What Hath You Released: THE OTHER Arrives Today

Posted on June 9, 2026 by Annie Neugebauer

I’ve been camping so many times. Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota. With friends, in groups, with my husband, with family, by myself. In prairie, in the woods, by lakes, in the mountains. And there’s only been one time that I ever felt truly scared.

My husband Kyle and I, back before we had kids, were in already-remote mountain terrain in Colorado, but we wanted to be more remote than we could get even with a 4-wheel-drive SUV. So we rented an ATV (4-wheeler) and packed for a single night’s camping and drove beyond the designated areas, deep into bear country.

Us being Texans, we were very aware that we were in bear country. We had a can of bear spray. We’d reviewed the dos and don’ts. But still, we were a bit on edge. Something about being away from public campgrounds, away from other folks, away from help should we need it.

We found a cool spot and ate dinner, carefully packaging all wrappers and stuffing them into the storage cubby of the ATV since there were no trash cans–and the last thing we wanted was to put anything scented in our tent with us. We set up our rain fly just in time for a downpour that didn’t look like it’d let up anytime soon. Bit of a bummer, but we weren’t going to make a campfire in an undesignated campsite anyway, so we tucked in early to play cards and then get some extra shuteye.

If you’ve ever slept in a tent in a storm, you know that the sleep is usually sub-optimal. The sound of the rain was loud enough that I felt quite nervous we wouldn’t hear if a bear came sniffing around. It was too early for bed, but we were trapped. It was not a restful night, but hours into it we eventually passed out.

I awoke to a sound.

It was dark. Humidity choked the air. Drips from the tent edges occasionally made their way onto us. I became instantly aware that I’d heard a sound very close to me. Right outside the tent.

I froze, listening.

It came again. Something actually touching our tent. Not even right outside the tent. Inside the rain fly, between the shell and the actual tent, in the narrow triangle of space directly beside me. A thump, movement, more droplets falling. A pictured a large paw swiping it. A bear trying to find its way inside to eat whatever its super-human nose could smell. (Us.)

The peril of that moment, the feeling of immobilized terror, of no good choices–it has surely made its way into my fiction. You can’t distill that feeling of impending death on the page unless you’ve felt flashes of it in real life.

I woke Kyle. We pulled out the canister of bear spray. I was doing mental calculations of how far away the ATV was parked, how fast we could get out the other side of the tent and run to it, if a bear could outrun a 4-wheeler…

Kyle started talking loudly, which is what you’re supposed to do with bears. A big, calm voice telling it we weren’t tasty. The pawing at the tent side paused, then resumed. Maybe more urgent. Thumping swipes inside the rain fly.

Of course by this point I was scooted as far from the warm body thumping into the mesh side of the tent as I could get, but it definitely made contact. Kyle found his head lamp and turned it on. I searched for the big, clawed paw. I searched for a snuffling snout.

Something jumped at me. I, in true Annie fashion, squeaked in terror.

It jumped again, and again, and again. Frantic. Eyes glowing in the flashlight. A living ball of panic flinging itself against the mesh that it couldn’t see, like an invisible wall.

A bunny.

It took us a hilarious while to get it out of the rain fly. It just kept hopping into the tent wall, trying to break through. I didn’t want Kyle to unzip the tent because I was worried the rabbit would hop in with us and we’d never get it out, but he did stick an arm out and shine his light through the gap under the rain fly edge to show it where it could get out, and that eventually worked.

So, my first wild bear encounter turned out to be a bunny, but not all camping encounters end quite so charmingly. In fact, sometimes when you’re out in the wilderness, you cross paths with things far stranger and more sinister than a bear…

The Other

It’s not a sequel. It’s next in the sequence…

A couple meet their doppelgangers on a hiking trail while camping and are soon tested on how well they truly know the other.

The second novella in The Outsiders Sequence, following The Extra.

Out now from Shortwave Publishing. Where to buy:

• Shortwave Direct Shop • Next Chapter Booksellers • Amazon • Audible • Barnes & Noble • Books-A-Million • BookShop.org • Hudson Booksellers • IndieBound • Simon & Schuster • Target • Walmart •

“Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra ranks as one of the most clever and frightening horror novellas in recent memory, but that was only the beginning. This June, Neugebauer returns with the next book in what’s been dubbed “The Outsiders Sequence.” This time, Neugebauer’s strange world of doppelgangers and mimics turns to a couple on a hike who run into their exact duplicates, setting off a chain of events that will test their understanding of each other in terrifying ways. Neugebauer’s one of horror’s finest rising stars right now, so if you haven’t jumped on board The Outsiders Sequence yet, pick up The Extra and get ready for The Other.” —Bloody Disgusting

Early reviews agree that if you liked The Extra, you’ll love The Other. Set in the same uncanny universe, but with a new story that stands on its own, readers of Book 1 and newcomers to The Sequence alike are raving.

