A Bit of Memoir - C. Dean Andersson, John Steakley and Self-Promotion

I've mentioned not loving self-promotion, but I'm also aware repetition is necessary on a project so I share where I can. It's in marketing textbooks, but I got a personalized lesson once upon a time.

I guess that makes this a story with foreshadowing and everything.  

The late great and wonderful C. Dean Andersson (the 𝘏𝘦𝘭 trilogy, 𝘐 𝘈𝘮 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢 and much more) and his wife Nina Romberg aka author Jane Archer, once told me of doing a mall signing with the late John Steakley of 𝘈𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘳 and 𝘝𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦$--the one made into a movie by John Carpenter--fame. 

Steakley's father was a car salesman, so when someone was dismissive of the work on the signing table, he rose and followed the guy all the way down the mall loudly hawking the work with a continuing spiel about the virtues.

So flash forward a while later, Steakley was master of ceremonies or toastmaster at a con I was attending, okay it was a Coast Con in Biloxi, Miss. Early '90s or so. There were these big gatherings of con attendees and guests on opening night in those days. 

A comic I wrote, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬, was the new thing I had out in the moment so when Steakley introduced me, I mentioned that. 

"What was that title again?" he asked, tipping a microphone to his lips then pointing it back at me.

 "Er, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬." 

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 you say. Interesting. So everyone should know about 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬?" 

"Sure, it'd be nice." 

"Excellent, so what was that title again?" 

I said it a little louder and with more assurance: "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬." 

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬. Well great. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬!" 

He kept the riff going a while, proving everything Dean had described, repeating 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 often and loudly until he finally clapped me on the shoulder: "That's what you have to do. Keep saying it, my friend." 

I smiled and sat back down.

Wish he and Dean were still with us.

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.

Long Waltz Bookmail

 Here's a picture of the Long Waltz trade paper edition. There's been a flurry of activity so I'm a little late in posting here. 

Long Waltz Cover Reveal Coming Soon - Get An Early Peak

 The sequel to Fool's Run is called Long Waltz, and it's coming soon. Final touches are being put on the cover, so the full reveal will be in the near future.

Meanwhile, here's a bit of a look. This book's going to find Si Reardon in Florida and wrangling with a fresh group of powerful men. This time they're from Hollywood. While stars and producers are busy shooting a sequel to a film lensed in Florida years ago, Si is called on to find out what he can about a girl who disappeared after working briefly on the first movie.

Of course he'll find himself plunged into a maelstrom of drama and corruption that will call on all his wits and resourcefulness. Friends Jael and the McCluskey brothers will be on hand too.

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.

Halloween Harvest Six Word Horror Stories

 

                                                         Photo Credit: Kelsie Cabeceiras - Pexels

Six word horror stories are fun and strive for a quick, single effect. I thought it would be interesting for spooky season aka Halloween aka harvest season, to do six-word horror stories that stand alone but also can be assembled into a bit of a linked narrative with the concluding installment to appear on Halloween, 2022.

SEE ALSO: Horrortober 2 - Halloween Horror Fiction

Segments area appearing on various social media outlets, and the complete string of micro stories will be assembled here in original order with new six word stories added as they appear on TikTok, Twitter and other platforms. The final entry will appear on October 31. 

FURTHER READING: How to Write an Unforgettable Six-Word Story

The Harvest Horror Six-Word Stories

1. The silent Jack-o'-lanterns know what's coming.

2. Did you see? The scarecrow moved! 

3. Wind parts corn plants. Shadows awake. 

4.  Before writhing shapes, an ancient altar. 

5.  Seven crows cry, serenading dancing silhouettes. 

6.  Black-robed penitents invite materializing figures.  

7. Shimmering shadows detach from darkness, walk.

8. Of course, Harvest Gods are plants!

9. Roots, massive tentacles, reach FOR YOU!

Reviewing the Great Ray Bradbury's Home to Stay! - Tales from EC Comics

The cool folks at Fantagraphics Books are dropping a collection of Ray Bradbury's stories adapted for EC Comics publications such as Tales from the Crypt and The Witch's Cauldron. It's called Home to Stay!: The Complete Ray Bradbury EC Stories.  

It's a nicely complete volume with a rich assortment of extras surrounding Bradbury's affiliation with the shunned and banned and later celebrated EC line.

I did a review of the volume for Wicked Horror. 

Stories are reproduced mostly in black and white, though they original tales were in color. Some pieces are reminiscent of the later Warren Magazine like Creepy inspired by EC.

The book's dropping now. Here's a sample page from the adaptation of "The Lake."

It really is a great volume for any Bradbury fan's library. 

What's on the Keyboard? - A Christmas Story

A workshopping group recently suggested we all try Christmas stories so we have a holiday tale in the quiver should an open call or invite arise.

Sometimes a notion grabs you, so in the middle of Spooky Season, while I wait on edits for a novel and move around a couple of other irons in the fire, I find myself immersed in a holiday tale.

I'm not sure the workshopping plan will actually unfold, but I recalled a moment from years ago as I stared at the blank page. Around 5 p.m., I was driving home from my corporate marketing gig. 

