Michael August's Young Adult Horror Newspaper Entry

I worked in newspapers for years. Toward the end of my engagement with Kensington Books, I wrote three young adult novels under the pseudonym Michael August.

Around one Halloween-time, I was asked to write a short piece for the newspaper's youth section. Or maybe I volunteered. Woulda been like me. But anyway my two worlds converged.

I re-wrote and updated the piece a couple of years ago. Since it was a short, Crossroad Press, which issued the Michael August novels in audio and ebooks didn't seem interested in adding it to the lineup, so I added it to Kindle myself to have the whole Pembrook High canon out there. It's my only self-published ebook to date unless my memory's missing something.

I recently removed it from KDP, though it will still be on Amazon. It's now on Smashwords and rolling out to other venues. Should be available on Barnes and Noble soon.

Get it here. 

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - Harvest Home

Haven't done a biblioholic's bookshelf in a while. Here's the paperback tie-in edition of Thomas Tryon's classic horror  Harvest Home released at the time of the NBC TV miniseries, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home.

Needed to be clear it was scary to viewers, I suppose. The book's out in an ebook edition that was on sale the other day, so I'm re-reading it on my Kindle.

Disciples of the Serpent Lovecraftian Novel Cover Reveal

Order from:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Smashwords

 
Here's the cover art for my new novel Disciples of the Serpent with artwork from multiple Hugo-winner Bob Eggleton.

My entry in the O.C.L.T. series is a Lovecraftian tale set in Ireland. Here's the full synopsis:

In Dublin, Ireland, academics and historians are dying. An unidentified venom is to blame. Strange markings from deep in the Emerald Isle’s past suggest adherents to lost and forbidden knowledge may have reorganized. Detective Aileen O’Donnell of Ireland’s National Police Service, An Garda Síochána, has never heard of the agency’s sub rosa unit devoted to investigation of the strange and paranormal. That is, until a shooting incident leads to her suspension from the Special Detective Unit.

While awaiting disciplinary proceedings, she’s pressed into service by the secret division to investigate the deaths and what might be the tip of a conspiracy and academic cover-up. Soon O’Donnell’s teamed with Geoffrey Bullfinch and Wendell "Mack" Macklemore of O.C.L.T. On a race through medieval ruins and holy sites, she must collect puzzle pieces, fragments from a forgotten pulp writer and bits of secret Druid history to stop the shadowy band of disciples before it awakens something long sleeping beneath one of Ireland’s most famous landmarks, something modern technology and firepower can’t defeat.

 This novel, which stands alone, is a tie-in with the ongoing O.C.L.T. series. There are incidents and emergencies in the world that defy logical explanation, events that could be defined as supernatural, extraterrestrial, or simply otherworldly. Standard laws do not allow for such instances, nor are most officials or authorities trained to handle them. In recognition of these facts, one organization has been created that can. Assembled by a loose international coalition, their mission is to deal with these situations using diplomacy, guile, force, and strategy as necessary. They shield the rest of the world from their own actions, and clean up the messes left in their wake. They are our protection, our guide, our sword, and our voice, all rolled into one.

They are O.C.L.T.

 Other books in the O.C.L.T. series include the novella "Brought to Light," By Aaron Rosenberg, the novel The Parting, by David Niall Wilson, the novella "The Temple of Camazotz," also by David Niall Wilson, and the novel Incursion, by Aaron Rosenberg (in which the existence of the O.C.L.T. as a cohesive unit is finalized). Another stand-alone adventure can be found The Noose Club, by David Bischoff (writing with David Niall Wilson). 

Recent Panel: Comics & Graphic Novels in the Digital Age

I sat in on a comics panel recently at Full Sail Hall of Fame 8. A host of other cool folks were on hand also including Roland Mann, Barry Gregory, Tom Lucas, Daniel Corey and Troy Devolld.

Cord Cutting

A cable sales rep called the other day offering me a deal on service.

"Do you have cable now?"

"No. I go with over-the-air. I get HD plus a lot of local digital channels that weren't on basic Prism from CenturyLink."

I use a Mohu Leaf, and I'm fortunate to live in a good location--major networks plus Decades, Heroes and Icons, Me TV, My TV, Cozi, Bounce Laff, Escape, Univision, Telemundo, Get, Antenna, this, Retro, Grit, Escape, QVC, ION, NASA, PBS, Create.

I really don't want for stuff not to watch. There are as many things to flip past as I ever had. Sometimes the weather affects reception, but then that happened back when I had Dish TV.

"But, do you have a way to record programs?"

"Yeah I have an over-the-air DVR."  It's a Tablo. It's fabulous and plays through Apple TV,  an Amazon Fire Stick or on a tablet if I ever need television, say, in the laundry room.

I have to wait for a few cable programs to show up on streaming services, but otherwise I do OK.

I guess a DVR was the best arrow in the quiver. The sales rep and I said our goodbyes.

I suppose all this might be affected by loss of net neutrality if it comes to that, but at the moment I'm not missing cable about one year out. I've built my own à la carte and the wheels don't even wobble.

At the moment, I'm streaming musical performances from Pluto TV's Live Music channel via Apple TV. You don't even get that on MTV anymore do you?

Upgrading to the new version of Apple TV's one of the best moves I've made since cutting the cord. It allows providers to offer their own apps, making it a little less of a closed environment than Apple TV used to be.

I've found a pretty good set of alternatives even for surfing mindlessly.  Pluto's one of the best. There's a lot to be said for MST3K any time. 
Besides that, the news junkie in me is fed by a variety of sources, some on Pluto TV like the new Chedder--CNBC for Millennials but I like it too--and others. CBSN is available on just about every device, and I supplement it with UK's Sky News feed and a few others plus podcasts of the Rachael Maddow show, a day late, but still handy.

And there are free streaming services beyond Netflix and Hulu. Shout Factory, Tubi TV, Popcorn TV, Crackle they have a few commercials and a lot of niche selections the premium services aren't bothering with.

 As I said, way, way more than I need, but it's not the having, it's the getting for the geek in me.

Home Tech Echoes

At my house, we're not quite to the point of Scotty in Star Trek IV in our expectations of audible communication with computers.

You remember:

We're getting better, however, and surprisingly Christine, who is usually skeptical of new technology, is leading the way.