“The Other is, for the second time in a row, an A-star-star concept from Neugebauer, executed absolutely ruthlessly. An airless novella that raised my heartbeat so high that I considered the two hours I spent slumped in bed with it my exercise for the day- there is no reason why you shouldn’t be picking this one up if you’re looking for a quick, vicious hit of horror.

It’s a single-sitting, no-messing nightmare that is proficient in eliciting almost every sub-category of horror- anxiety, unease, terror. This is lean and vicious and comes enthusiastically recommended (along with its predecessor) by yours truly- although under no circumstances is it to be read in a tent.” —FanFiAddict

For those of you who like to listen to your books, you’ll be delighted to know that narrator of the audiobook for The Extra, Sean Patrick Hopkins, has returned for The Other with Patricia Santomasso, and they knock it out of the park. Just absolutely phenomenal actors who bring relatability, tension, and nuance to the characters. I highly recommend grabbing an audio copy.

“Neugebauer doesn’t need monsters when she has mirrors. The Other burrows into the terrifying possibility that selfhood might not be as fixed as we believe.

Neugebauer’s prose is clean and controlled, as always. She is just a master, allowing the strangeness of the situation to take center stage without unnecessary embellishment. She trusts the reader to sit with ambiguity, and that trust pays off.” —Ginger Nuts of Horror

The reception of Book 2 so far has been sort of breathtaking to me. I never intended to be the author of anyone’s favorite series with my third book ever published, but here we are, and I could not be more honored or more delighted to be the one freaking you out. Thank you so much to all of the readers who’ve been spreading the word about this sequence. These novellas are the little novellas that could, and any success they find has been thanks to the folks who champion them.

“Annie Neugebauer takes the doppelganger possibility to an entirely new level in The Other where it becomes far more terrifying than just finding someone who resembles you.

The Other by Annie Neugebauer is a quick, eerie and unsettling read that sneaks up on you in the best way possible. The story blends psychological tension with shocking twists and turns that you won’t see coming. I am eagerly awaiting The Spare which is on the horizon.” —Capes and Tights

The Other is out now. Grab a copy or two, settle in somewhere *safe and solitary, and enjoy.

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Once My Dream Comes True: Announcing my Debut Novel

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Annie Neugebauer

I find myself in the surprising position of being a writer having worked for almost two decades toward a goal, finally achieving the goal, and being at a loss of words for how to announce it.

Those of you who’ve followed my blog for years, especially back when I posted often, know that my biggest long-term dream has been to publish a novel with one of the ‘Big 5’ publishers (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster). It has not been an easy journey.

I’ve stuck to that goal through the death of my dad, getting married, having kids, health issues, global issues, all kinds of personal and public trials and triumphs.

I might have at times seen my inability to have a novel picked up by a big press as a failure. The close calls we had could take the wind out of you. ‘Revise and resubmits’ that fell through. “Rave rejection” became part of my regular lingo. But my agent stood by me, and my husband, and my writing friends supported me even when they didn’t fully understand why I didn’t just adjust the course.

It meant sticking it out with book after book sliding into the someday drawer rather than moving to self-publishing or independent presses. (I did eventually realize that I could do non-novel books with top indie presses and still have a novel debut with Big 5, which is how I ended up publishing my novellas with Shortwave and my collection with Bad Hand. Experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything.) But I believed, right or wrong, that my novels merited a larger audience than any of the other routes could provide.

It is fitting that the novel to ultimately become my debut is a book about hope at its most dire, in the midst of darkness, against seemingly impossible odds.

On February 4, I got the offer. A week ago, the contract was officially completed. Today, it’s been announced in Publishers Marketplace. My novel Once the Darkness Comes has been bought in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal along with an unwritten novella, by Union Square & Co., an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.—a Big 5 publisher.

Do I need to describe the feeling? I think if you’ve stuck with me this long, you feel it. I’m soaring. Triumph, validation, joy, exhilaration, relief, nerves, calm. So much. Just right.

This book has been a long time in the making, and yet I feel I’m just getting started. There’s work to do, and much to learn. I can’t wait to get to work with my new editor. I can’t wait to learn. And friends, I cannot wait for you to finally get your hands on what will be my debut novel.

