Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen

The last ever quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey, everybody!

That's the last time I'm going to say, "Hey, everybody!" on this blog.

In case you've missed it over the past month plus, Across the Blog is retiring...at the end of this post.  I could make some empty promises about us getting the band back together here and there, or maybe hosting a special event or a special guest in the future, but they would be just that: empty.  Probably after today this blog will just sit and rust, unused, unthought of, and unread, until Google shuts down Blogger or the internet implodes.

And that's sad.  

But it's not the end of the world.

We'll all still be here.  I have my own personal blog, which will probably become the new ground zero for my thoughts, as it was before there ever was an Across the Board.  For the last few years, as I've found I have less I wish to say publicly and blogging has become harder and harder, I've held everything back until it was my turn to come on here.  Now, when thoughts arise that demand to be shared, I'll just go straight to Manuscripts Burn.

Christian, Victor, Jess, Kayleigh, Mary, Sam, and Karissa will all return to their corners of social media and the internet, as so many of our contributors have before.  And the friendships will remain.  

So why does it feel so damn hard to say goodbye?

I haven't been involved with a lot of creative endeavors that ended.  Usually, if anything, they just peter out.  And when something just peters out you don't "miss" it in the way you would that something with a hard start and stop does, because you never really thought about it ending, until you look back at it and realize that it just did at some point.  Certainly, I've never been involved in a creative endeavor that lasted ten years and then ended.  That's...my God, a quarter of my life.  It sounds stupid to say, but it's true.  Almost the entirety of my writing career, put another way.

For the past two months, in anticipation of this day, I've been looking back at our earliest posts, mostly to get a feel for when we actually started and how and what that looked like.  My first appearance on this blog was being interviewed by Kimberly Garnick Giarratano, who invited me to be a contributor here in the first place, and has gone on to have an astonishing career.  Then my first post was interviewing Mary Fan, who a few years later would become a contributor here, and has also gone on to have enormous success.  

I hate to name any more names, for fear of making anyone feel left out, but I've followed the careers of each of the contributors to this blog since departing, and everyone's gone on to do great work.  In a funny way, a lot of people had to say goodbye to ATB in the first place because their careers were taking off.  Maybe someday looking at the ATB archives will be like looking at that photograph of the West Point Class of 1915.

Or maybe not.  Maybe it's just a thing some people did for a while, and then will have fond memories of for a little while, and then be completely forgotten.

I probably need to stop writing now or I'll start crying.  Or, worse, get schmaltzy like the last episode of MASH, and perhaps even name this final blogpost after it.

So...thank you.  Thank you for reading.  Thank you for being here.  Thank you for spending the last ten years with all of us here at Across the Board.  And we'll see you all on down the road.

Goodbye, everybody!

October 2023 Library Events Autopsy

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody!

It's spooky season and you know what that means: live events!  I have been absolutely swamped with events this past month, and I wouldn't want it any other way.  I recorded a video to let you know how my local libraries have hosted three amazing events over the past few weeks.  Check it out!

The Neighborhood is Perfectly Fine

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody!

In case you've been wondering (you haven't) why I've been drunker and surlier than usual lately, it's because I've been pounding away at THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD, the first anthology I've ever edited, alongside my regular collaborator Wile E. Young and our very own Kayleigh Dobbs.  If it seems like I've been working on this anthology for the past year...well, it's because I've actually been working on it for three.  Fucking icebergs, you know.

THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE, the reverse haunted house story that I wrote with Wile E., came out on March 16, 2020.  Which, if you'll recall, was also the day that a global pandemic was declared so, um, yeah, people had other shit on their minds than our little ghost story for a while.  

We were a bit disappointed by sales and later that year, when we were tossing around ideas to get more exposure for our book, we naturally discussed the idea of a sequel.  But how to write a sequel to a book with such a...let's say...definitive ending?  Well, why not open the world up to other contributors with different perspectives?  Get a feel for what else was going on in our universe during, before, and even after our novel?

What was going on in Australia?  The UK?

What was going on with the young people?  Or the ghosts who had been around for ages?

Lawyers?  Sadists?  Hit men?

Wile E. and I went off to begin writing our own shorts immediately, we were so excited.  Then we spent the next two years trying to secure funding from various publishers.  (Trust me, publishing an anthology, and paying your authors fairly, is an extremely expensive proposition.)  I ended up looking at my half-finished story after nearly three years, and completely forgot how I had intended to end it.  Sometimes that happens with stuff you set aside for too long, no matter how excited you were about it.

Finally, thanks to over thirty Kickstarter backers and handshake promises from several prominent authors as incentives, we secured funding, and the stories started rolling in for our open call.

After six month of submissions, we managed to find fifteen diamonds among the...not diamonds, and it was off to the races.  And by "races," I mean, learn all of the moving pieces involved with arranging a table of contents, formatting an anthology, paying fifteen people, sending rewards to thirty people...and on and on it went.

And now, bafflingly, it's over.  This morning I shipped out the last of the backer rewards.  I mean, the real task, marketing, is about to start, but it's very strange to not have this albatross around my neck for the first time in almost a year.  

So, here it is and here's to you.  I hope you'll all grab a copy of this Taj Mahal, this massive opus and undertaking, and tell all of your friends.  Maybe it'll make a huge splash.  Maybe it'll be the greatest anthology of time.  A guy can dream, can't he?