Last Christmas, 2015, I asked for a couple of things, and an Amazon Echo was on the list. For most of the holiday season, I thought the Echo-shaped package under the tree must be the fulfillment of that request.

Turned out to be a new martini shaker. Good gift,  just not an Echo.

I re-submitted the request last September and got an Echo for my birthday.

Since then it has moved from the living room, where I spend a lot of time grading and used it for random Wikipedia questions, to the master bedroom where Christine can access it as she gets dressed in the mornings.

Bondage
Christine's kind of bonded with Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant persona app thingy, in fact. It's to a point I think they talk about me when I'm not around.

Christine's even a little defensive of Alexa if I slip and call her Siri. They may talk about Siri when I'm not around also.

 I now hear weather and news updates being conjured along with a lot of song requests, playlists and calming nature sounds. Also: occasional arguments over station changes in Pandora. Alexa doesn't give up on Willie Nelson easily.

My use of the Echo "skill" Ditty isn't quite perfect either. Echo's features are called skills in this new world nomenclature, and new skills can be periodically applied. Ditty lets you create songs from random phrases, taking your words and assigning tunes from a variety of musical styles. I got a reasonably good country tune out of the words: "Welcome home Christine." Tunes, er, ditties about the cats haven't produced anything I want to save and share via Twitter, though that's an option.

Activating the meditation-themed Thrive "skill," can be challenging at times as well. Makes you need a calming meditation after talking Alexa into activating it.

We progressed recently to being able to  turn on a couple of lights by voice command, something they promise in the ads. That requires smart home plugs, though they're not quite as smart as I'd hoped. Some routines can be established, but you have to sweet talk Alexa for that also.

I thought that was going to throw Christine off, but she's taken to that as well after an unfortunate incident in which she discovered her phone charger had been crowded out of its usual outlet.

We've moved past that, though I think she takes a bit of pleasure in saying: "Alexa, turn on the bedroom lamp" while I'm still asleep.

Things have a ways to go before we get to where the 21st Century home looked in the 20th Century. I'm just hoping they don't turn out like this old Warner Brothers cartoon:

In St. Pete's by the shore

 

Walking early in St. Petersburg this morning, the horizon was an array of colors: gray-blue layered with rows of a pale coral and streaks of pink, sky meeting blue water with a splash of yellows and more pale pinks and oranges reflected.

I've never been here before, so it's a new sky, and in the morning quite I felt calm and detached, kind of what you want in a holiday break. 

There are a few reminders 'tis the season. On one condo building I passed, the balcony railing on one unit was decorated with lights, and an inflatable reindeer decoration stood beside their deck chairs, not Hallmark Movie Christmas, but a vestige. 

The birds were everywhere, more plentiful than tourists or locals, gulls on shore of multiple varieties,  a few geese diving amid the waves and a couple of big birds with what I think of as heron-like features, though I'm not sure of their species. 

The first I ran across tolerated my presence for a while as I snapped pictures on my phone then stepped off the sea wall and strolled away, wanting his privacy and a return to his placidity, I suppose. So it goes.

Christine says the infinity of it all is what's amazing. I suppose that's true. 

There are boundaries out there somewhere across the blue water, but you can't see them from here.

Homework: A Boy and His Dog

Some Harlan Ellison ebook editions were on sale yesterday from Open Road, which prompted a few messages between a friend and I about which ones were available vs. what could be found on the library service Hoopla Digital. A Boy and His Dog, Ellison's 1969 novella, was not on the free list, though it can be found for digital checkout via Hoopla.

All of that started me thinking about the film version again, sort of. I'd been thinking about it a bit because The Witchmaker (1969) produced by character actor L.Q. Jones and TV's Hank Kimball Alvy Moore is streaming via Amazon Prime. It was filmed in Marksville, LA, near where I lived in Central Louisiana, but I'd never had a chance to see it until the streaming. (Interesting drive-in horror flick.)

But that's an aside. My message-chat with my friend prompted me to start digging back through Starlog interviews and letters about A Boy and His Dog, the film from 1975.

Happily Starlog's available for nerd and pop culture research on Archive.org, and, though I'm late to the table, I ran across a ShoutFactory conversation between Ellison and Jones from 2013. Along with the Starlog articles, it all makes for a nice slice of film history conversation. I realized the various items complement each other and some add clarity to the others. I compiled them all for creative writing students for a Facebook group, but I'll add them here for the convenience of anyone wanting to peruse more on this bit of science fiction cinema.

Here's the 2013 ShoutFactory Backlot sitdown.

Here's L.Q. Jones interviewed by Ed Naha on the 1983 re-release of Dog.

And here's Ellison's letter responding to Jones' points a few issues later.

I did the Googling so you don't have to.

Ollie Dressed Up

We all get ties for Christmas. My cat, Oliver Littlechap, is no exception. 

Dreaded Light

I met screenwriter Mark MacNicol online recently, and he mentioned his work in progress. It's an intriguing film called Dreaded Light.

It's set in Soctland and follows a widowed father and his teenaged daughters and their efforts to cope with grief. At least that's where things start. The title refers to one of the teen's fear of daylight.

Mark talks more about his project on his website here: http://markmacnicol.com/

Not So Normal Living Rooms - Streaming Contained Thriller Horror

I like blockbusters as much as the next aging geek. I went to see Jason Bourne on Sunday because I knew it was going to be fun and frenetic. Other than one car chase that goes on from the third act until the next feature time, I was right.

I'm always intrigued also by films that sometimes get dubbed chamber pieces in keeping with theater tradition and terminology for small cast and limited setting.

Those chamber piece films are those that that go the other direction from the blockbuster. Instead of globe hopping, like a lot of TV viewers, they stay in the living room.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope with it's real time storyline and Leopold and Loeb-inspired psychopaths is a stunning example. I think Hitchcock liked the challenge of developing thrills in tight settings because what are Psycho or Dial M for Murder as well?

I've enjoyed several variations on the streaming services of late, all eerie and effective, never making us feel just like we're stuck on one set but making that one set or location essential. These are some very weird living rooms if you will.

Coherence was conceived apparently in part by James Ward Byrkit as a respite from blockbusters, and it gives us a dinner party on the night of a comet that soon slides into a night of weirdness as it becomes apparent timelines in the many worlds theory are criss-crossing, and mistakes and missed opportunities drive some characters to desperation. 

