Coming Dec. 2 - A Disturbance of Shadows

 

A Disturbance of Shadows, a short haunted-house-slasher-cosmic horror blend of mine is coming Dec. 2 from Crossroad Press.

It's a return to Louisiana for me and to the realm of Aismley where many of my early books are set.

Hopefully it's an intense little burst for readers as events unfold at an old Louisiana mansion where a reporter and videographer seek refuge during a storm. Dark secrets are housed in the house, of course, and details about a peripheral character of mine come into more focus in and around sightings of a couple of local ghosts.

Pre-order now for a nice price here. (Amazon is offering a Pre-order price guarantee.)

A Carnival of Robert Bloch Stories

I recently spent some time reading or re-reading some Robert Bloch stories because some friends and I were chatting about his work.

I have a number of his anthologies tucked away, and I'm gradually picking up the new releases from Valancourt. 

I guess I'd failed to notice how many carnival stories Bloch produced, and if we stretch it to amusement parks, there's an interesting cycle. 

Reading now brought back a few memories and generated a few Bloch chills as well. 

The parish fair when I was a kid still included remnants of the side shows of earlier years. My parents skewed me toward the rides, and we bought Cokes from the Shriners booth and avoiding the more salacious attractions. I suspect even then the Wild Man of Borneo was watered down from the geek shows of  prior decades. I have a very vague recollection of a peripheral glimpse of the "wild man" huddled in small cage as we passed an attraction. I believe he was draped in hair and just growling.

I recall some of the carnival art as well, and a few snippets of a barker over a PA, but that's about all I can summon to the surface. 

I think I recalled that first after reading and gaining more understanding from Harlan Ellison's essay "The Gopher in the Gilly" in Stalking the Nightmare about his being left behind in jail by a carnival with a true geek who sweated pure alcohol. It's a pretty chilling true tale.

Bloch's "Double Whammy" incorporates the grotesque exploitation of a carnival geek into its mix. It's like a variant on Nightmare Alley but finds a new fate for it's protagonist/cad in EC Comics/karmic destiny fashion. 

Despite some familiar strokes, it delivers a Bloch twist that fits while making the skin crawl. It first appeared in Fantastic Stories in February 1970. The cover on that doesn't hint at the style of horror in store.

The Animal Fair's maybe the best of the carnival tales, that one a recent re-read for me and even more chilling than when I was a kid.

It's Manson Family inspired and captures some of the same dark chills of "Double Whammy" from a little different character perspective. The final chill  

"Freak Show" from 1979 presents almost a walk-through of a sideshow attractions, the freak show as it was known in the day, with a little different turning of the tables as the story progresses. Bloch could aways find a new spint.

 "The Girl From Mars,"  is also a carnival story despite that sci-fi sounding title. It visits similar territory, serves up another cad, also deserving of karma's wry justice. It's original magazine appearance in Fantastic Adventures with art by Rod Ruth. 

Amid the Lovecraftian tales, his realistic crime thrillers and other Bloch brilliance, Bloch's carnival stories serve a grotesque little subset worth seeking out. 

GNELFS are back and a Secret Revealed

The team at Crossroad Press actually broached the notion of bringing some of my backlist out in new print editions for the first time at Scares That Care Authorcon in the spring of this year (2023). They've had ebook and audiobook editions out for some time but had plans to do more with their print catalog.

I said sure, and in the fall, they touched base about getting the original cover art for a trade paper edition of GNELFS. 

Since there was no art credit on the original mass market edition, I had to reach out to the last editor I had at Kensington Books. He reached out to the art department, but he wasn't optimistic.

They turned up a name, Richard Newton, and Crossroad reached out to him and worked out some sort of deal for the cover, partly as a flag to the fact they published broad backlists of vintage horror titles.

I was kind of amazed to see the crispness of the digital art they obtained. The size of the original mass market had resulted in the original painting being cropped, and other losses in reproduction had affected the color mix and more.

Happily on the new mass market, much is restored. 