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You Have to Release the Book

Posted on March 17, 2026 by Annie Neugebauer

In many ways, when you write a book, it becomes a snapshot of that time in your life, autobiographical or not. That’s not to say that a reader can tell what’s going on in an author’s life—not at all, although guesses abound and are sometimes right—but for the prolific writer, it’s like smelling a certain scent and being taken back to childhood, or feeling a texture that reminds you of a relative’s house. You’re transported.

When I reread things I wrote, they are of a time in my life. There’s the book I wrote while I was pregnant. There’s the story I wrote postpartum. There’s the novel I wrote when I thought I might have to give up on a certain dream, and another I created when I realized I’d be leaving Texas. There’s my first one, my first good one, the one I wrote during this or that trial or phase, etc. There’s deep examination of issues I wrestled with. There’s posthumous relationship studies. There are larks, side quests. There are explorations of beliefs. Reading any one of them might remind me of when I wrote it, what I was dealing with, how I felt and who I was with.

With a novel, for me, that’s usually a span of a few months, occasionally a year or so, that I can point to on the timeline of my life with relative specificity. I can say: “I’d just left my first agent and was afraid I’d never find a second. I was determined to do things my way. I dug into the literary side of things at the behest of a critique partner. I excavated childhood pain and explored the concept of forgiveness at its most dire during the same summer that my best friend and I decided to start lifting weights together.” You see how many things are rolled tightly into a specific project?

But the collection I have releasing today spans nearly two decades of my life.

All of my books are special to me. They all mean so much. It’s not that You Have to Let Them Bleed is my favorite or more important. But it is my first full-length book, and it holds within it 19 years’ worth of pouring my heart into this exquisite art and refusing to give up in this ridiculous industry.

This collection represents so much of my life during these two decades of toil and growth.

It’s my college poetry class, and me being one of the only students to bring in a poem for review every single class instead of hitting the mandatory three total for the semester.

It’s my dad dying, years of grief I can still just barely contain inside. It’s also his belief in me, support of me, love for me.

It’s my poetry critique group, the four of us who used to meet once a week for years to analyze and improve line by line, word by word individual poems, including the eight that frame out this collection.

It’s my prose critique group, the dozen-or-so-shifting of us who met once a week for years and years to learn and grow together, support each other, cheer each other on and commiserate. The majority of the stories in this collection moved through them.

It’s my mom, and her pride in how hard I work. It’s countless dejected and excited phone calls. Hours of scheming.

It’s my friends who’ve laughed with me, at me, and let me cry on their shoulders. It’s my friends who’ve read this story or that, my beta readers who’ve texted me wild reactions, my husband who’s given me the side-eye after the darkest of my dark pieces (and still crawled into bed to snuggle me—brave man).

It’s a couple of dear friends who I’ve parted ways with. It’s the holes they’ve left behind in my heart.

It’s my decision to do this even though it would’ve been so much easier not to. Over, and over, and over again.

It’s what I come back to, time and again, to process and express and change my world. It’s my whole dark and tender heart spread across the page in lines of text. You’ll have to forgive me if it’s a bit bloody.

When the book is out, it’s not mine anymore. Not just mine, anyway. It becomes the reader’s.

It becomes a book for all of those people, past and present in my life, who are waiting to see it. It becomes my friend Dan’s, who wrote the beautiful foreword. It becomes my friend Caitlin’s, who’s cheered me on from day one. It becomes my critics’. It becomes my old teachers’, my current coworkers’, my kids’ when they get older.

It becomes a book for the stranger who pops into the independent bookstore and takes a chance—or the one at the big chain who ventures beyond the front displays. It becomes a book for people in Minnesota who like events like tonight’s. It becomes a book for someone on Instagram who told someone else on Instagram they should check it out. It becomes a book for the person struggling, the person longing, the person exorcising fears.

If you want it, it becomes yours. For better or for worse, I have to release it.

There are more things to write. And these I’ve left for you?

You’ll have to let them bleed.

• Amazon • Apple • Barnes & Noble • IndieBound • Kobo • Goodreads •

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The Other Cover, Another Extra Cover, Bestseller Banners, and Bleeding Release Dates

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Annie Neugebauer

I’m so excited to share the cover for The Other, the second installment in The Outsiders Sequence.

It’s not a sequel. It’s next in the sequence…

A couple meet their doppelgangers on a hiking trail while camping and are soon tested on how well they truly know the other.

