Scares That Care Telethon

Another quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey everybody!  I could not possibly have more going on in my writing life right now, but updates on all of that stuff will have to wait until a later date.  Today I want to talk about Scares That Care.

For those of you who may not know, Scares That Care is a horror-themed 501 (c) (3) charity to benefit burn patients and patients of childhood and adult cancer.  Every year the charity chooses three worthy people to split the proceeds.  This year the beneficiaries are Hope, a Navy veteran suffering from cancer, Brian, a young boy who was terribly burned in a household accident, and Sawyer, a young girl suffering from debilitating tumors (I can't really pronounce the name of the disorder) whose family is having a tough time getting her back and forth from treatment.  You can read more about them here.

Now, STC is probably best known for its convention weekend, which will be happening in August if you want to go.  I'll be there, so why wouldn't you?  But it also does a number of other events throughout the year, including a telethon this past weekend.  The telethon, which was conducted by the cast and crew of The Horror Show with Brian Keene, exceeded its goal of raising $20,000 in 24 hours (we came very close to $22,000.)

So let's talk about the telethon.  In 24 hours of straight broadcasting a lot happened, so I'll just talk about a few little things.  In the very first hour of the event, comedy horror author Jeff Strand was on.  Now in 2009 Jeff released a novel called PRESSURE.  In 2016, Brian was pressured (ha!) by his publisher to name his new release the same thing.  I was able to get a copy of PRESSURE by Jeff Strand signed by Brian Keene at the World Horror Convention in 2016.  This past weekend I was finally able to get a copy of PRESSURE by Brian Keene signed by Jeff Strand.  Life is delicious sometimes.

Now at 7:00 pm Friday night I was scheduled to be a guest for a big announcement.  Here, you can see me on the air dropping the bombshell.  You can also see Brian wearing jeggings ($500 for the charity) and filmmaker Mike Lombardo wearing an "I love Tarantinto" t-shirt ($100 for the charity.)

So what was the big announcement?  Well, it turns out that Serial Box Publishing (also the corporate sponsor of the telethon) will be releasing a serialized prose version of the horror anthology "Silverwood" this coming October.  But you can pre-order it now by going here.  Of course, those of you who read Across the Board already know a bit about how this came to pass when I wrote about the writers room I worked at earlier this year.  Now, for the first time, we've been able to go public with what that secret project was.

Want to know more?  Of course you do.  Here's a teaser trailer:

Of course, the telethon was, if you couldn't already have guessed, filled with shenanigans.  Amongst them, on my end anyway, I signed up to do a collaboration with legendary horror author John Urbancik.  I also did a reading at 7:00 am and offered to read my story "My Drinking Contest with Brian Keene" rather than the usual book excerpt for a $100 donation, and the horror fans came through.  And finally, here horror pioneer Ralph Bieber and I agree to form the BieKoz podcast for the Project Entertainment Network, who desperately, desperately do not want any more shows.  Should be fun!

So I had a great time, but more importantly, we did a little good this weekend.  Did you miss the telethon and won't be able to make the convention but still want to help?  Don't worry, you can make donations any time right here.  I hope you will!