The re-release prompted me to search for GNELFS online a little more, and I discovered more love for the book than I'd ever realized. Some of it's cropped up in the past few years in a wave of interest in vintage horror titles following the release of Paperbacks From Hell even though the art didn't appear in the volume. None of my titles did.

I actually became aware of some of that love because British author Mark Morris revealed on socials he desired a copy of GNELFS. He pointed me to a YouTube channel where his novel Stitch and GNELFS were reviewed.

So, it's exciting to have the book back in new paper editions with new people discovering it. 

It's also fun to find people like Danube, the peripheral protagonist who joins Gabriella Harris in her struggle against dark magic.

I originally thought I might do more with Danube, gradually revealing more of his history. Clues are in place for his identity, but they are not overtly stated. 

That was not to be, but I considered using Danube when I was invited to do something for Malibu Graphics back in the day. 

He seemed like a natural for some comics adventures, but I was worried about tangling up the rights to a character I might use again in print. 

I developed Peter Mantus from there. Mantus, like Danube, was essentially a psychic investigator. 

He also had a complicated history with his father, a dark sorcerer. Mantus, not Mantis as some people mistake it at times, took his surname--and pseudonym since he wrote books about his investigations--from a demon or god depending on who you talk to, sort of as a reminder of his father's bad acts and what he was standing against.

I've probably mentioned that before in interviews or somewhere, but it's nice to get it all in one place here. 

It's been kind of fun to learn in some cases GNELFS was a favorite book for many readers when they were younger, even though it wasn't written as a YA. 

The concept and art are iconic, so GNELFS stands out, I guess. As Stephen King said not long ago, long after he's gone, "that fucking clown" will be remembered.

Probably so too for me and these little minions. So it goes.

Folk Horror Tok - Halloween and Harvest Season Six-Word Stories

Just like a TikTok video, Halloween got over too soon.

It's fun experimenting with the TikTok platform. It's challenging to work in a form that can fit in a very short time frame. I did a series of six-word horror stories leading up to Halloween 2022.

Each was designed to stand alone but also to contribute to a progressing narrative, culminating on the day Halloween. I was happy with how things came together. A folk horror tale emerged, drawing in many Harvest time trappings. 

The spoken-word versions are aligned here in appropriate order now. 

@willysid #Halloween #October #microfiction #horror #horrorstory #writing #writingcommunity #shortstory #flashfiction ♬ Eerie - Music Beyond

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@willysid #horror #sixwordhorrorstories #october #halloween #microfiction #shortstories #fiction#flashfiction #flashfictionfun ♬ Eerie - Music Beyond

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@willysid #sixwordhorrorstories #horror #halloween #october #shortstories #microfiction #writing #scarystories #harvest ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

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@willysid #amwriting #sixwordstory #microfiction #writing #sixwordhorrorstories #shortstory #horror #spooky #october #Halloween #horrortok #horrorstory #horrortiktok #horror ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

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@willysid #sixwordstory #sixwordhorrorstories #horrortiktok😱😱 #horrortok #horror #microfiction #microfictions #halloween #octobermood #october ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

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@willysid #sixwordstory #sixwordhorrorstory #writing #microfiction #shortstories #flash #flashfiction #amwriting #halloween #october #horrortok #horrortiktok #sixwordstories #horror #Halloween #octobermood #octobertiktok #october #horrorfan #folkhorror #spooky ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

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@willysid #sixwordstory #sixwordhorrorstory #writing #microfiction #shortstories #flash #flashfiction #amwriting #halloween #october #horrortok #horrortiktok #sixwordstories #horror #Halloween #october #tiktokhorror #flashfiction ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

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@willysid #sixwordstory #sixwordhorrorstory #writing #microfiction #shortstories #flash #flashfiction #amwriting #halloween #october #horrortok #horrortiktok #sixwordstories #horror #Halloween #october #tiktokhorror #flashfiction ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