Anarchy in the UK 2023!

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hi-diddly-ho, neighborinos!

What's that, you say? Why the change in normal greeting?  Well, let me tell you.  I am drunk.  And I have not slept in weeks.  Drunk at noon, you say?  Fuck you, says I.  I have been editing, editing, editing...oh, and filling out contracts and sending out rejections and crushing dreams and making payments.  Never let anyone tell you that you should ever edit an anthology!

But since I already did the hard work, I hope you'll all tune in on Wednesday to see how THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD (that's right, I tied it all back together) will look.  I hope to see some of your smiling faces at the big Table of Contents announcement on Wednesday. 

Here's the link, which you can click right now to add it to your schedule of events, or just click at the appropriate time.

Anyway, I spent the last year or so planning for a big trip to Europe.  The day I got back was actually when my last ATB post went up (don't worry, I scheduled it weeks ahead of time.)  But knowing that I would eventually want to share all of my experiences here on the blog, I made this video.  And now I can finally share it!

Since I ended that video by starting to eat some of the British snacks, I decided I'd better eat them all for your viewing pleasure.  So the next week I basically made a mukbang as a direct sequel.

Stokercon 2023 Autopsy

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody!  

I was supposed to do an interview this month and there was somebody I was hoping to interview about this year's StokerCon, but I couldn't quite get it together in time.  So, instead, you just get me, which should be more than enough for anyone, like a cupboard full of lembas bread.  

So, StokerCon is sometimes described as the "Oscars of Horror," where the Bram Stoker Awards are given out.  The convention itself is more of a professional than a fan con.  I've never been to StokerCon before, but this year it was in Pittsburgh, only a few hours' drive from my home, so it would have been foolish not to go.  (Although, considering it was being hosted in the dirtiest, most godforsaken city in the country, it was still kind of a toss-up.)  I was excited to go to a con I've never attended, and see old friends I haven't seen in a while, and other authors that don't run in the same circles I normally do.

Wesley Southard and I departed at 6:00 am on Friday morning, with the intention of picking up Wile E. Young from the airport in Pittsburgh.  (Oh, a disclaimer: as always, I will not mention non-public figures out of respect for their privacy, and if I fail to mention you and we had a lovely time together, please forgive me as this blogpost could simply be a list of names if I had to mention everyone I saw.)

Unfortunately, Wile E.'s plane was delayed, apparently because his pilot was from Texas and was too busy yelling "Yee-haw" and firing his six-shooter at oil derricks to show up for work, so Wes and I headed directly for the venue.  It's a good thing we did, because as soon as we arrived I was pressganged into serving in Mary SanGiovanni's stead on two panels.  Mary, you see, was blessed by the bounty of a Marvel Comics contract a few days before StokerCon and so could not attend.

At 11:00 am I sat on the military fiction panel, a perennial favorite of mine, and one I often suggest.  I got to hang out with Michael Arnzen, Brian Keene, Dacia Arnold, and others to swap war stories, which is always a good time.  

The Cosmic Horror panel

At noon I got to sit on "Evolutions in Cosmic Horror," about which I know virtually nothing, but about which Mary San is, of course, the uncrowned queen.  But worry not, gentle reader, I will be getting her back for this "favor" later this week when I introduce her to scrapple, that most redoubtable of central Pennsylvania delicacies.  I did enjoy being sandwiched between Jim Chambers and Amanda Headlee, and my favorite moment of the panel was when Jim said, "Well, William Hope Hodgson predicted a lot of things.  For instance, with 'The Ghost Pirates'..." and all I could think of was that he was going to say, "Our current spate of ghost pirate attacks."  He was actually talking about virtual reality, though, for those who were willing to sit through the entirety of the sentence before getting confused.

Patrick Freivald and myself in the dealer's room 

Thankfully, Wile E. showed up shortly thereafter and we met in the dealer's room.  Then at 2:00 pm I had my actual scheduled panel on short and microfiction, where, again, I felt wildly out of my depth, as I've thrown together some microfiction pieces in my time on this planet, and my fellow panelists were luminaries in the field and editors of microfiction magazines and the like.  Ah, well.

The short fiction and microfiction panel

After that, I got to meet up with Aaron Dries, who flew all the way over from Australia and was nominated for a Stoker Award, so you know who I was rooting for hardest.  I also got to hear Aaron and Wile E. compare the finer points of crocodile/alligator hunting, which sounded rather complicated.

At 6:00 pm came the mass signing and I'll admit, I was worried about whether to even bother bringing books to a professional con.  However, the doors opened and a young lady came hurrying up to me and told me I was her first stop and the top of her list, thanks to the recommendation of the inimitable Becky Spratford.  That has never happened to me before, so for that alone, the entire con was worth it.

Me and Laura H., a Kozeniewski superfan and soon-to-be-household name

From the signing Wes, Wile E., Keene, Amanda, and myself headed out for a truly authentic Italian meal at a Pittsburgh institution: Bucca di Beppo.  Fucking Pittsburgh.  Still, the company was lovely.