As I sat at a stop light that early-December day, I saw a car with three teen girls pass through the intersection. All of them wore Santa hats, and I thought they must be heading for some holiday activity.

What if one didn't catch her ride and had to walk. And what if it wasn't a Santa hat but one of those long stocking caps, an elf-hat of red and green?

And what if a white truck showed up as she walked alone? And what if a cemetery was on the way, and what if...?

It's taken off, so I'll be at this until it's finished. We'll see where things go from there.

Story Acceptance - Unknown Superheroes vs. the Forces of Darkness

I received a short story acceptance the other day, on my birthday in fact. It's for an anthology to be called Unknown Superheroes vs. the Forces of Darkness edited by Steve Dillon and Will Jacques. Will is also illustrating. Another image here.  

It will be headlined by Jonathan Maberry with a story called "The Collector." The guidelines were pretty generous on the parameters of the heroes, so I wound up writing a tale called "Side-Saddle" about a heroine in Georgian England. 

Themed anthologies are fun because they kind of lead you to pull new things up from the well of your imagination. I don't know that I would have settled at the keyboard and said: "I think I'm going to write a monster story set in roughly Georgian England" otherwise. 

Word on the forces of darkness my hero encounters will just have to wait until the antho's release, but I thought I'd use the old blogspot here to capture a few thoughts before they slip from my mind. I used to be able to remember everything in chronological detail, but I've reached that point where some of the colors fade and some things run together when you look back. 

When I received the invite, my first thought went to a heroine I created earlier this year for a story called "Grand Tour." That was written on invite for an anthology calling for a story with a Hammer Films tone. I'm not sure of the status of that anthology, but if it doesn't see light I'll find another place for that story. 

Research such as the fact that young men went on grand tours for educational purposes in the 1700s or so coupled with an interest I've had for a while in the actual vampire legends of central Europe in the pre-John Polidori "The Vampyre" era. That all seemed to fit a Hammer mode.

Much of early vampire, and to some extent contemporary zombie traits, are seated in Serbia and adjacent regions, and I started thinking about the relative of someone like Arnold Paole, believed to be one of the first vampires in the European scares. 

What if the relative of an early, revenant-style vampire, maybe someone with ties to the Ottoman empire, felt responsible and compelled to track down a vampiric relative and any vampires he created?

I was pleased with how that story turned out, so when the Unknown Superheroes invite came along, I was still in an historical mood. 

I thought at first Andela of "Grand Tour" would be the star of another adventure. I envisioned her riding up to a British estate in a carriage, about the discover some new challenge while she visited. 

Then in research, I ran across Celia Fiennes, a real  young woman who rode across England on horseback in the late 1600s and early 1700s and kept a journal of her travels. 

Suddenly I thought Andela might ride up to an estate on horseback instead of in a carriage. 

But the more I read about Celia the real traveler, the more another character took shape, Cilla Frane, driven to travel and destined to encounter dark forces. 

I put a lot into shaping her story, and happily the tale came together, aided by a lot of research and even casual visits to spots like Colonial Williamsburg, though my tale unfolds on the other side of the pond.

I don't live far from Colonial Williamsburg's living museum these days, so dropping in to see tables spread with Colonial Era meals and visiting Colonial Era-style gardens melded with my visits to London and Scotland in years past. Everything helped to shape Cilla's world. 

It was a lot of fun to spend time in her world. Deets here when the story comes out, and if all goes well Andela and Cilla will ride again into adventures of their own. Or maybe they'll meet one day. 

 

From the Sid Archives - Interview with Joanna Going of the Dark Shadows Revival Series

Here's another article from my file cabinet. I loved the original Dark Shadows as a kid, so I was happy when the chance came along to interview actors from the revival series in 1991. It was polished and atmospheric, drawing heavily on the film House of Dark Shadows, and sadly didn't last long on NBC.

Joanna Going was one of several cast members I interviewed as the show was cranking up. A couple of moves let the press kit for the series slip away, but it was cool when it arrived at the newspaper building. 

The great shot of Going and Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins was just one of the color pics or slides that were included. 

Wicked Horror Article - Thoughts on some Marvel Monsters Who'd Make Great Film Creatures

 Got a chance to do a listicle for Wicked Horror about some of my Marvel horror favorites.

Check out: Five Marvel Monsters That Deserve Films After Morbius

From the Sid Archives - Interview With Gates McFadden of Star Trek: The Next Generation

I've been going through some files in anticipation of a move to a new place, and I ran across some fun things from my newspaper days.

Here's an interview I did with Gates McFadden in the middle of the Star Trek: The Next Generation run.

Full article .pdf here

Wednesday Reads Fool's Run YouTube Review

Should have shared this a while back. It's a nice review of Fool's Run by E.G. Stone at QuillandPen.com.

Revisiting The Midnight Hour

I'm pretty sure I watched The Midnight Hour when it first aired in 1985. I don't remember much about that first viewing except an okay-fine reaction. I wouldn't have been watching for deep analysis then, and everything other than a vague notion of its plot pretty much got tucked away in my memory.

