Acquired Taste Launch Party with Clay McLeod Chapman!

Join us for The Twisted Spine's first ever in-store event as we celebrate the launch of Acquired Taste, the newest book by the one and only Clay McLeod Chapman on Tuesday, September 9th, at 7 pm!

Bring your own baby carrots! Prepare for the Axolotl licking contest! Snacks and games galore!

See event guidelines below.

About Acquired Taste:

A startling, witty and downright terrifying collection of 25 short stories from the “21st century’s Richard Matheson” (Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman.) Perfect for fans of Paul Tremblay, Rachel Harrison and Eric LaRocca.They’re feeding on you too. A father returns from serving in Vietnam with a strange and terrifying addiction; a man removes something horrifying from his fireplace, and becomes desperate to return it; and a right-wing news channel has its hooks in people in more ways than one.From department store Santas to ghost boyfriends and salamander-worshipping nuns; from the claustrophobia of the Covid-19 pandemic to small-town Chesapeake USA, Clay McLeod Chapman takes universal fears of parenthood, addiction and political divisions and makes them uniquely his own.Packed full of humanity, humour and above all, relentless creeping dread, Acquired Taste is a timely descent into the mind of one of modern horror’s finest authors.

About Clay McLeod Chapman: the author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, Kill Your Darling, Stay on the Line, What Kind of Mother, Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane, The Remaking, and miss corpus, story collections nothing untoward, commencement and rest area, as well as The Tribe middlegrade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal and Academic Assassins.

Upcoming books include the short story collection Acquired Taste (September 2025), the YA sci-fi/horror novel Shiny Happy People (November 2025), the novella Bodies of Work (April 2026) and the Harlequin “horrormance” novel Devil Inside (August 2026).

He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award.

Event guidelines:

Each ticket includes either a copy of the featured book or a $15 Twisted Spine gift card.

Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.

A signing will follow the event.

If you have any questions about the guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact info@twistedspinebooks.com.