We returned to the bar where I made a special effort to spread my wings, and I'm glad I did because I sat down next to a young lady and introduced myself, where, to my surprise, she said, "Yes, I know you.  I'm good friends with Kayleigh Marie Edwards."  That's right...our very own ATB's Kayleigh.

She turned out to be Alexa K. Moon from Haifa, which I learned from her is the only nice city in Israel, a point which Keene later agreed with.  I find that hard to believe, but unless StokerCon decides to do next year in Jerusalem (that's a little Passover joke for you) I'll just have to trust the folks who have been.

In any case, Alexa and I bonded deeply over our pitch session the next day.  She was pitching a genderbent version of "Sweeney Todd."  I was pitching my next major novel, CANCELLED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE, which you may have seen me talk a bit about on Twitter.  How did our pitches do?  Well, you'll have to read on to find out, dear reader!

My pitch went great and so did Alexa's.  Ha, I just completely dismantled your expectations of reading a cliffhanger, didn't I?  That's just a small sample of the sort of convention breaking you'll find in CANCELLED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

I don't want to completely jump over the rest of Friday night, so here's a picture of me with Wile E. Young and Todd Keisling.  We drank C.W. Briar's Scotch.  It was great.

I probably spent too long at my pitch session, which was noon on Saturday, because the organizers kept coming to wring their hands and ask me and the agent I was pitching to move on.  So, I did, and, fortunately, we got to catch up for a few hours that afternoon, along with Craig Brownlie, who you may remember from my STC post, and a few others.  I actually got to meet Craig's entire family that evening, so that was great as well.

L to...I dunno.  Wes, me, Bridgett Nelson, Jeff Strand, wow, this is really fucking hard the way the photo is framed, Wile E. Young, C.W. Briar, who I've now mentioned twice in captions, because he is awesome, but I feel bad about not mentioning him in the general narrative yet

 

Saturday evening was the Stoker Award banquet, so naturally my cheap, schlubby roommates all decided to stay in their rooms and eat pizza rather than get up off a buck for once in their lives.  So, we ended up hanging out with Keene, who was presenting, and Candace Nola, who I'm sorry to report is a native of Pittsburgh, and therefore couldn't simply leave this armpit of a city at the end of the weekend.

Still, I'd never been to a Stoker Award banquet, so I asked around and apparently the hoi poloi can sneak in after dinner time if they stand in the back quietly.  Aaron did not win (boo!) but a bunch of other people did, and, in true Oscars fashion, it ran about an hour and a half late.

Then the bacchanal began.

I think it started with Lesley Conner and Jason Sizemore in Keene's suite, and ended up with Eric LaRocca at about 5:00 am in the lobby.  I think I finally got to speak to Jessica McHugh for more than two seconds somewhere in between those, and I also seem to recall being put "in charge" of the party, although very few people respected my erstwhile authority.

And that, my friends, is more than you probably ever wanted to know about StokerCon 2023.  Oh, also, C.W. Briar was an RA in college.  Do with that information what you will.

Release Announcement: THE THING UNDER YOUR BED

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody!

I'm pretty excited about this one.  Nearly ten years ago I wrote and recorded a short story called "The Thing Under the Bed" for 2014 Horror Addicts Masters of the Macabre competition.  It was based on three prompts, which I think were "bed," "fire," and "Big Ben."  So, uh, yeah, that one ended up taking place in London for some reason.

But the idea of a horror story that takes place entirely in a child's bedroom as they face down with the boogeyman has fascinated me ever since.  A few years ago I finally expanded it into the novella which you can now hold in your hands.  I've already had interest from not one, but two movie studios (let the bidding war begin!) which is equally as thrilling.  I wrote it specifically with the thought of being an inexpensive concept for an indie film, having, as it does, a single location and very few characters, a la Max Booth's "We Need to Do Something."  So, here's hoping.

In the meantime, I do intend to record the audiobook of the novella myself, which is something I've also been very interested in doing.  And in the meantime meantime, you can just grab a copy as of today.  So do you dare face down THE THING UNDER YOUR BED?  If so, you can pick it up at:

Amazon
Apple
Google Play

Barnes & Noble
Smashwords
Kobo

Or, let us know how you felt about it here:

Goodreads

Butter Over Too Much Bread

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, kids!

Hope all's going well with you.  Today I'm feeling overwhelmed.  Or, as Bilbo once so aptly put it, like butter over too much bread.  

Right now I'm doing something which I really shouldn't be doing, which is querying a novel I haven't 100% finished editing.  I've done everything I need to start querying, which is, to be fair, quite a lot.  Before I would even start I would say you have to complete:

1.)  A query letter

2.)  A one-page synopsis

3.)  A two-page synopsis

4.)  Edit the first 10 pp

5.)  Edit the first 50 pp

Agents and publishers ask for all of these items at various stages of the querying process, and I'm learning now a lot of them are asking about your indie sales numbers in addition to social media clout, comp titles, and a bunch of other various nonsense that really feels more like gatekeeping than anything else.  And, I know, "gatekeeping" is the buzzword du jour lately, but I just have to wonder why any potential agent would want to know about my marketing plan before reading page one of my manuscript unless, of course, he just wants to keep out the riff-raff.  