Time Lapse from Bradley King plays different games with time to good effect. What might be a grim crime drama without its science fiction conceit becomes a cool and compelling nail-biter when three friends (The Flash's Danielle Panabaker, Matt O'Leary and George Finn), one with a gambling addiction, discover a dead scientist who's left behind a camera in his apartment that snaps Polaroids one day in the future. It's aimed at their living room. What can it hurt to post race results in the window?

If movies have taught us anything, it's that men who dabble in the realm of God reap a big and complicated mess.

That's what the heroes of Time Lapse soon discover. Is the camera creating self-fulfilling prophecies, or are other forces at work? Between dangerous bookies, double crosses and the challenge of keeping secrets and sticking to time's rule's, their world's soon awry, and the tale offers many twists and surprises before its revealing conclusion.




The Invitation has been getting just a bit of buzz upon its Netflix debut, and I think it's deserved.

It's the story of Will (Logan Marshall-Green of Prometheus) the grief-stricken father of a child killed by a playmate. He and new love Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) are on the way to a reunion with his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband (Khaleesi boy toy Michael Huisman.) The latter couple met in grief counseling and fled to Mexico for an Est-like (or not) experience that's replaced grief with joy.

Now they want to make amends to Will, so he and a host of old friends have received the invitation to join in, and the evening gets creepier and creepier in a slow burn buildup that engages and refuses to relent. Can any party with John Carroll Lynch as an unexpected guest go any other way, whether or not he's decked out as Twisty the Clown?



These films won't allow just vegging on the sofa, but they will make your living room viewing a bit breathless for a few hours. Check them out via Amazon or Netflix.

Getting a taste of Stranger Things

I've scratched just a bit of the surface of Stranger Things this weekend. I binge, but in doses.

What I've watched so far in the first couple of episodes is intriguing, especially in the creature play. We've seen an eerie silhoutte, but there's still room for mystery. There's a wonderfully kinetic opening in a flickering research facility, but a technician's lunched in the first few heartbeats by something kept off screen.

The characters are really what's keeping me engaged, from Winona Ryder's frantic mom to David Harbour's grieving police chief to a surprisingly malevolent and white-haired Matthew Modine on the mad scientist side of the equation to keep things in balance. 

 

I noticed Harbour last as one of the twisted killers in the under-rated A Walk Among the Tombstones, so it's interesting to see him as an urban cop who's come to a small town for the quiet only to have that upset by, well, strange things.

Then there are the kids, a nice blend of junior high nerds with ham radio and role-playing on their minds until a friend goes missing, and their creepy guest, a girl with a crew cut. 

There's an '80s vibe as well, of course. I don't know that I'm that nostalgic about that era, but there's a nice feel to the series, and it finds its own niche in a content-rich world, so I think I'll keep the stream open until it's finished.

A wild and weird Robot Excursion - Killer Robots! Crash and Burn

I have to say I'm a bit intrigued by the look of the robots in Leomark's July 15 release The Killer Robots! That's their exclamation mark, but I can't say it's totally unwarranted. AI's a little unsettling to everyone these days.

As the official synopsis puts it, there's "a dimension where living machines battle for supremacy, and those who oppose find only destruction." That can't be good for non-robotic types.

"After meeting their end in a mechanized gladiator arena, four robotic mercenaries - Auto, Max, Strobo and Trog are extracted from a junk pile, rebuilt and recruited as mercenaries for a mysterious organization of android adventurers."

Soon they find themselves on their way to the planet Vidya, "an artificial world ravaged by a computer virus that has sent its robotic inhabitants into a state of primitive barbarism."

The robotic heroes "must make their way through a tumultuous landscape, activate a mysterious communication device, link multiple universes, and bring about a new age of enlightenment and prosperity for a dystopian galactic civilization."

Birthed by a Florida band of the same name, The Killer Robots! looks a little different and "out there" and possibly outré. Here's a trailer:

Written and directed by Sam Gaffin, The Killer Robots! Crash and Burn will be on VOD platforms.

Writing Thoughts: Fear in the Shadows - Notions on Generating Subtle Scares

I had a lot of fun doing a presentation this week called "Fear in the Shadows." I've been developing it and polishing a while now. 

I take a look at subtle horror, partly by focusing on things that have chilled me as a reader. That's pieces by Ray Bradbury, Robert Aickman and others.

The focal piece is the 1902 story from W.W. Jacobs called "The Monkey's Paw," a tale to which I said "meh" when I first read it as a kid. It's deceptively simple, and I don't think my junior high imagination was fully engaging with the story, though its brief arc has always stayed with me.

It was really when I transcribed a portion of it a while back that I came to appreciate its brilliance. Very little is "on stage." Much is in the anticipation of a potentially walking corpse that's in a badly decomposed state...

It gives us something to worry about a bit. Wishes with the monkey's paw of the title always go wrong. It seems to confirm that with the first of three wishes in the story. Then it lets things roll along on a cold dark night.

And possibilities are introduced that let the reader's imagination work, possibilities and a little waiting.

There's a wish, a look out the window but...nothing. Then in the dark hours of the night, there's a sound at the door and then a knock an then a little more, coupled with different opinions on whether to answer or not and other bits of dread.

It was fun to do the presentation for a big room. We turned the lights down and had a campfire-story experience.

What does the story offer? A few points to keep in mind:

Atmosphere...a house that's become cold and dark and isolated.

Something to think about...the son who's been summoned back from the dead has been in the grave a while and was badly injured at the time.

Something to worry about...Monkey's Paw wishes don't turn out so well.

Anticipation...At first there's nothing after the wish, but a little while later there's a sound.

Implication...The sound turns in to a knock at the door, a knock that persists and the clock starts ticking as conflict bills. Do we wish the visitor away or open the door?

Sometimes as Stephen King said in Danse Macabre, you gotta show the monsters.

But maybe it's not a whole story you need to compose but a scene. Could the same elements be deployed? I think we see that in play in the log of the Demeter in Dracula, a small but chilling portion of a bigger tale and in many other effective moments in the horror pantheon.

I'd say try these points somewhere along the way and invite readers or viewers to engage.

Awaiting The Night of...