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@willysid #sixwordstory #sixwordhorrorstory #writing #microfiction #shortstories #flash #flashfiction #amwriting #halloween #october #horrortok #horrortiktok #sixwordstories #horror #Halloween #october #tiktokhorror #flashfiction ♬ Eerie Music - Sound Collective

A Bit of Christmas Microfiction

@willysid #microfiction #horrortiktok #horrortok #Christmas #christmasghoststory #christmasghost #ghost #scary #spooky #flash #YALit #youngadult #youngadultliterature #YA #horror #flash #flashfiction #merrychristmas #holidays #yaliterature ♬ Instrumental Christmas Music - Christmas Music

Dark Angel Christmas - An All New Christmas Holiday Single from Sidney Williams Writing as Michael August

Okay, long story shortened - I was in a writer's group and a workshop challenge was posed, compose a Christmas horror story.

Years ago, as I sat at an intersection stop light, a car with three young ladies in Santa hats passed in front of me. I recalled that and started wondering what might happen if one of them had been left behind and had to walk. 

As I started writing, I realized I was working in the voice of Michael August, my pseudonym for young adult novels, and that the tale was going to go a little longer than the 4,000-word cap for the group. 

So, Dark Angel Christmas was born, a slightly darker Michael August tale. 

Official Synopsis

It’s a 10-minute walk to the town square for a Christmas concert, until a mysterious white truck turns up.

In seconds, following a detour to shake her stalker, Amity Nichols is in a test of endurance and a game of survival that are one and the same. Does the mysterious driver know about the dark secret she’s harboring? Or does he want something worse for her than silence?

As darkness falls, Amity will have to face a challenge of stealth and patience until decisions on life or death can’t wait any longer. 

Warning: Contains mature themes and intense situations. Dark Angel Christmas is Sidney Williams, author of The Gift and New Year's Evil, writing in a slightly darker vein as Michael August.

Mothman and Something for the Dark Illustrations

 

As noted as an addendum on a recent post on Edward D. Hoch's story "Something for the Dark," the tale originally appeared in the June 1968 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. 

The original illustrations, in the style that appeared in AHMM for the better part of 20 years or more, further evoke the mothman allusions. 

Original Publication Sites: Scars and Blue Murder

I get periodic reminders my memory is not what it used to be. 

My story "Scars" originally appeared in the online magazine Blue Murder. It's in the ebook collection Scars and Candy from Crossroad Press. I read a few flash stories from that collection the other day at the Fantasy/Sci-Fi Focus Facebook group and was reminded. 

I'm not sure the issue number any longer, and shifts from one computer to the other over the years have lost any contributor's e-copy I had.

It's a good lesson on the need to keep good records, I guess. 

The story was first submitted to the Hot Blood series, and it resulted in a freak-out rejection from Michael Garrett, I believe, and not Jeff Gelb, over something implied but not implicitly stated in the story. 

It went to some other mag of the time where it chilled one editor but not the second reader it seemed, who took it in better stride than the HB editors at least.

I don't recall Blue Murder batting an eye. Shows what a crapshoot the whole submission process is, I guess.

Wish I still had a copy of the original. I found a few others around on Planet PDF and discovered several friends in the contents pages, but haven't run across myself.

Maybe it'll turn up. At least the story's preserved in Scars. 

Cover Stories - Ali Larter was apparently the model for my novel Blood Hunter's Original Cover

Apparently even if I read reviews, I'm guilty of not reading them carefully. A gentleman named Mark Louis Baumgart was kind enough to write a thoughtful review of my novel Blood Hunter some time back. It was a meticulous piece on Amazon that sought to put the book in perspective on the horror paperback fiction landscape.

I noted it there somewhere along the way, happy to have it, of course, but I only noticed today that he included a bit of trivia several paragraphs deep.

SEE ALSO: THE RETURN OF BLOOD HUNTER

Apparently the cover painting artist on the original Pinnacle Books edition was done by E. T. Broeck Steadman, and a 17-year-old Ali Larter of Heroes was the model for his work. It was before she became an actress. Checking her bio, she must have been a Ford model at the time and just shy of heading to Italy, Japan and a few other places. 