I was actually making good progress on getting to:

6.)  Edit the complete ms

when an e-mail came through this weekend containing an entire manuscript Gavin Dillinger and I have been collaborating on.  This one is called LOONEY! and might be best described as a horror version of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.  Our intent was to bring some of the genuine horror of the Looney Toons universe into the real world both in the theoretical sense of how it would feel to be someone Bugs Bunny was picking on and in the real-world context of the often explicit racism, sexism, transphobia, and the like that informed those classic works.  I'm rather satisfied with how it came out, but I wasn't so excited to jump in and start editing two whole novels this month.  Of course, if I get a bite on the unnamed one I'm querying, that will take priority, but until then, collaborations, as always, take priority with me.

Meanwhile, in the publishing world, this past week we had an international BookBub event for ILLUSIONS OF ISOLATION by Brennan LaFaro, the first collection from French Press.  That has gone smashingly, but required a significant amount of effort to change the prices on every platform it appears on.

Speaking of French Press, we're still working on putting together our first anthology, THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD, which you can, of course, still submit to.  We (and by "we," I mean mostly our very own Kayleigh Edwards) have already put a ton of effort into wading through the slush pile.  I suppose we could always just add a requirement to discuss your indie book sales and your marketing strategy.  That seems to work elsewhere.

We've also managed to snag a narrator for ILLUSIONS OF ISOLATION, and coming up soon I will be releasing my first standalone novella, THE THING UNDER YOUR BED, which, for reasons I am beginning to regret, I intend to narrate myself.  I've always wanted to narrate something for audiobook, and this seems both the right length and it would save me the trouble of having to find and pay a narrator.  Of course, if that turns out to be a nightmare, it may end up being simply another writing lesson learned.  

All of this is, of course, before we even start talking about my day job, which has become an unbearable nightmare in its own right.  I wanted, though, less to simply bitch this month as to commiserate.  I find myself overwhelmed at times with this job, and I expect many of you are as well, though often in public, in social media and the like, we must put up the front of the ever-plucky indie author.  So just know that I see you, I feel you, and if you're feeling overwhelmed for any reason, know that you can always reach out to me via whatever method you feel most comfortable with.

Okay, everybody, talk to you soon!

STC Authorcon II Autopsy

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, kids! Last month I talked a little bit about the origin of Scares That Care Authorcon and my plans for it. Now I am back from the con and, let me tell you, it was a hell of an experience!

First, and most importantly, the charity was able to fulfill its obligations to its three recipients this year, and Authorcon III will be happening. So yay!

Second, this was my most financially successful convention in the ten years I've been doing them. Anecdotal evidence suggests many of my peers had a similar experience.

Third, my non-scientific emotional radar is telling me that that ineffable "it" of STCs past is back. When STC first came back after the pandemic I remember speaking with John Wayne Comunale into the wee hours of the night and we both agreed that the atmosphere of the con had become bizarre, perhaps even a little unhappy. This year I felt the same way I used to years ago, that the con was the highlight of my year. And, yes, I told the organizers that.

Now, a caveat. Whenever I read a con recap, I immediately scan for pictures and mentions of myself, because I am a little, little man. You and I could absolutely have had an amazing conversation or experience over the weekend that will not make it into the paragraphs below, and for that, I apologize in advance.  But I had so many great encounters, barring just making this post a list of names (and even that would by necessity be incomplete) there must be some abridgement.  Feel free to yell at me in the comments about how you should absolutely have made the cut, though.  (Also, fans and non-public figures will not be fully identified.)

After scaring a Jovi off my front porch Thursday morning while packing in my underwear, I departed for Williamsburg, stopping only to pick up my customary Wawa tuna hoagies on the way, and arrived at the venue at about 5:00 pm.  The fine balloon artists of Air Studio had fashioned for me a bespoke black tentacle sculpture in honor of my con exclusive, THE THING UNDER YOUR BED.  The tentacle proved to be far more popular than I was as I brought it in, and many people were excited to finally get to see it in the (latex) flesh.

Thursday evening Wile E. Young and I had promised to have dinner with Sean I., a longtime fan who I gather was a bit worried about being popular at the con. Consequently he chose the three sexiest men at the event to drape himself with at dinner, that being my collaborator, myself, and legendary silver fox Craig Brownlie.  We advised no one, which, in retrospect, was something of a failure of concept, that our safeword would be "corduroy" if dinner with Sean turned into an Annie Wilkes-type situation.  Fortunately (?) it did not.

Thursday evening Wesley Southard and Mike Lombardo showed up, so I promptly went to bed.  No, I'm just kidding.  I just ditched them to link up with Jeff Strand, exhausted from being the new Writing Workshop instructor, and his surrogate daughter Bridgett Nelson, who probably tired of all the praise I kept heaping on her debut, A BOUQUET OF VISCERA.  Then we moved out to the lobby to drink with John Durgin, Aron Beauregard, and Daniel J. Volpe.  My good friend and piercer extraordinaire Kenny H. then made a surprise appearance alongside "his lady."

Friday morning Kenny texted me to ask when we would all be going to Rick's Cheesesteak Shop, another STC stalwart.  I then texted Wile E., Lombardo, and Wes, to discover that everyone was, in fact, already in the lobby ready to go for steaks.  I then decided to TikTok the rest of the con, made a single video at the restaurant, and promptly forgot to TikTok anything else for the rest of the con.

