we’re back with Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight! Today, we’re moving away from the Americas and heading across the Northern Hemisphere to India, where Subham Rai resides. I’m not sure if he knows we’re coming, but that’s never stopped us before!

Now that we’re parked on Subham’s door, it’s his turn to do the talking thing. Take it away, Subham!

Subham Rai is a writer from Kolkata, India, whose work spans horror, romance, and literary fiction. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Macramé Literary Journal, SNAFU editions from Cohesion Press, Zoetic Press, Bindweed Magazine, Graveside Press, Horror Tree, and Consequence Forum, with forthcoming publications in other presses and magazines.

For this year’s edition of SNAFU: Level Up, Subham ventured deep into the Australian bush with his tale: BLOOD FOR XP: In the Australian outback, a military patrol is thrust into a brutal game system where killing mutated beasts grants XP and deadly powers, forcing them to farm blood for survival or face permanent death.

You can find Subham on Insta, and on X, and Bluesky, Facebook, and here’s his Linktree, as well as his Amazon Author page.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Ramblings, SNAFU, Writing

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  CRAIG DILOUIE

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For today’s Author Spotlight from Cohesion Press, we’re stepping out of the great land Down Under, and heading over to the North America (it’s a bitch of a drive…) to knock on Craig DiLouie’s door and invite him to the stage (and by knock, I mean hammer on that door until he lets us in – I need coffee).

While I get my caffeine-fix, I’ll turn over the mic to Craig, and have him wax lyrical about all things him and writing and books and stuff and things. Shh, caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet.

Take it away, Craig! (The talking, not the coffee.)

Craig DiLouie is a USA Today bestselling American-Canadian horror, sci-fi, and military fiction. Notable works include The Summer Fun Massacre, Episode Thirteen, and The Children of Red Peak, all published by Hachette, and Suffer the Children, published by Simon & Schuster.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Craig penned us the high-octane, holy-shit tale THE GREAT INTERDIMENSIONAL KILL RACE: a man and his crazy brother-in-law join forces in a death race across four of the most dangerous dimensions in the multiverse, hoping to win the life-saving grand prize.

You can find Craig on Facebook.

Want to read more of his work (you really should)? In November 2026, The Yule Day Slaughter—the sequel to The Summer Fun Massacre that concludes the duology—releases from Run For It, Hachette’s horror imprint. In June 2027, People with Taste, described as The Bear with cannibalism, also releases from Hachette.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU, Writing

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  SNEZANA KOSANOVIC

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On day two of Cohesion Press‘ Author Spotlight, we’re sticking with the Aussie team. This time, we have Snezana Kosanovic making her way into the light from the spookish shadows of her Imaginarium. There are no exits here… well, there is, but you gotta fight your way through monsters first – as it should be.

Right, without further ado—

Snez! Will you just leave that ghoul alone and take the stage?

Snezana Kosanovic is a writer, horror enthusiast, and a Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner based in Melbourne, Australia.

She created Dimly Lit Alleyway as a place to write about film, growing out of a lifelong love of cinema. Her reviews and articles appeared in Infamous Horror, Star Observer, and In The Mix, where she wrote under the pseudonym Tek-Ku. 

Her fiction has also earned recognition, with ‘The Forgotten Diary’ placing second in the 2025 Mayday Hills Ghost Story Competition. 

She is currently working on her debut psychological horror novel, as well as a non-fiction book looking at artificial intelligence, cinema, and where storytelling might be heading.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Snez kicked fast-paced up the arse and left it in her wake with FRACTURED CONTINUUM: Trapped inside a brutal simulation while haunted by your own deaths, is The Game hiding something far worse than dying?

You can find Snez at her website, and on Bluesky.

And keep an eye out for her psychological-horror novel that will surely be bursting into the world much like Commander Kane’s… ah, baby chest-burster did…

Writing, Editing, publishing, SNAFU, AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – ALAN BAXTER

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We’re kicking off our author spotlight this year with an Aussie (because of course we are), so please welcome to the stage, the inestimable Alan Baxter! A stalwart in the Aussie horror-writing community, Alan is one of the most prolific writers I know – it’s insane. He also has dogs whom one day I will steal (yeah, you heard me, Baxter.)

So, before I divulge all my plans for dog-theft, I will hand over the stage to Al to let him tell you a little sumpin’-sumpin’ about himself. Baxter! Get up here!

Alan Baxter is a multi-award-winning British-Australian author of more than twenty novels and novellas and over one hundred short stories, encompassing horror, weird fiction, dark fantasy, crime and more. This Is Horror podcast calls him “Australia’s master of literary darkness” and the Talking Scared podcast dubbed him “The Lord of Weird Australia.” He’s also a martial artist, whisky lover, motorcyclist, metalhead and dog person. He writes his darkly strange tales deep in the valleys of southern Tasmania.

Baxter penned us quite the macabre story for SNAFU: Level Up – THE LONG SHOT: Desperate people will take any chance, but at what cost?

You can find Baxter at his website, on bluesky, and Insta.

Alan’s latest book The Rise, is out now – it’s book three in the Tales From The Gulp series.

<nudges you> Go on, get over there and have a read.  

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – INCOMING!

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That’s right, it’s that time again where I shout from the rooftops the amazing authors who make up the ToC for the year’s SNAFU. And hoo boy, it’s a hella long list.

SNAFU: LEVEL UP is the biggest edition to date, coming it at a whopping nineteen—you heard it—NINETEEN stories. That’s a weapon. I mean… if you were to use it that way. Or, you could, I don’t know, just read it? Multi-purpose!