I watched the first episode of The Night Of a couple of weeks ago when it began streaming on HBO Now. I think  it rolls out on air tomorrow, ending what's been a long wait for things to really get started with the eight-parter, though that means yet another week before Episode 2 arrives. Ahhrrrrr! Ep. 1's a real, though almost leisurely, narrative hook.

Based on an arc in a BBC series called Criminal Justice which starred Ben Whishaw of The Hour and the new Q in Bond films, this neo-noir gets a Richard Price extension and Americanization that seems to channel a bit of Serial as well with a seemingly innocent immigrant student as the accused.

That's Riz Ahmed as Naz Khan, son of a Pakistani taxi driver who borrows his dad's hack for a party trip into Manhattan.

Before long he's inadvertently picked up a mysterious girl his age who's mistaken him for an on-duty cab. She wants to be taken to "The Beach," and that leads to a poignant chat then a druggy encounter and a blackout at what must be her residence.

Naz awakes to find her dead, and he's promptly nabbed and deftly maneuvered into giving up his rights by a savvy detective named Box (Bill Camp).

That's when a haggard John Turturro as public defender Jack Stone strolls in in flips flops, because of a skin problem carried over from the BBC, to pick up the ball.

The process moving forward looks to be promising and nail-biting since the circumstantial case against the studious bu naive Naz seems damming and insurmountable.

I think I'll stick around to see how it goes. 

Brain Dead for the Summer

I haven't noticed a lot of people talking about CBS' BrainDead from The Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King, but I'm finding it to be a fun and trippy political satire built on a Invasion of the Body Snatchers chassis.

The time seems right for a blend of politics and horror centering around a government shutdown.

Alien bugs are to blame, squeezing out brains--or portions of them--of Republicans and Democrats alike to replace them with themselves. An agenda's not yet apparent, but conquest is probably afoot. Divided we're conquered?

The Heroine 
Documentary filmmaker turned senate aide Laurel Healy is poised to figure things out, but so far she hasn't put her finger on why everyone's fixated on the same tune from The Cars.

Laurel's played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead who this year has already survived a Civil War-era hospital in Mercy Street and being trapped in a bunker with a dancing John Goodman in the cool and different alien thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane.

She's kind of perfect as a Washington insider/outsider with a politician dad and brother who's more interested in obscure tribal music trends but needs $ to complete her current project.

It's trending more zany-reflection-of-the-real Washington than horror, to be certain. The mind control and brain gross outs have been seen before, but it's still keeping me tuning in at least on the week a new episode airs if not on the night.

Happily it's streaming readily on Amazon Prime, so catching up's easy, and with Trump in the background of the real world as well as that of the series, it's a nice fix for political junkies and those with scare leanings on and off screen as well.

Tabloid Vivant Poster Reveal

If you're, say, my friend Chicago author Wayne Allen Sallee, or someone else living in the Chicago area, you might be interested in this special poster for Tabloid Vivant.

The film will be screening film at 7 and 9 p.m. on July 7 at University of Chicago and will be followed by a Q and A with writer-director Kyle Broom and producer Alexandra Spector. 

The film focuses on Max, an artist seduced by the allure of fame. Sara is an art critic whose obsessions exceed even his. When she lands a writing gig at a major art magazine, the pair retreats to a cabin in the woods, where Max reveals his strange new painting method.

Convinced of its potential, she agrees to collaborate on a piece sure to revolutionize the art world. While both original and mesmerizing, the project reveals something dark and disturbing about their relationship. Like two digital-age Frankensteins, they manage to make a painting come alive - though the unsettling consequences of their success may be more fit for the pages of a blood-soaked tabloid than the chronicles of art history. Sounds interesting to me and not something you see every day.

Here's the trailer:

RESTORATION TRAILER HD

Remember Zack Ward who played Scut Farkas and one of the most memorable villains on Sliders among many other roles?

He's directed a new film that shows the other side of things like House Hunters, and if you've ever dug into the details of home renovation and repair, it may be the horror flick for you. Word up is it's on VOD on platforms including iTunes.

Watched - Short YA Horror Free today - May 2, 2016

Free today - my short story "Watched" which I wrote originally for a newspaper youth page. It's set in the universe of the Michael August novels.

Those include The Gift, Deadly Delivery and New Year's Evil, books that are stand alone horror adventures with the Pembrook High as the unifying thread.

Watched focuses on on Brianne Pratt, a creative young woman who has to deal with a stalker while planning a big Halloween bash for Pembrook High.

 The tale is   a Kindle exclusive, and, of course it can be read on your desktop as well with Amazon's Cloud Reader.

Purchase here.

New Thriller Novella Dark Hours Now Available

Dark Hours, my new novella which follows a student journalist on her own descent into a personal labyrinth to confront a twisted player of games, is rolling out on ebook platforms.

It should soon be available for most readers, so check the links below or do a search wherever you buy ebooks.

This book began as a short story years ago called "The Exclusive." It was published in Cemetery Dance, and it appears in Scars and Candy. 

A couple of years ago, a producer optioned my book New Year's Evil with an eye toward turning it into a cable movie and pilot. That didn't happen. Money didn't come through etc. So it goes.

In the wake of that process, however, I did wind up talking to a Hollywood agent. Not the first time, but it looked more promising for a while.

"The Exclusive" bubbled to the top of discussions about properties in my backlist that might generate interest the way New Year's Evil had. Strong heroine, tight, dark, crisp situation. Could be shot economically.

As we talked, and the agent temporarily became obsessed with calling it Cemetery Dance, an idea for expanding the story came to me.

I'd read accounts of campus violence and sexual assaults at a number of universities where no action was taken or where victims were blamed and sometimes expelled. It made me angry, and I decided to explore it.

This was before the unfortunate Rolling Stone matter that clouded the issue, but clearly problems continue and are far from resolved across America today.

I couldn't quit thinking of Allison Rose, my obsessive student journalist, and how an attempt to address similar matters at her small college might lead her into danger as she worked to hold authoritarian administrators to their responsibilities.

Dark Hours developed, taking the story beyond the original ending and deeper into darkness with the villain more fully realized.

It's a thriller, an adventure with some mystery elements, and hopefully it's an interesting ride as Allison deals with the twisted little mastermind at the heart of her labyrinth.