That afternoon the charity staff conducted the opening ceremonies, awarding the STC Crystal Pepsi Award to Brian Smith and the First Annual Wilburn-Thomas Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence to Jonathan Janz, recognizable by his hammer pants.  The vendor room was supposed to open at 5:00 pm, but the auditorium cleared out at 4:45 pm , and I promptly sold about ten books before we had even technically opened.  The rest of Friday was insane, and I nearly cleared out my inventory.

Me and Erica W., a fan

At 6:45 pm I moderated the Collaboration panel with Wile E., Wes, Ruthann Jagge, and Daron Kappauff.  That went extremely well, and as I had another panel at 8:00 pm, I stayed up on the second floor, talking to Kenzie Jennings, who was not having very good sales at all, which was apparently indicative of how things were going on the second floor.  That will become important again later.

The next panel was military and alphabet soup ops, led by Scott M. Baker, and featuring myself, John Lynch, L.P. Hernandez, and Rachel Brune.  I was shocked to learn Hernandez was still on active duty and publishing, something I'd always been too cowardly to attempt myself.  I was glad we got to swap service stories, and much to my surprise copies of BROKEN-DOWN HEROES, my semi-fictional war memoirs, began to walk off from the table after that.

I had intended to get precisely zero books myself over the weekend, because that always destroys my profit margin if I go down that route, but Jessica Eppley gave me a copy of her horror debut PENDULUM, I couldn't resist getting a new Strand, and I remembered I'd wanted Mona Kabbani's FOR YOU since she had pitched it to me at Authorcon last year, and I had been obsessed with the cover of Nathan Ludwig's THE COMFY-COZY NIHILIST and Wile E.'s...too long title to recount here.  So zero quickly became not zero.

Wile E. and Wes ran off to get some pizzas, while Brian Keene wandered around in a daze in the lobby saying, "I want some pizza.  Why won't anybody get me any pizza?"  It was an insoluble problem.  Fortunately I was sitting there talking to Jason Cavallaro about procuring girlfriends for the six thousand monkeys he oversees in his day job (true story) because, like Solomon, I was able to cut through that Gordian Knot and said, "Brian, shut up and eat some of Wes's."  

After catching up with Zach Rosenberg on some bitchy industry gossip which neither of us can ever share again due to mutually assured destruction, I joined Wes and the others and discovered that, unlike the Gordian Knot, the pizza had not been cut.  So like the human animals we are, we ripped chunks of cheese-covered dough off a large pie with extra COVID and jammed them down our gullets.

Saturday the vending quieted down a bit compared to Friday, but nevertheless never really slowed down.  Even cooler, the charity staff had moved all of the second floor tables down to open spaces in the lobby and ballroom, so that Kenzie and her comrades would have a better shot at sales all weekend.  What other con would do that for its vendors?  None, I can assure you.

At noon, Wile E., Daniel, Jeff, Tommy Clark, Armand Rosamilia, John Urbancik, and I had our remembrance of our dear, departed friend Jay Wilburn.  There wasn't a dry eye in the house from Armand's opening remarks onwards, and I think the catharsis from that event is part of what put me into such a better emotional place at the con this year.  Afterwards, Jay's wife asked me to help distribute some of his personal effects, including some blackout poetry by Jessica McHugh and some art prints, so I spent most of that afternoon taking care of that, and giving Jay's friends something to remember him by.

After the vendors' room closed at 6:00, Wes, Wile E., Lombardo, Lucas Mangum, Nathan Ludwig, and a few others headed to Maurizio's Italian restaurant for some manigott'.  This will also go down as the night where four of the finest minds in bizarro and splatterpunk developed the concept for RAPE APE: THE RAPIEST APE (coming later this year from Godless.)

Me and Nathan Ludwig

Saturday night was the pièce de résistance (Fr: "piece of resistance") of the con, the Gross-Out Contest.  I, naturally, won, according to everyone present and several people who hunted me down afterwards to say so, although according to the judges it went to some Chris DiLeo guy.

The festivities moved from the stinking heat of the Gross-Out venue to the bar and lobby.  I got to hang out with super fans Rachel S. and Sonja S. (no relation) and listen to Lombardo's vague reminiscences of British television show "The League of Gentlemen" before moving on to the court of King Maurice Broaddus.  If you've never heard Maurice spin a yarn, I can assure you, you are missing out.  I even got to hear one from him I'd never heard before. 

Me, Craig Brownlie, Lesley Conner, and Maurice's son listen to Maurice Broaddus

Sunday Wile E. and I had a reading.  We started with our standard five-minute con specialties, but then as the crowd poured in, we both each read a full short, which I haven't done in years.  Mine was fine, but Wile E. read a tense, utterly engrossing piece about people becoming transfixed with alien lights which I think is going to become a neo-horror classic.  We closed out the vendors tables, and the official con ended.  But Sunday night was coming, often my favorite night of a STC event.  And this year I was in for more than I ever bargained for.  I took a nap for a few hours and struggled to make it to the bar by 7:00 pm, worried that folks would be toddling off to bed early.  There I got to meet Tim Lebbon and Gemma Amor, and discussed the idea of a STC UK, although who knows if that is even possible.  When they and Brian toddled off to bed at 7:45 pm or so I joined Candace Nola, Anton Cancre, Lucas Milliron, Craig, and some others, including the entire Nola clan, for beers until we closed out the bar.

