My auction for ad space on Niteblade, a copy of Sister Margaret and a copy of Lost Innocence ends at midnight tomorrow. Right now it has one bid on it (thank you Greg) for $5. Surely we can do better than that? The auction is here please check it out.
In other news, my short story “How It’s Supposed To Be” is up at The Legendary. Sadly, this story was inspired by a very similar situation that happened here in Edmonton not so very long ago.
A couple months ago I was asked by Monsters Next Door editor, LB Goddard if I would care to contribute something to an upcoming poetry anthology. Would I? I was so flattered to be invited to submit that I practically turned myself inside out in my haste to say ‘Yes, yes I would!’. Then, of course, I had to think of something to write. Easier said than done.
I put a ridiculous amount of pressure on myself to come up with something -good-. Something scary but with depth, haunting and evocative. You know what I found out? You can’t force that and it wasn’t going to happen LOL So I went with cheesy. I love cheesy horror, and apparently LB doesn’t mind it either because everything I submitted got in 🙂
The first piece of mine is called “Zonnet” and is, as the name sort of implies, a zombie-themed sonnet. I don’t actually like sonnets because I dislike iambic pentameter (the extra foot makes it awkward, I prefer iambic tetrameter, but we’ll get to that later). Still, I do enjoy taking a traditional/pretentious format like the sonnet and writing it about something as irreverent as zombies. This specific poem was directly influenced by S.G. Browne’s zom-rom-com Breathers.
My second poem is “Lycanthroku” which is a series of three shapeshifter-themed haiku, followed by “Lycanthrick” which is a werewolf limrick Jo and I composed while I was using him to bounce poem ideas off. I’m a fan of “Lycanthrick” all by itself, but it’s got an extra special spot in my heart because it’s the first time Jo and I have shared a byline. Awww /gush
I rounded out my submission with “The Sepultress” which is a reprinted poem I wrote in iambic tetrameter, because I like it far more than pentameter. Just sayin’ 😉
The book, Scattered Verses, Moonlit Curses, also features the work of Alexis Child, Charlotte Gledson, Natalie Sin, Julie “Cannibal Rose” Thielen, LB Goddard, Shells Walter, Richard Fay, Benjamin Bussey and Brian Beemer. I’ve not read it all yet, but I have looked through enough to suspect that cheesy horror wasn’t the style of choice for most people, happily, I don’t mind being different. I hope to read it sooner rather than later and share my impressions, but I haven’t had a chance yet. In my defense, the book just came out yesterday LOL
At the World Fantasy convention in Calgary I listened to Garth Nix read an awesome story telling the tale of Rapunzel from the witch’s point of view. I loved it, but I misheard him when he said what anthology it was going to be included in. I thought he said ‘A Child’s Eye View’ and when I got home, no matter how hard I searched I couldn’t find any reference to that book. When Ellen Datlow posted the table of contents for her newest anthology (with Terri Windling) on her livejournal I almost jumped in my seat for excitement. There was the story. How I misheard troll for child is beyond me, but apparently I had.
The table of contents for this book is amazing. Peter S. Beagle and Neil Gaiman. Garth Nix and Kelly Link. Jane Yolen and Holly Black. The list goes on and on. Plus it’s all about retold fairy tales, which I love. I had to have this book.
It arrived when I was in Winnipeg at the World Horror Convention and by the time I got home I’d already started reading One (by Conrad Williams) and wasn’t willing to stop. Plus, I had all that pesky schoolwork and stuff to do. Bleh. However, I finished One on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon I had to go pick my daughter up from choir and take her to salsa. I had another errand I needed to do which meant I was going to be sitting in her school hallway for at least half an hour waiting for her to get out of choir. There was no way I was going to bring my books and spread them all around me to work, so I grabbed my copy of Troll’s Eye View and away I went.
The cover is amazing. Kids walking down the hall would stop just to look at it and then scurry away (hopefully with the title embedded in their brains somewhere). The stories were fantastic too.
I finished the book Tuesday night. I know it’s a children’s book so this says nothing for my speed reading skills, but it should be noted that I passed up playing World of Warcraft in order to finish the book. That’s almost unheard of in my world LOL
I enjoyed all the stories, every single one. There wasn’t a weak link or a dud in the bunch as far as I’m concerned. Some of them were funny, some a little darker, all were unique and well worth reading. I think my favorite story of all of them was The Shoes That Were Danced To Pieces by Ellen Kushner. As an oldest child myself I could totally relate to the main character and I really felt for her (and myself). Sometimes being responsible is a terrible burden.