Dark Hours is published by Crossroad Press and available from these sellers:

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• Google Books
• iBooks - iTunes 
• Smashwords

Oliver Littlechap Right Now

My spry, youngest cat, Oliver Littlechap, has begun receiving subcutaneous fluids for elevated kidney values. He's at least 11 years old and possibly a little older, and it was sad news.

It didn't hit in the devastating fashion Daisy's diagnosis did in 2008 because we've learned a lot about care over the years. She survived seven years and did well most of that time. Lung tumors and not her kidneys caused her death.

Happily, Ollie, who came into our world as Sad Orange Kitty in 2005, is doing well. After a weekend on an IV and now two weeks of Sub Q fluids administered at home, his levels were "perfect" according to the vet.

We're going to try every-other-day Sub Q fluids for him and re-check in a couple of weeks.

He looks sad in the photo from yesterday more because the vet cleaned his ears than because of feeling bad. He just came through for a morning stroll across my keyboard.

I have to be careful not to leave manuscripts open on my desktop or he'll attempt to collaborate, but sometimes I don't like what he does with characterization.

Happy New Year 2016, All!

Had a great time last night with my wife, Christine, at Orlando's Dr. Phillips Center ringing in the New Year via a concert featuring  Kristin Chenoweth of everything and Cheyenne Jackson of 30 Rock.

It was a fun sendoff to a busy holiday season for us that's included a trip to Charleston and a walk through history, taking in a staging of Peter and the Starcatcher, a handful of movies including Force Awakens and the 70 mm Hateful Eight and lots of other activities.

For me 2015 was a mixed year, filled with great things on the creative side. A couple of new short stories were published in cool publications including Black Fox Literary Magazine, DM du Jour, Heater and J.J. Outer Review. The J.J. story was also selected for their "Best of 2015" anthology, and I plugged along on a couple of other projects.

I have a few specific personal goals for 2016. I may not finish all I want to do, but it's good to forge ahead with a plan as January dawns.

I found encouragement from a friend's Facebook post via Janis Ian. It's a quote from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." "There is a crack in everything/that's how the light gets in."

Good advice to perfectionists.

In other ways, 2015 was a rough year. Daisy, the cat who's been with Christine and me the longest,

passed away in September. Just weeks later our second-oldest cat, Monty, began displaying symptoms of a brain tumor and passed as well. Christine and I agree. We'll miss them forever. 

Their passing reminded us of how swiftly time moves or how swift it feels in looking back, and with that comes the additional encouragement of moving forward with eyes open to the shortness of days and years. That helps in making the most of them.

Ahead there's a road. I'll keep taking steps on it. Happy 2016!

Charleston Nights

My wife, Christine, and I spent a few days in Charleston, S.C., recently, and a little of that time was devoted to exploring dark alleys and a few cemeteries. I suppose walking tours are a bit touristy, but they can be a way to pick up lore and details, especially in a historic city like Charleston. And the tour guides usually have keys to the cemetery gates.

Temps were dipping a bit as we walked toward the tour office for a 7:30 p.m. tour. "Are you sure you still want to do this?" Christine asked.

That's Christine above at Circular Congregational Church cemetery.

That graveyard has historic graves, a mausoleum and an employee who gets a little testy about the gate's padlock.


We also headed down one cobblestone alley where the whistling ghost of a physician killed in a duel can reportedly be heard from time to time. We didn't hear him, and we didn't catch sight of a boo hag, a spirit from Gullah lore, as we traversed a few other dark corners while the tour guide explained the boo hag's characteristics.

Wasn't for want of looking over my shoulder. Into the shadows.

We actually stayed across from another stop on the tour, the restaurant Poogan's Porch.

Reportedly a former resident, a school teacher named Zoe, cruises past windows late at night and isn't really happy about an eating establishment doing business in her former home. Word has it a stovetop fire she may have been responsible for almost claimed the building once upon a time.

Other accounts include patrons who've reported seeing what they thought was an elderly woman in the restroom only to find out the "woman" looked a lot like Zoe.

Didn't see her myself, but had a great BLT with fried green tomatoes there day after the tour.

And we learned the story of the spot's namesake, a little dog named Poogan who lived in the neighborhood when the restaurant opened.

He served as a greeter on the house's porch, and earned a statue when he passed away in 1979.

I was struck most by the story of Sue Howard Hardy, the mother of a stillborn baby. Her ghost was reportedly photographed in St. Philip's Cemetery in 1987. Supposedly she'll reach out to expectant mothers to this day. 

Several establishments have glass floor panels that look down on old tunnels and wells under the current city. I knew of underground Seattle but I didn't know about Charleston.

It's exciting to walk through history, to pass buildings George Washington visited and to stroll past spots where the city's almost forgotten wall once stood.

It was cool also to stroll around the edge of Charleston Bay and to visit White Point Garden. That's the spot where gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet was executed following a betrayal by Blackbeard and his trial and conviction. Bonnet was inspiration for my tale "Admiral of the Narrow Seas".

Final Girl - Interesting Take on the Maze and the Minotaur Trope

In the intro to Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, Lee Child observes that we, humans,  have a way of re-telling tales in veiled new forms, harnessing tropes from stories that have come before but redressing them in more contemporary fashion.

Theseus and the Minotaur becomes James Bond and Dr. No: Bad actor in isolated location perpetrates evil deeds until a nobleman from afar shows up to intervene.

I watched an interesting variation on that trope that gets there by way of the slasher genre and Carol J. Clover's final girl. It's called  appropriately Final Girl, and it's an intriguing and perhaps a bit eccentric thriller with Abigale Breslin and Wes Bentley.

Bentley's Williams, a man who's lost his family to killers. Breslin's the teen version of a character who faced similar horrors as a child and agreed to be reared as a trained warrior to take out other killers. Guess there's a little Hitgirl in there too.

In a town that seems to consist of woods and a diner, a group of young men perpetrate Most Dangerous Game-style mayhem. Dressed in tuxedos, they lure unsuspecting girls to the woods and pursue them in deadly hunts. The body count's pretty high, and one missing girl's the subject of local "unsolved mystery" fascination it seems.

It's a situation in dire need of Veronica's (Breslin) talents, which are considerable thanks to training from William. We get just a taste of that early on.