We moved on to the lobby, where every unfinished bottle of liquor in the hotel gradually began to accumulate.  There, Craig and I explained, in excruciating detail, the entire plot of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Inner Light" to Joseph Pesavento.  No doubt this alone was worth the price of Joseph's admission.

Don Noble, the cover artist of THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE, joined us and began explaining to me how to make modern home-made body armor.  Then Ali S., poor, sweet Ali S. walked by and I yelled out, "Ali!  Why haven't you hung out with us yet this weekend?"

And thus was the Sunday Night Squad born.

We stayed up until at least 6:00 am, smoking way too much, drinking way too little, nearly making Don late for his flight, absolutely making Ali late for hers, nearly killing poor Joseph when he was just trying to get a blood sugar cookie, playing "Heart and Soul" on the lobby piano, and generally making the entire lobby a No Lame-o's Zone all night.

This is what I'm talking about when I say the con was back.  This, this is what I used to do five, six years ago with Lombardo, Rachel Autumn Deering, and other folks I've fallen out of touch with.  We'd find hidden nooks, talk all night, and let the mighty power of fellowship found in the world of literature take us away.

On my drive home a Katy Perry song played on the radio.  She sang, "Just because it's over doesn't mean it's really over."  And I know, that's a stupid pop song about breaking up with a boyfriend who probably never existed or something, but it kept going through my head the whole way home.  

Authorcon isn't really over.  

Scares That Cares isn't really over.

The way it makes you feel isn't really over.

It's never really over.

AuthorCon Extravaganza!

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody! WE ALL LIVE IN A FASCIST POLICE STATE NOW, THANKS TO THIS ONE FUCKING GUY, just in case you forgot.  But in the meantime, we can still have fun at horror conventions, and my very favorite convention of the year is fast approaching: Scares That Care AuthorCon!

Now, for those of you who don't closely follow the convention circuit, but maybe have a vague recollection that STC is in August, I have some sort of bad news for you: the flagship August STC convention is not happening this year.  The board opted not to do it this year, which would seem to indicate it will be defunct for a little while at least.  But the good news is that last year the charity also held an author-focused event in April, which is still happening this year.  So that's the deal with that.

So when and where will it be held?  I'm glad you asked, dear strawman blog reader.  Here's that pertinent info:

Dates: Friday through Sunday March 31 - April 2, 2023
Location:
DoubleTree by Hilton
50 Kingsmill Road
Williamsburg, Virginia 23185

Now, you Kozeniewski fans out there can get super excited because I will be having two (count them) con exclusive products, not counting remaining copies of HORSEMEN, of which there are currently 9 existing on the planet, which, yes, will all be at STC Authorcon II.  The first con exclusive will be t-shirts:

While supplies last (hint: they won't last very long) I'll have black Braineater Jones t-shirts in S, M, L, XL, and 2XL.  But not to worry, if you don't like the color or you miss out, you can always grab more Braineater t-shirts and other swag at the French Press Shop.

The second con exclusive will be a book which I have not yet published, or indeed announced, until this very blogpost: THE THING UNDER YOUR BED.

THE THING UNDER YOUR BED is a standalone extreme horror novella which takes place entirely on a little girl's bed over the course of a single night.  And until I publish it later this year, the only place you'll be able to get a copy is in person at STC AuthorCon.  So don't miss out on your chance to be one of the cool kids!  (Note: the owners of French Press are not responsible if THE THING UNDER YOUR BED causes you to wet your pants in terror in the middle of the night and ruin your own bed.)

But wait!  There's plenty of more Kozeniewski to go around.  I will not be sitting, languishing, lonely and miserable in the dealer's room all convention.  I will also be doing several panels and readings.  Here's my full schedule of events, literally none of which you will want to miss even a millisecond of:

Panels:

Friday 6:45 pm - "Collaborations" (Moderator, with Wile E. Young, Wesley Southard, Ruthanne Jagge, Daron Kappauf, and RJ Roles) - Room 16

Friday 8:00 pm - "Military Ops" (with Scott M. Baker, moderator, Rachel A. Brune, John Lynch, and L.P. Hernandez) - Room 16

Saturday, 12:00 noon - "A Tribute to Jay Wilburn" (with Armand Rosamilia, Max Booth, Jeff Strand, Daniel J. Volpe, John Urbancik, and Thomas R. Clark) - Room 18

Saturday, 10:30 pm - "The Gross-Out Contest" - Room 18

Sunday, 12:15 pm - "Reading" (with Wile E. Young) - Room 8

So how about that?  I can't wait until this year's AuthorCon, and I hope you can't either.  Hope to see you there, everybody!

Farpoint 30 Autopsy

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody!  Don't forget, WE ALL LIVE IN A FASCIST POLICE STATE NOW, THANKS TO THIS ONE FUCKING GUY.  Who's the fucking guy?  Well, take a fucking guess.

Meanwhile, I'm back from my first convention of the year.  Now we are so happy we do the Dance of Joy!  Doy-doy-doy-doy...  (How's that for an IYKYK?)  I've been attending Farpoint for...gosh, it must be six or seven years now.  Okay, I double-checked and it appears to be six years.  