I honestly never knew that. A little googling located the author's website with his note on the work. 

The character in the painting is a little younger than the character she more or less represents in the book, but it's still kind of fun to know.

I can't recall my original title for the book. Blood Hunter was the publisher's choice from a later list I submitted. 

SEE ALSO: WHEN DARKNESS FALLS - THE NEW COVER 

My original cover idea was a clawed hand and forearm raking its way across the cover, back of said hand and the forearm covered with mud, leaves and Spanish moss as the human creatures in the tale used to form pelts for themselves.

Something similar had been done recently, so the editor asked for another idea. 

I suggested a swamp.

"What's a swamp look like?" she asked from her New York City desk.

I had a Louisiana cypress swamp in mind. By the time notes were conveyed, the swamp took on a more lush look and the character most-closely aligned to the one on the cover lost a few years. 

So it goes, it's still a catchy image for one of my favorites of my early works. 

Order Blood Hunter here

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - Watchdog by Faith Sullivan

Faith Sullivan is a versatile author who has written a number of novels sometimes harnessing genre elements or myth. This signet edition is dated February, 1983.

SEE ALSO: Biblioholic's Bookshelf - The Scarf by Robert Bloch

I picked it up in a shop I often remember fondly here, The Book Nook, operated by a very cordial lady named Lena Cortello in Alexandria, LA.

It was a go-to spot for me, tucked in a corner shop off a major thoroughfare. It was a corner crammed with paperbacks of all varieties and comics too. 

I miss it and the era of shops like it, when there were more obscure gems than multiple copies of week-old bestsellers, but time marches on. 

I picked up some titles for 5 cents each when The Book Nook closed and inventory when to another, short-lived used book store in the '90s. I was glad for the bargains in the moment, but I should have paused to mourn. 

Playmate - A New Short Horror Mystery Story Now Available in Dark Dossier Magazine

Not long before I left Florida for my current home in Virginia, I went into my kitchen for my morning coffee. Some of you, especially if we're Facebook friends, may know how important that is to me. Let's call it a sacred rite. 

The previous evening, I'd poured out the remaining bird seeds from an old bag onto some paver stones for whoever wanted them, birds and beasts alike. I was in that "everything must go" stage of moving. The furniture was already gone, I was working on boxes for a desk and sitting in a lawn chair. I had one other lawn chair destined for Goodwill. That was for my cat Ollie in the moment.

Anything left in the house was going to have to fit into my car for the trip north, so I was purging.  

I hadn't thought about our friend the opossum as liking bird seeds. But who had pulled up a chair to the paver stones and tied a napkin around his neck but one pale grey marsupial. 

Fair enough, I thought. The seeds were for anyone.

But an eerie sensation crept over me as I sipped and did a partial turn from the window. Something struck me as strange. It was in that uncanny valley of not quite right.

I stared a little longer and realized two possums, as we say in the South, were enjoying a birdseed breakfast and angled so that they were hard to see and distinguish in early morning light.

That brief, eerie feeling of criss crossed bodies, visible limbs and pale faces made me wonder what I'd feel like if I looked out to see a disheveled person crouched among the elephant ears and other semi-tropical plants?

What if it was a person too frightened to communicate, but who would accept food left outside in a Playmate cooler?

A few elements from inside reality and out began to converge along with urban myth, and my story "Playmate" was born.

It's available in the new issue of Dark Dossier magazine, No. 56. You can order from Amazon if you want a Kindle or print copy, or you can read it free on the publication website. 

 

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - Devil Day - basis for the film Madhouse

I'm a big fan of the Vincent Price vehicle Madhouse (1974), in which he plays a horror star whose return sparks a series of murders. To me, it along with Theatre of Blood from United Artists, are interesting, seventies tales of horror and revenge that showcase Price in diverse roles. Madhouse was his final excursion with American International Pictures, however, ending an era. 