Releasing June 9th. Preorders are open now!

What’s more, how about an extra edition of The Extra?!? Now that my publisher has distribution through Simon & Schuster—which means my books will now be easily available in major stores!—they’re releasing an updated version of the first book in The Outsiders Sequence. Now with the series title, that killer Wall Street Jornal blurb, and matching the second book:

Ten people head out on a backpacking trip, but the first night eleven set up camp. Everyone remembers everyone else. Who is the extra?

Second edition preorders are open now!

[Please note that preorders opening for this second edition also means that the first edition is no longer available for order. You might find some copies floating around here and there, but otherwise will need to preorder this one. But don’t worry, it’ll be released on March 24, so you won’t have to wait long!]

While we’re at it, here’s some amazing news about The Extra! It’s now Shortwave’s 3rd bestselling title ever!! That’s absolutely unbelievable to me. It’s only been out for five months. If you click through to the publisher’s catalog page for the book, you’ll see that now it has a “bestseller” banner. 😀 Thank you so much to everyone who’s supported this little novella! Your preorders, reviews, and word of mouth are truly invaluable!

For those of you who’ve preordered my debut collection, You Have to Let Them Bleed, I want to thank you for your patience. That publisher *also* acquired major distribution (again, bookstores–YAY!), so we decided to push back the release date to utilize that. And since we had to hop over The Extra, it meant pushing it to this year. And now minor printing delays have caused us to bump it to March 17. (Final answer!!) Honestly, given the absolute chaos of the world and especially my corner of it, I’m not mad at a few extra weeks to catch up.

SO. If you’re up here near The Twin Cities, please stop by Next Chapter Booksellers at 6pm on March 17th for my launch event! And if you’re elsewhere, feel free to use these last few weeks to get in your preorders. If you order directly from Bad Hand Books, your copy will come with a signed bookplate while supplies last.

It’s a busy, busy few months for me. I hope to see you in the stacks!

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A Year of Long-Awaited Firsts

Posted on December 28, 2025 by Annie Neugebauer

It might come as no surprise that when I reflect on 2025, it’s largely shiny because it was full of firsts. I held *both* of my first two books in my hands for the first time. I received *all* of my first blurbs for them. I signed oodles of book plates. I moved out of my home state of Texas to Minnesota. I had my first launch party. I saw my books in-stores for the first time, with a shelf talker, a signed sticker, a local author sticker. I had my first in-person book signing. I was reviewed in some amazing publications, including The Wall Street Journal to high praise. Any way I slice it, it’s been an incredibly fulfilling year writing-wise, with so many firsts that were long held dreams come true.

It wasn’t just sitting back and enjoying the ride, though. This year was also packed with work. I published The Extra with Shortwave Publishing, a novella and my debut book. This included my first audibook, read by the talented Sean Patrick Hopkins. I also published two original short stories: “A Song of Being Left Behind” in F(r)iction Issue #25: Fairytales and “The Grief Machines” in Swing Magazine, Vol. 2, Issue 1. One original poem came out: “The Bundles” in the Horror Writers Association’s Poetry Showcase XII. And I had a foreign language translation with “So Sings the Siren” being translated into Spanish: “Así Canta la Sirena” in Déjate Caer, La Tuerca Andante.

I also sold my first sequels! Shortwave loved my pitches for The Other and The Spare, which together with The Extra we’re calling The Outsiders Sequence. I had one story accepted in an incredibly competative anthology called Silent Nightmares: Haunting Stories to Be Told on the Longest Night of the Year, edited by Michael Bailey and Chuck Palahniuk, with Saga (Simon & Schuster). And I was invited to write a story for another anthology, announcement forthcoming. Of those sold, I wrote all but “We Have Always Been Red” this same year that I sold them, for somewhere around 55,000 words of fresh fiction.

Not bad for a world on fire, selling a house, moving across the country, starting a part-time volunteer job, and moving into a new home.

Next year, I’d love for the non-writing stuff to calm down, but the writing stuff looks just as full if not more so. My collection You Have to Let Them Bleed comes out soon, in February, with an in-person launch event planned for 2/17. The Extra’s second edition/re-release with Simon & Schuster distribution is in March. And The Other comes out in June. Not to mention the stories I sold, and whatever other bookish mischief I can get up to. It’s a cool job, and I’m grateful to do it every day. No matter what is happening around me, being able to turn (and return) to writing is one of my most steadfast gifts.

I hope that your year has had beautiful things in it, and that you face the coming one with hope and something to look forward to.

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