But what I realized this year was that I hadn't seen my usual con partners, Elizabeth Corrigan and our very own Mary Fan, who I used to say three or four times a year for what must be at least three years due to the pandemic.  It was time to rectify that mistake!

Last year I felt wrecked having to drive back and forth to Farpoint multiple times, so this year I decided to try to limit my panels to just Friday and Saturday.  So I drove down to Baltimore Friday night, checked in, and sat on my first panel, "How to Build an Alien," the subject being, how do we avoid the Humans But With Funny Foreheads cliche.  (Farpoint, in case you couldn't guess from the title, is a largely "Star Trek"-themed con.)  

We actually had a pretty decent audience for a Friday night, and as of 5:59 pm I thought I was going to be the only panelist.  So I got ready to give the folks a hell of a show, even if it was just me on the other side.  But, within about thirty seconds three more panelists piled in, including the moderator and thankfully the pressure was significantly lessened.  We still gave them a hell of a show, of course!

Then I headed over to meet up with Mary and Elizabeth for dinner.  It may have been a while, but it's nice to see old friends and fall back into old rhythms.  It may have been three years but it felt like no more than three days.

I headed home, and since moving into Air Studio International Headquarters, I am about a half hour closer to Baltimore than previously, so it was actually not a miserable weekend in terms of driving.  People say it happens after cons a lot, but I was really feeling rejuvenated as a creative this time, particularly from seeing Mary and Elizabeth, so I sat down and wrote an entire original piece for my Saturday reading, "How an Enormous Black Poodle Almost Killed Me and Vincent Price's Daughter."  I was planning just to read something from my stockpile, but there you have it!  My 2023 original piece done.

Saturday morning my first panel was at noon, and that was "Write What You Know," which, ironically, was actually meant to be a takedown - or, at a minimum, a dissection - of trite writing advice.  To the aspiring writer in the front row who took down a whole moleskine of notes, I see you!  I also recommended that all of the aspiring writers submit to THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD, so hopefully we'll see some movement there.

For the hour of lunch that we got a managed to get a sausage, egg, and cheese muffin that was frozen solid in the center, just the way I likes it, and set about editing the short piece I had written the night before.  Shockingly, it was not bad.  There were a few bits I didn't quite like, but after doing this for ten years, I have a pretty good feel for how audiences will react to readings, and I could tell this one was going to be decent.  So I headed over to the Derby room and when it was still empty at 2:05 pm, without even a sign of my other reading partners, I suspected I'd get another hour to myself.  Maybe I could get another ice muffin!

But all of a sudden an audience poured in alongside the other readers, and I suppose what happened is everybody got stuck at other panels.  My weekend has been thankfully broken up with at least one hour between each panel, but clearly not everyone got that luxury.  So I read "Black Poodle" and people seemed to enjoy it!  I'm actually glad I did it in front of a different audience before some of the bigger cons coming up this year, because I definitely noticed some saggy parts that I can tighten up.  Although, if you don't mind me tooting my own horn, I noticed as I was speaking some of the weak turns of phrase and changed them on the spot.  But now those changes can go into the official script!

Then my 4:00 pm signing came and Billy West and Carlos Alazraqui almost immediately left their stations so...I did not sell any books.  But, all in all, I very much enjoyed Farpoint again this year, as I do every year.  It was a very nice, leisurely way to kick off the con season, with the panels not being overwhelming and not having to table or deal with packing and hoteling.  And for those of you who want to hear "Black Poodle" in its entirety, well, you'll just have to make it to another one of my events this year.  For now, ciao, everybody, even though I'm not Italian.

New Kindle Vella Release - WALIAFPSNTTTOFG

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, kids!  Happy MLK Day.  For the first time in what seems like many, many years, judging by a brief look over my past posts I seem to be relatively optimistic for the future this MLK Day. I can't say all fear for the destruction of civic society has abated, but I think things are going in somewhat the right direction again after a long, long time in the wilds.

That being said, perhaps this is an appropriate day for me to share my latest project, which was definitely written during those last few years while wallowing in existential despair:

WE ALL LIVE IN A FASCIST POLICE STATE NOW, THANKS TO THIS ONE FUCKING GUY!

This story is kind of an analysis of my lifelong fascination with the very banal people who don't even seem to notice as they compromise their lives away into monsterhood.  Which is not an indictment, per se.  I've certainly done it myself on at least two occasions.  And more of you than I guess would care to admit probably have as well.  And who is the titular fucking guy responsible for our collective woe? Well, you'll have to read it to find out, although that's a bit disingenuous, because you'll really have to read between the lines to actually find out.

In any case, now is definitely the time to check this out because three episodes are up as of yesterday and they are all free to read. This story has been my first attempt dipping my toes into the world of Kindle Vella and I should say that the jury is still out.  I guess I won't really know until next week, when the first "paid" episode comes out, how interested people are in continuing this story.  But for now, it certainly can't hurt you to go check it out for free.

I've got a ton of irons in the fire right now, so I will just let this one be for now and talk to you all real soon with tons more cool news.  Thanks, everybody!

Open Call - THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

A shiver ran down Donna’s spine and, even though it was the dead of summer, her breath came out in an icy puff as she exhaled.