Placing herself in the role of victim, she sets off to do battle in a prom dress.

There's a bit of timelessness--helped by the fashions--to the setting that vaguely suggests a time few years back in the vein of Stoker. Or perhaps it's just an alternate universe. Either way it evokes an effective atmosphere, and things are engaging as the story builds.

Tension rises not with excessive brutality but with subtle touches like a game of truth or dare that winds the trap for battle.

The killers are a twisted and colorful band headed by Alexander Ludwig, who trained for the role by playing Cato in The Hunger Games. Cameron Bright is the most subdued of the bunch with leanings toward normalcy, while Logan Huffman's dark, giggling and wild eyed. His dance with his axe, Anna Belle, offers a standout moment.

It's definitely a striking refurbishing of its sources, directed by Tyler Shields and conceived by a number of credited writing contributors. A harsher judge might ask for more compelling traps, tricks or twists, but I liked it and found it a nice "something a little different."

In the VOD universe, it's a nice and dark little trail to wander down.

(I watched by Hoopla, but it's available on platforms including iTunes.)

What's on the iPod: Locke&Key

I finished the adaptation of "Locke and Key" while on a walk this morning.

I got the free download from Audible a while back, and the 13-hour experience took me a while. It's a great way to re-visit the world of Lovecraft, Mass., and the Locke family envisioned by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez.

I say re-visit, because I think experiencing the comic/graphic novel in its original form is essential for full enjoyment of the audio. And it's a great horror-mystery excursion that really should be on any horror aficionado's "To Read" list. It's a saga in comics form that's comparable to Michael McDowell's "Blackwater" multi-part novel.

As a character notes in the opening of the tale, it's impossible to understand what's going on if you come in in the final chapter of a story.

As the story's protagonists, the Locke children Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, discover as the tale unfolds,  a lot has gone on in their ancestral home where they seek refuge after their father's murder. Relevant events stretching back years, even centuries.

Various mysterious keys and a dark and mysterious woman living in the house's well gradually reveal the details over six collected volumes of comics.

The audio follows that and all of the spooky encounters with giant shadow creatures, vicious wolf-creatures, demons and deadly possessed characters.

The power of audio to stimulate the imagination is true and grand, but at times that's where the audio falls down. At times it seems you're hearing powerful action in a dark room. You know something's happening, but you can't quite ascertain what's going on. Contemporary audiodrama writing eschews the old technique of having characters spell out their actions in dialogue: "I've reached the gate, Shadow. I'm aiming my gun at the lock." But at times just a little more guidance would be fun in "Locke and Key."

I think the ideal experience would be reading the graphic novels first. They're all available in book and digital forms. Then listen to the audio as a way of reliving and appreciating the intricate plotting and the finely crafted characters.

Speaking at Florida Writer's Conference 2015

A photo posted by Roland Mann (@therolandmann) on Oct 18, 2015 at 6:27am PDT

Thanks to Roland Mann for a snapshot of me discussing subtle horror at the Florida Writer's Conference October 18, 2015. My presentation included an appreciation of W.W. Jacobs "The Monkey's Paw" and plugs for Charles L. Grant's Oxrun Station books, Black Fox Literary Magazine and Robert Aickman.

The Weekend and Art Impulses

Christine and I went over to the Winter Park's Autumn Arts Festival on Sunday and wound up impulse buying some art including this piece:

It's called "Smiley" by Michael Nemnich. Christine was enamored of it on sight, so after walking around and mulling it over a bit, we back to his both and bought it along with a tall and narrow piece that should fit nicely on one wall or another in our downstairs hallway.

We had the interior of the house painted last year but haven't really had time to focus on putting things on the wall. We're trying to remedy that, and we reasoned in our discussions as we walked around Sunday that there's much better thing to impulse buy than a piece of art. If it speaks to you, there's something there.

We passed on a $2,000 work that struck us both, though I'm mulling over a print vs. original version of that piece for my office wall.

Dark Was the Night

I've always been fascinated by the story of The Devil's Footprints, that unsolved mystery of strange footprints in the snow in Devon England in 1855. Sure, there are skeptical views, but they marks offer a wonderful "what if" and induced a lot of anxiety in their day.

I've wanted to see Dark Was the Night since I read of the Blacklist script "The Trees" by Tyler Hisel and heard that it was finally being filmed. The story transplants those odd tracks to a small town north of a logging operation and pits a local sheriff suffering the bereavement of a child against a mysterious something disturbed in the forest.

Just in time for Halloween, the film is streaming on Netflix and is a nicely creepy and atmospheric monster movie that leaves the imagination plenty of room to play. Director Jack Heller seems to have a great sense of how to deliver a building sense of menace and read.

Frequent villain Kevin Durand is the sheriff and makes a great hero and a sympathetic grieving dad who's also coping with estrangement from his wife and remaining child. Lukas Haas is his ex-New Yorker deputy who's smitten with a local girl and looking to make a quiet home.

Huge and mysterious footprints, like the ones that were  in my upstairs closet when I moved into my current house, appear one morning, stretching the length of the town, and Durand as Sheriff Shields begins first to seek a logical explanation.

He gradually realizes he'd better prep for things worse than skeptics might have expected, and gets some chilling and tantalizing glimpses of what might be lurking in the shadows.

The story builds to an intense third act with the mystery and chills piling on. It's a pretty nice dark night viewing choice.

I'd say: Worth the time.

Night Out with Horror and Science Fiction Professionals

Christine and I decided not to sit home last night. It can be rough when a pet dies. Every corner holds a memory.

We decided to attend the monthly gathering of The Orlando Horror, Fantasy and Sci Fi Professionals group. Organized by Owl Goingback, who I've known since before we had gray hair,  the group was celebrating its one year anniversary.

It was at Eden Bar attached the the Enzian Theater, an open air spot Christine and I enjoy.

So it was a good evening, and I wound up chatting quite a while with Mitch Hyman. He's creator of Bubba The Redneck Werewolf and a veteran of publications like Cracked, the original magazine iteration.

He pointed out horror writers could learn from comedy writers, who are always building up to a punch line.

I agreed, since I'm often discussing with students how Stephen King's top level of fear, terror, as described in Danse Macabre, can be achieved in film or fiction. That's often by a buildup that allows the reader or viewer's imagination to work a while, I think.