I also adored Kelly Link’s The Cinderella Game and of course Garth Nix’s An Unwelcome Guest. For very different reasons. Garth’s story made me laugh out loud more than once but Kelly’s was far darker. A Delicate Architecture by Catherynne M. Valente is another story I won’t soon forget. It’s beautiful and dark and sweet. Oh so sweet. 😉
Now that I”m done reading it, I will let Danica borrow Troll’s Eye View and see what she thinks of it. I suspect her favorite stories will be Garth Nix’s An Unwelcome Guest and Wizard’s Apprentice by Delia Sherman but there’s only one way to find out for sure.
I recently won a copy of Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, a horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow. I’ve been interested in reading this anthology since the World Fantasy convention in Calgary where I was lucky enough to be sitting with someone with an anthology on the ballot for best anthology (which is not the official title for the category, but you get the idea). He was a wonderful guy who was hopeful for a win, but not optimistic. He figured Inferno would win and had nothing but good things to say about it. If Ellen’s competition only had good things to say about the book (which did win), how could I not want to read it?
The only catch to winning the book was that I had to blog about it — whether I liked it or not. This caused me a bit of stress because I’m not very good at writing book reviews and so I don’t like doing them. I was also concerned that I wouldn’t like it and then would be in the somewhat awkward position of writing bad things about a book I didn’t pay for.
I needn’t have worried.
While every story in Inferno wasn’t to my liking, the majority were and they spanned a vast spectrum of subjects. It was an unthemed anthology, in order to be included a story had to “provide the reader with a frisson of shock, or a moment of dead so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable that the reader feels impelled to turn up the lights very bright and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear; or to linger in the reader’s consciousness for a long, long time after the final word is read.”
I have yet to ever find a book that affected me in the first two ways and the stories in this collection were no exception, however, there were a great many which lingered in my consciousness for a very long time. Many times after reading a story I would need to close the book and walk away, to savor the piece I’d just read before going on to the next. Sometimes pieces of the text itself would be stuck in my mind, a line here or there, or a snippet of description so evocative it wouldn’t leave me alone.
I think my favorite story from the collection is The Keeper by P.D. Cacek. It’s a beautifully-written piece about the child survivor of a real-life horror. It is well worth reading and has tear-stained pages in my copy of the book. Hushabye by Simon Bestwick teased my imagination. What I originally thought was simply going to be a simple story taking an abstract idea and making it literal, turned out to be that and so much more. Very much a page-turner and a story I enjoyed immensely. An Apiary of White Bees by Lee Thomas is, in my opinion, one of the most unique stories in the collection and certainly lingered (and lingers still) in the corner of my mind long after I finished it. Pat Cadigan’s Stilled Life is another story I won’t soon forget and which was told with a finesse I greatly admire and envy.
In short, if you love scary short stories Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural is a book you should consider picking up. You may not be blown away by every story within its covers, but it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll find more than enough to make it worth your investment of both time and money. I know my copy is going to get read over and over again.
I received my contributor’s copy of Abominations last week and it made me -so- happy, you can’t imagine. Allow me to tell you some of the reasons I, quite literally, went ‘squee!’ when I got it. In no particular order:
So yes, I was blown away by Abominations before I even started reading, but now that I’ve devoured it, from cover to cover, I love it even more. Every author’s take on the idea of Abominations was unique and interesting. I think my two favorite stories were ‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY CHARLES?’ by John Teehan and ‘STARVELITO’ by Lon Prater. Both of them are absolutely brilliant.
If you haven’t done it already and you like horror stories, you really ought to pick up a copy of Abominations, and trust me when I say I’d tell you that even if my own story wasn’t in it. Really. It’s a killer book 🙂
Well, we finished up Lost Innocence and released it for sale yesterday — a day early! How’s that for awesomeness? 🙂 The book is brilliant, even if I do say so myself. It’s filled with thirteen stories and thirteen poems that will knock your socks off.
It’s available now by clicking the cover image above. Check it out, you can see the first ten pages completely free and I’d love to hear what you think about the layout which is slightly different than what we use for the magazine.
I’m obsessively checking the page for sales and reviews as well (we’ve had some of the former, none of the latter yet) and the only rating so far is my own LOL Not that I’m biased or anything, but I gave it a six out of five 🙂