I decided to revisit it via YouTube. Because: October. And because the Pure Cinema podcast spoke highly of it fairly recently in an assessment of solid TV movies.

So, what a pleasant surprise a re-watch proved to be.  

In retrospect, it's heavily influenced by the Thriller video, coming down the pike just a couple of years after that event. It even has some of the same creative team involved in makeup and costumes.

But it's otherwise quite a bit of fun with a touch of camp and a sweet love story woven through its undead storyline with interspersed musical numbers and a comic performance by Fridays' Mark Blankfield as a zombie out to grab what he can of past life pleasures.

It also features LeVar Burton, Shari Belafonte, Lee Montgomery of Ben with Jonna Lee as a fifties teen returned to get one more chance at things she missed. Oh, and Kevin McCarthy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers on the flip side.  

There's one great musical number fronted by Shari Belafonte and one great horror set piece with a vintage '50s auto overrun by the undead. A few other flourishes including Jonelle Allen as a colonial vampire shore it all up. 

Wikipedia reports it received mostly negative reviews in the day. They're wrong or at least not taking everything it is now into full account.

It's not a fully satisfying feature experience for horror fans, but it's still worth a look for the intriguing package that it is. 

Check it out on YouTube here.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady and an Old Household Movie Viewing Mystery Solved

My wife, Christine, loves The Odd Couple original film, something about the combo of Neil Simon's humor and Jack Lemmon's performance as Felix. Anyway, it was streaming on Pluto the other day. I pointed it out, and she settled in to watch the what was left.

And Walter Matthau on screen suddenly reminded me of a conversation with my dad years and years ago. The, I guess, mostly forgotten comedy western A Big Hand for the Little Lady with Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward as the the "little lady" and Jason Robards came on TV, probably on NBC. This would have been the very early '70s.

As the show neared its conclusion, my dad said he'd seen it before. "But it wasn't with Henry Fonda."

An ad for the upcoming broadcast of Cactus Flower popped on the screen about that moment with a tight shot of Walter Matthau's face. "It was that fellow there," he said. 

Seemed weird, but we chalked it up to an odd coincidence or something like that and moved on.

But Walter Matthau--busy with a different set of poker buddies--was on my screen again all these years later via the Internet, which we didn't have in 1971. I thought, why not check it out? Maybe my dad had a point.  

The IMDB entry simply credits Sidney Carroll as the screenwriter, though there are mentions in the trivia of it originally being written for TV along with allusions to an alternate title or two. Big Deal in Laredo et al.

 

Let's Go the the Wiki
I moved on to Wikipedia, and gained clarity. In 1962, Big Deal in Laredo was produced for television as an installment of an anthology called The Dupont Show of the Week. It earned Emmy nominations including one for Matthau. There's even a press photo of him in character out there for purchase.  

Son of a bitch, my old man was right. It's a little thing, but that brought me a bit of joy. The TV show would have aired a month after I was born. 

My old man was a route salesman for a wholesale grocery company. When he came home from work after driving all day from mom-and-pop grocery to mom-and-pop grocery in rural Louisiana, he still had an hour or two of making changes to his price book, a heavy, leather bound thing with semi-circle holes punched for easy removal and replacement.

He would have been working on those changes or pricing order tickets from his customers as we watched anything. That was probably how he watched The Dupont Show years earlier and with a newborn in the house, more focused on the storyline than the brand umbrella. 

It's nice to have little things mined out of the memory, reconnecting with little moments from life flowing along. You never know what's going to matter. 

Some triggers on a quiet Sunday afternoon are good ones. 

The Strong Women in Science Fiction Event

 

Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse, which includes my story "The Witch of Washington Pari," is part of the Strong Women in Science Fiction Event for August 2021.

Check out all there is to see. 

Short Film Based on My Flash Fiction Decoherence

 A few years back, a request came in to the writers Meet Up group Owl Goingback was running in the Orlando area. 

A student up in Gainesville needed a short mystery piece to shoot for a film class. I'd spent a bit of time teaching creative writing by then, gradually emerging from a creative coma induced by 12 years in a marketing job plus one damaging semester in an MFA program with a writing professor who'd go on to break the internet with a column on his harsh outlook on students. (I graduated with an MFA, but I still refer to that semester as The Lost Semester.)

A short time before, I'd written a bit of flash that landed at a webzine called DM du Jour.

To help out a student, I though sure, I can adapt that into a quick script, and I did. 

It was fun to do, but, as happens in the collaborative process, some adaptation of my script transpired for shooting. One character became two, and, partly for logistics I suspect, a moment in the story was reinterpreted. 

It didn't quite do what I'd envisioned in musing about timelines and mysterious visitors. 

I didn't say much about the product, which was mainly for a class anyway. The student got an A for her effort. I didn't think much about it. 

But literally as I was walking this morning, in my current timeline, I thought, maybe the reinterpretation played even more with timelines and many-worlds interpretation. 

So, look above. The short student film from my tale Decoherence can be viewed, and the short-short tale can still be read online as well.  

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.