It was nice to kick ideas around, and talk Cthulhu with people who know Cthulhu. And it was nice for Christine and I to have pizza and drinks under the stars with friends old and new.

And speaking of slowly building horror, Christine and I will be heading back to the Enzian in a few weeks for a revival screening of The Haunting, the 1963 version, you know, the good one.

I really need to get out more, anyway.

Monty is gone

Monty is gone. It's hard to believe. He'd been with us around six years when I started this blog in 2005 or so. I thought he'd go on forever, but that's not the way of the world.

Our last day together was a good one, peaceful and friendly, with him at my side much of the morning as I graded.

I dreaded the afternoon, but I petted him and talked to him and fed him whenever he wanted to eat.

He passed peacefully in his own bed with a blanket that had often served as curtains for him underneath a toadstool at the bottom of our cat fort.

He was between Christine and me, petted, whispered to and comforted. It came three weeks to the day after Daisy passed away.

We had no idea Monty had a brain tumor when she was diagnosed with lung tumors. In her final week, he seemed as strong and vibrant as ever, especially for a cat with diabetes.

I'm numb at the moment, but contemplating what it means. Daisy and Monty were a part of our married life so long it's difficult to remember life without them.

Pets occupy a special place. They are just there, filling a piece of our worlds.

I'll miss Mon and Dee forever.

And Now for the Bad News

Rain held up a semi-annual inspection of my roof on Saturday. The guy called and asked if he could come by Sunday morning.

I said "sure" and watched for him so I could avoid a ringing of the doorbell which disturbs Monty, my eldest male cat. It's been a bad week for Monty, around 18 or 19, who seemed fine, even robust leading up to Daisy's death a couple of weeks ago. He'd even spend time with her in the closet where she liked to rest those last few days.

His behavior changed a bit after she was gone, which we attributed to the loss of a longtime companion, even though they weren't always on the best of terms. Then other signs took me to the vet with him for some tests on Wednesday.

They determined his blood sugar was low and suggested we step back the insulin he's received for two years. Before that step back could happen, Thursday afternoon, he crashed.

I tried to get some food into him but wound up rushing him back to the vet after he lay prone on my living room floor, unable to move.

An IV drip got him perked up at our vet, and he spent the night at an all-night emergency vet where he could be monitored. He had a seizure around midnight. Then another the next morning as I drove him back to our vet for a follow up.

The seizures shouldn't be happening after drips that restored his blood sugar levels, our vet said. She said the symptoms aligned with a brain tumor. That also would help explain why he suddenly no longer needed insulin.

Christine and I talked and decided to bring him home for the weekend and evaluate our decisions.

It seemed unreal,  not because I didn't trust our vet but just because. Monty and Daisy have been with us since the late '90s. That's the newspaper clipping in the upper left that brought Mon and us together. Daisy had been with us about a year then.

To have both Monty and Daisy decline so quickly within a few weeks has staggered Christine and me.

So I meet the guy from the roofer's Sunday, and I tell him I'm trying to avoid ringing the bell. He tells me he understands. He had a cat who had a brain tumor, he volunteered. This is without me saying what was wrong with Monty. Then he proceeded to describe what are also Monty's symptoms and the experience he had in letting his cat go.

And I understood better what had seemed unreal.

Monty's eating, sitting beside me as I grade, sticking close and being himself. He's a little wobbly at times, but he's hanging in.

We will stick close to him the next few days and decide. And at least we have this time and some clarity to celebrate his life and our lives with him.

Painted Moonlight - my surreal mystery short finds a home

I'm not sure why the timing works as it does. Perhaps it's because I'm on Eastern time and thus asleep while much of the country is still awake, but anyway, I often find acceptances or rejections in my morning in-box.

My ritual works like this: I roll over and pick up my phone to shut off The Archies singing "Sugar, Sugar," my alarm tone. (On the weekend it's Dylan's "Hard Rain.")

Then I check email, and head on to coffee either dismissing rejections or singing when positive things come in. Like the summer sunshine, pour your sweeness over mee.

If there's nothing submission related, which is most days, I just sip coffee and read Zite next until the caffeine kicks in.

Last Saturday morning, I picked up my phone to discover a subtle little mystery tale, "Painted Moonlight," had been accepted by The J.J. Outré Review for online publication. It always feels good, but I was particularly pleased with this placement.

I'd worked on the story for a while. The idea came to me years ago of an artist possibly slipping into schizophrenia who stops in a small Texas town and promptly begins to pursue surreal visions toward the solution to a local mystery.

His wife, who's been coping with his developing symptoms is forced to search for him while he's drawn deeper and deeper into a world of ghostly figures and a compulsion to pursue a truth he can only sense.

I like a tale that kind of lets me, as reader, connect the dots. Robert Aickman's work has always affected me and I love stories like T.E.D. Klein's "Growing Things" and Kelly Link's "The Specialist's Hat."

I'd tried with this piece to provide a tale where the story's truth was present but did not beat the reader about the brow. I worked on the piece a while when I still lived in East Texas. The idea developed after my wife, Christine, and I took a long drive south from Tyler down to Beaumont for a memorial service.

It took things a while to gestate, but I finished the story last year, shaping it to the form I wanted.

Then I began to send it out, first to a literary-horror publication Lit Reactor seemed to think was a desirable market. I let it sit there a while but finally withdrew it after a number of calendar pages fell with neither acceptance nor rejection.

Then I collected some rejections, one for an anthology that felt it wasn't quite right and another from a publication that attached a kind P.S. to the form message: "Nice writing. This story is just not for me."

To paraphrase The Stones in  "Sympathy for the Devil," that's the nature of this game. You craft something as close to perfection as you can make it, and it either clicks or doesn't with someone else's intellect.

So, I moved on, found the home it needed with J.J., which seeks to offer mixed and crossed genre mysteries, and enjoyed the elation of my Saturday morning email.

Then I suspected I could expect a rejection next because that's how it usually goes, some law of the creative universe or something like that. I have a few more stories floating around at the moment, so someone was probably due to let the air out of one of them.

I picked up my phone last Sunday morning, almost dreading the in box, and found another email from J.J. Outré Review.