As you can likely see from the last time I updated my blog, I am quite shit at blogging and updating. But I will skip happily over to here when it comes to shouting about Cohesion Press’ authors in our latest tome.

Level Up is due for release Halloween because we always release that date, and what better date is there for a military-horror antho to be launched into the world?

This year, SNAFU went big with LitRPG. Yep, that fun, humorous, dangerous, and alternate of worlds where gaming comes with high-stakes and usually higher death counts. Sure, there can be respawning, but you gotta die first, yeah?

AND LOOK AT THAT COVER! More amazing work by Wendy Sabercore SABERCORE ART.

So, for the next approximately nineteen days (yes, approximately – anyone who knows me knows my concept of time is guesswork at best), I will be introducing the SNAFU: LEVEL UP authors with a gameshow-flourish. An ugly flourish, sure, but we work with what we have.

In this edition, there are authors who have graced previous SNAFUs, and there are new names coming to mark their places on the pages. And like previous editions, the storytellers hail from all over the world.  Love that for us.  And for you. And them.

So, strap in, get your dice ready, your VR set, and your HUD prepped. Grab yourself a weapon on your way through – you never know who or what you’re gonna meet.

Note: the order of the Author Spotlight does not represent ToC order.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – SUBHAM RAI

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And this is the last of Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlights with Subham Rai!  And yes, you’re right, the math doesn’t quite math. This is Author Spotlight #14, and we have eighteen authors in SNAFU: Contagion – you just need to roll with it. Please and thank you! 😊

Subham absolutely killed with his tale. Not literally. That’s illegal despite alibis. I’m pretty sure. I mean, there are dead people in his story. But you expect that. This is SNAFU. And Subham ran with that, guns blazing.

So, I’ll now hand you over to him to give a far more coherent introduction than I’ve done…

Subham Rai is an emerging writer based in Kolkata, India. His short stories have been published in notable outlets, including Strange Horizons, Macrame Literary Journal, Cohesion Press’s SNAFU: Contagion, and Zoetic Press’s Mosscap’s Ledger, with additional works featured in Graveside Press’s Kosmos Obscura. Forthcoming publications include ‘Bread Over the Line’ in Consequence Forum, ‘The Salem Shadow’ in Graveside Press’s Witchcraft Anthology, ‘The Holly Locket Curse’ in Bindweed Magazine, and ‘Margaret Hollow’ in Vellum Mortis.

As you can guess, we got quite the gruesome tale from Subham for SNAFU: Contagion – OUTPOST ZERO: In a remote Arctic outpost, a nightmare outbreak threatens the mainland.

You can find Subham on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Facebook2 (I added the ‘2’, again, roll with it!).

Subham is absolutely a writer to watch.   

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – ROBERT MAMMONE

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We’re Aussie-ing again with this Author Spotlight for SNAFU: Contagion – we’re like a plague (see what I did there?).  Cohesion Press is stumbling to the end of our Author Spotlight series (okay, I’m stumbling; there’s never enough caffeine), and while this isn’t the last of our authors, Robert Mammone does round out the ToC for SNAFU: Contagion.

And a cracker of a tale it is!

But I’ll let Robert introduce himself, because I think that’s likely to best for all involved… especially Robert…

Not to be confused with the Australian actor of the same name, Rob has been writing since the mid-80s, got serious in the mid-90s and was published in Doctor Who Magazine, then received an absolutely brutal (in hindsight, deserved) rejection letter soon after and went dark until 2009.  Since then, he’s been published in places like Midnight Echo, Pseudopod podcast, No Sleep Podcast, Swords and Sorceries 10, Die by the Sword 2, and had novels published with Candy Jar Books.  When he isn’t chasing his dogs around the neighbourhood, he can be found doing very little else.

As I said earlier in this piece, Robert wrote us a cracker of tale for SNAFU: Contagion –  GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG: Mercenaries bite off more than they can chew in the frontlines of the Ukraine-Russian meat grinder.

You can find Robert on Twitter.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – JOSH REYNOLDS

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It’s SNAFU: Contagion Author Spotlight again, and this time we’re bringing you a name you probably recognise (we’re actually bringing the whole person, not just the name… I mean, it’s not like we’ve shackled Josh or anything… <side eye>… Promise.).

Yep, I’m talking about Josh Reynolds, who has penned many a story for Cohesion Press’ SNAFU series. He’s just that good. Look, I swear we haven’t shackled him in a haunted asylum to make him write for us, don’t believe the rumours.

Now, before I make a complete idiot of myself (shh), I’ll let Josh to the introducing of Josh – he’ll do a far better job of it than me…

A professional author since 2007, Josh has over thirty novels to his name, as well as numerous short stories, novellas, and audio scripts. Born and raised in South Carolina, he now resides in Sheffield with his wife and daughter, as well as a highly excitable dog and something he hopes is a cat.

Now, I can’t say for sure that the ‘something’ Josh hopes is a cat didn’t have anything to do with the tale he penned for SNAFU: Contagion, but… THE SILENT SPAN: A soldier sent into the trenches to discover why his comrades have fallen silent, discovers something far more deadly. 

You can find Josh on Bluesky and Instagram.

Prodigious writer that he is, Josh has Return of the Monster Men ready for preorder, and Tales of Pannithor: Stand at Callenspire ready to read now.

You can also find a complete collection of his works on his website.

Seriously, check out his work!