The film's based on the British novel Devilday. Editions with Price on the cover exist, but this is the British edition from Sphere that's dated September 1970. The ACE edition with the same cover is listing for $768 on Amazon right now, with $3.99 shipping, so I'm glad I got it when I did. 

 

SEE ALSO: Biblioholic's Bookshelf - To the Devil a Daughter

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - The Dark Dominion - A Dark Shadows Adjacent Collection

As you're probably aware, the Dark Shadows paperback novelizations were wildly popular when the gothic soap was on the air. Happily those are coming back into print from Heremes Press. 

A few adjacent titles were released in gold editions from Paperback Library. One of those was The Dark Dominion, dated December, 1970, with a vampire looking a lot like Christopher Lee on the cover and a werewolf looking a lot like Lon Chaney, Jr. The tales, maybe classic, maybe obscure, that are included are listed on the back cover pictured below and are available at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

SEE ALSO: Comics Catuch Up featuring a Dark Shadows/Vampirella Crossover

A Dark Shadows-licensed collection, The Dark Shadows Book of Vampires and Werewolves, was also released by Paperback Library in 1970. That'll have to wait for another post. 

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - The Scarf by Robert Bloch

The Fawcett Gold Medal edtion 1947 novel by Robert Bloch that's clearly a stepping stone on his path to Psycho. 

SEE ALSO: Favorite Short Stories - Talent by Robert Bloch

New Short Story - The Fury - in Sanitarium Magazine No. 3

 

I was excited to receive a contributor's ebook version of the new issue of Sanitarium this morning. It includes a short story from me called "The Fury."

It's a bit of literary horror fiction, I suppose, as well as a tale of suburban revenge. Neighbors can drive each other crazy after all, and frustrations of the job can carry over to other areas of life. 

The mag's actually a hefty volume with 28 authors included, so it's really like purchasing an anthology. Like most books, it would make a great gift idea too!

Order now!

Flash of Fear - Come Sunday - Crime/Horror Flash Fiction Reading

Here's an all new Flash of Fear installment, "Come Sunday, recorded to coincide with the release of Fool's Run. 

This little tale set in the Great Depression was written for a crime fiction flash contest, and I later wrote a 10-minute play that brought in a couple more characters. I think it works best with just the narrator telling her story.

SEE ALSO: FOOLISH FIRE

Biblioholic's Bookshelf: The Sorceress by

Haven't done one of these in a while. Manor Books, 1977. 

Inside, other books by the same author are noted: Mondo No. 1, 2 and 3 and Dachau Treasure. 

The Witch of Washington Park,

I'm excited to announce my 8,000-word story, "The Witch of Washington Park," will be included in the upcoming Camden Park Press anthology Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse edited by Lyn Worthen. Think of it as the flip side of A Boy and His Dog.

The story's set in a future where cataclysmic events have created a wasteland beset by predators of human and animal form alike. Of course.

My heroine, Cassandra, once a scientist, is at work attempting to prepare an urban setting to become an agricultural oasis amid the gloom of a post-apocalyptic world, but she's in danger of giving way to despair. Until she finds a young boy who needs her care.

Nothing's easy for them, of course, and the big threat's in the form of... Well, read it and see.

This story was great fun to write. I'd been wanting to do a little more in the science fiction or speculative fiction realm. The title of the anthology really sparked my imagination.

I'll post links when preorder information becomes available. Probably coming about mid-March 2020.

Flash of Fear - Pilgrim Crime Story Reading

Don't know that I'll be maintaining a weekly pace for these, but here's a new installment in my little Flash of Fear series of readings for You Tube.



This time around it's a crime story with horror elements that originally appeared in Heater magazine. It's a dark little tale of a detective called to a brutal crime scene.

Flash of Fear - Custom Scent - Horror Flash Fiction

I'd been meaning to develop some content for You Tube for a while. With me reading, very brief pieces seem to be the best idea.



This is a bit of flash fiction that appeared first in Sanitarium magazine No. 46. It was kind of fun. Maybe I'll do more.