"Painted Moonlight" made it onto their Top 10 of the year list. It'll be in a print and ebook publication with the other stories as well as online.

So it goes, from ignore to "unfortunately not the right fit" to the right and comfortable home.

Sometimes getting up on the weekends doesn't mean facing a hard rain but a more gentle delight.

Discovering The Hidden Face

My classes meet on a monthly basis. Students join me to discuss horror, mystery and suspense, and then they move on, usually to study science fiction and fantasy.

In our final week, I invite, all right, I compell students to bring in properties they've discovered to discuss. The only stipulation is that the selected piece fall somewhere under the horror, mystery and suspense umbrella.

I can't see everything. That guy from FX was right. There's a lotta TV out there in addition to movies, books, games, graphic novels and web series.

So we crowd source, and we get more than just Dad's movies --i.e. selections I root out--to explore genre elements.

It produces the usual suspects like Dead Space and Silent Hill, assorted anime and sometimes graphic novels.

And sometimes things turn up that I haven't encountered. Such as The Hidden Face aka La Cara Oculta, a 2011 Spanish-language thriller from Columbia.

The presentation in class included a couple of spoilers, which disappointed me a bit. I usually like to experience a piece without knowing major twists, but I was happy to have the film brought to my attention

I learned in watching the film, it's hard to discuss it without spoiling something.

 The trailer spoils a bit, in fact, removing some of the fun of the first act, so don't watch the trailer. Just dive into the film, which focuses on orchestra conductor Adrián (Quim Gutierrez) and the women in his life.

He's broken down in the opening when he gets a farewell note from his live-in girlfriend Belén (Clara Lago). The two have moved together from Spain for him to take the post as conductor of the Bogata Philharmonic, but she's apparently grown disillusioned with their relationship.

Odd occurrences soon plague the house when Fabiana moves in. Eerie ripples disturb her bath, and she hear odd sounds which compell her to explore the house more.

To further complicate matters, Adrián is soon the target of a police investigation. There's no sign that Belén left the country or is alive anywhere.

What follows is twists, with shifts in perspective on key events and a number of surprises, all unfolding as the quirky nature of love and desire are explored.

It's paced a little different than an American film, and it's hard to know what to expect, which is kind of refreshing, and the twists continue to the film's final seconds.

It can be an interesting experience for the horror and thriller fan who's not all about blades and car chases.

Streaming availability seems limited, at least through current subscription services. I ordered the disk from Netflix or it can be rented via Amazon.

Birthday reflections

And so it's time for another birthday and a few rambling thoughts. I shaved off my beard for the first time in a while, to see my face and because a birthday seems like a good time to do something a little different.

I don't feel older today or old, though the world feels a little empty without Miss Daisy.

One of my male cats, Ash, is on my lap on the other side of my laptop, filling the spot she often occupied while I work. Sometimes both of them spaced themselves along the length of my legs when I propped them on the coffee table. I've been fond of interpreting Ash's thoughts in those moments as: "Great, I get stuck with the shins again."

He's just looking for a warm spot and not really conscious of offering comfort, but it's nice to have him on hand and Monty beside me. Oliver is on the prowl somewhere, perhaps on the second floor.

Daisy spent a lot of the last couple of weeks in our bedroom closet, and Monty often lay in there as well, beside her in a cat bed she rejected for a green towel. He hasn't gone back in there to sleep since she's been gone, so perhaps he was keeping her company. Now, the sofa is his domain again.

Other than the loss of Miss Daisy, I've had a pretty good year. I've had several new short stories published as mentioned in posts below, and I have several others out. There's a certain satisfaction in short fiction and in sending my notes to the sea in bottles.

Inevitably there are arbitrary rejections and editorial notes you don't agree with, but those are kind of signs of being alive. It's kind of exciting to have so many outlets for short fiction these days.

I've become more prolific since leaving the corporate world for my current teaching gig, an experience that's been as educational for me, in my world, as I hope it is for my students.

It's forced new research into writing and horror, mystery and suspense theory, and it's freed my spirit a bit as well as putting me into the company of brilliant and creative people.

I'm fortunate, and I march on.

Steampunk Graphic Novel Kickstarter - Citizens

My buddy, comics writer and former Marvel editor Roland Mann has a Kickstarter campaign going for a steampunk graphic novel called "Citizens." It will be drawn by Joe Badon, who's done work for a number of comics companies since 2009.

"Citizens" is the tale of an injured soldier who must accept a government-sponsored, biologically fabricated body following war injuries. It's all in pursuit of acceptance and the love of a girl. The world created for this story looks intriguing.

Donations have been good so far, but there's a ways to go and there's still time to kick lend your support.

Head over to the Citizens Kickstarter page.

Miss Daisy has passed

(I switched the video to a clip from six months after her CRF diagnosis.)

My cat, Miss Daisy, who I've written of often on this blog, passed away this morning. She'd developed tumors in her lungs following her other health problems which had intensified in the last several months.

After a week of antibiotics and asthma treatment to see if recent labored breathing might improve, the vet felt she was doing as well as she could.

Though she was compensating for her issues, Christine and I felt we'd just be prolonging things if we held on any longer.

She passes almost at age 18. She was diagnosed with chronic renal failure at age 10 but responded well to subcutaneous fluid treatment, so she had quite a long and happy life.

In human terms she was in her 80s. The video above was shot shortly after the CRF diagnosis when we thought she'd be passing soon.

Seven years later we have to say adieu.

My tale Mr. Berrington appears in Black Fox Literary Magazine

A while back, I read an article about how much marketers know about us, and I started turning over the implications in my head.

What if someone with malevolent intent knows more about what's going on in your household than you do?

"Mr. Berrington" was born, an odd little man who turned up on my first-person narrator's doorstep to pose questions.

The tale's now available in Issue No. 12 of Black Fox Literary Magazine.

You can read online or purchase a paper copy if that's your preference. It has a host for short stories and a number of poems as well.

Learn more about reading online or ordering here.

Chat er Cat life

I do weekly, optional chats with students in my horror, mystery and suspense class. Just as he sometimes joins me while I'm writing in the mornings, my cat, Oliver Littlechap, occasionally sits in. Sometimes he walks in front of the camera as well, offering close-up views of his fur.

He seems to have picked up the job from Ash who used to join me for chats but has kind of lost interest.