Things are about to get very weird in Desert Radio, the debut novel from San Francisco-based author Pamela M. Durgin. Look for Desert Radio coming this Fall to independent booksellers everywhere, and most online retailers. Copies with signed bookplates will be available for preorder direct from Word Horde.
“To desert radio—the signals we send out into the abyss—and to everything that answers.”
The California desert hides a lot of things. For Gloria, it is a place to get away from her past and her addictions. Gloria expected to find a quiet place, where salt flats and dunes stretch on and the night sky is littered with stars. What she didn’t expect to find was an oasis, a community, and a job as a late-night DJ on a rock-and-roll radio station.
There is strangeness in the desert. Missing persons. Ancient petroglyphs. Distorted voices on the radio. Ghostly dogs. And more. Government conspiracies, weird rituals, and unfathomable entities that have been visiting the area for centuries.
Sure, the people in the desert are little bit strange, a little bit paranoid. But they’re survivors, just like Gloria.
Things are about to get very weird.
Cover Art & Design by Yves Tourigny
Pub Date: September 29, 2026
Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-956252-14-9
Format: eBook
ISBN-13: 978-1-939905-81-9
Reviews
“Desert Radio is a complex novel with grand weirdness that taps into the curiosity we have as human beings, as well as our many vulnerabilities. The uncanny, the liminal, and the wondrous unfold in so many fascinating ways. It’s Pontypool meets Lost Highway filtered through a cosmic horror lens. One of my favorite authors writing today.”
—Richard Thomas, author of Transubstantiate
“Here’s a PSA for you: Pamela Durgin knows secrets. She knows the great deserts of the American West are as weird as the ancient forests of the North—and she knows these deserts come alive at night. She knows the slow, soft tread of the tarantula, and the scorpion’s sudden sting—and she knows these are not the strangest creatures moving through the dark. Not even close. She knows that the key to so much of the best Weird Fiction—from Blackwood and Hodgson right up till now—is atmosphere. And she knows how to build it. She also knows when to strike. And where. Pamela Durgin knows secrets. Maybe more than she should. In Desert Radio she’ll share them with you. Maybe more than you’re ready to learn.”
—Scott Nicolay, author of And At My Back I Always Hear
“Outré radio transmissions. Clandestine government experiments. Otherworldly beings. Cults and occult rituals. A desert town whose blistering heat incubates dark secrets. Pamela Durgin’s fantastic debut novel Desert Radio reads like Banshee Chapter meets From Beyond.
—Matthew M. Bartlett, author of Gateways to Abomination and Dangerous Creeps
“A shimmering descent into madness. This is a tale of betrayal drenched in a beautiful weirdness. Atmospheric, tense, and delicious, Durgin makes the heat and grit of the desert feel like pleasure.”
—S.L. Coney, author of Wild Spaces, an Esquire Best of Horror 2023 pick
“Pamela Durgin’s debut is a dust devil of fantastic weird fiction and liminal high-strangeness dialed to eleven. Government conspiracy, MK ULTRA, Crowley, & numbers stations all converge in a tale I simply couldn’t put down. Highly recommended.”
—Todd Keisling, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Devil’s Creek and The Sundowner’s Dance