“Dammit, Kyle!” Donna shouted, smacking over her shoulder at the ghostly apparition of her brother, who had snuck up behind her. “What are you doing?”

“Just rubbing your shoulders,” he replied, exasperated. As he removed his ethereal fingers, her back warmed up again instantly. “You need to relax more, Red.”

***

What if ghosts were real? What if they were a part of everyday life? What if they were, in fact, kind of banal? Could you still tell a horror story about them?

We like to think so. In fact, we wrote an entire novel about it. And now we’re inviting all of you to scare our pants off with your short stories set in the world of THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE.

French Press is delighted to be opening up to our first open call ever, for THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD. This open call will round out the entries from our invited authors, modern horror maestros Jeff Strand, Brian Keene, and Candace Nola. We hope to hear from you and all your friends, so please share widely!

The Perfectly Fine Rules:

- Please submit your manuscript between 12:01 am EST on December 19, 2022 and 11:59 pm EST on July 1, 2023.

- Stories should be between roughly 2,500 and 6,000 words.

- Payment will be $0.03 per word.

- Please format all manuscripts in 12 pt Times New Roman font, double spaced, with standard industry headers, etc. When in doubt, follow William Shunn’s Modern Manuscript Format.

- Stories must be reasonably classified as horror. Elements of other genres (i.e. dark fantasy, thriller, erotica, etc.) are fine, but explicit pornography and proselytizing religious tracts will not be accepted.

- All stories must take place in the world of THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE. This is an alternate reality where the following rules apply:

    1. Ghosts are real.

    2. Everything that dies, animal or human, leaves behind a ghost which persists eternally. Yes, that means a character could chill out with Julius Caesar and Jimi Hendrix if so desired.

    3. Everyone can see ghosts and knows ghosts are real.

    4. Only a total crackpot along the lines of a flat earth conspiracy theorist or anti-vaxxer in our own reality would deny the reality of an afterlife.

    5. To not see ghosts would be considered a handicap akin to blindness, a lack of sixth sense.

    6. Those are the basic, unbreakable rules for this anthology. But for more information on this world, you can read THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE.

- We are actively encouraging members of groups who have been traditionally marginalized in publishing to submit to this open call. However, simply being a member of such a group does not guarantee you a slot. Stories will be evaluated solely based on the quality of the writing.

- Our decision about your story will not be affected if you contributed to the Kickstarter for THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD. We appreciate your support, but it would be unethical to weigh submissions from backers differently from non-backers.

- This anthology’s editors are Kayleigh Marie Edwards, Stephen Kozeniewski, and Wile E. Young. Please address your query e-mail to whichever editor you think would most enjoy your story. Alternatively, you can roll a six-sided die and choose Kayleigh upon a 1 or 2, Stephen upon a 3 or 4, or Wile E. upon a 5 or 6.

- Please format your submission query e-mail in roughly this manner:

To: frenchpresspub (at) hotmail (dot) com

Subj: TPFN – Carnacki – “The Perfectly Fine House on the Borderland”

Dear Kayleigh, Stephen, or Wile E.,

Please see attached my story “The Perfectly Fine House on the Borderland,” complete at 4,000 words, for consideration for inclusion in THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD.

If I am a member of a group traditionally underrepresented in publishing, here is a little information about that.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Very Respectfully,

William Hope Hodgson (writing as Thomas Carnacki)
Phone Number
Mailing Address

- Please do not respond if you are rejected. As we juggle hundreds (thousands?) of submissions, even a kindly thank you note will quickly become a nuisance. And if you have something more negative to say than “thanks for your consideration,” it’s best to save that up and unleash it on an unsuspecting volunteer umpire at your child’s next pee wee sporting event.

- Remember the most important part of writing: have fun! And thank you for considering submitting to us.

A Brand New Venture for A Brand New Press

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey, everybody!  If you've been paying attention to my posts this year, you've probably gathered that I am making some big strides with what was formerly just my personal imprint, French Press, including publishing YOU'RE MINE by extreme horror icon Somer Canon.

One of the reasons I wanted to take French Press from a logo I stick on the side of my books to a meaningful publishing concern is that for a while now I've wanted to publish an anthology.  THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD, as it's currently known, is an anthology which takes place in the universe of THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE originally conceived of by myself and Wile E. Young.  We had such fun in this universe that we thought others might enjoy playing in the sandbox as well.

However, as an author, I'm always concerned about authors' rights, particularly their right to eat something tonight.  So I always knew that any anthology I oversaw would be a somewhat expensive concern.  After crunching the numbers, between paying our invited contributors, a cover, marketing, the French Press employees (yes, they are real people), and paying a decent fee to the over-the-transom contributors, I figure THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD will cost us around $3,000.

When I was initially tossing this idea around with Wile E. we tried to secure funding from a number of other publishers.  Unfortunately, they all fell through.  But now that I've got my own company up and running I'm giving it another shot via crowdfunding.  French Press's marketing team did some research, and we finally settled on Kickstarter, which sounds like we didn't actually do any research at all, but fuck you, we actually dug deep into all of the crowdsourcing platforms before choosing this one.  It's not ideal for our purposes, but there is no ideal source for our purposes, so, we're going with the enemy of perfect: good enough.

And let me tell you, I have been floored with the support we've gotten so far.  Only two days after going live the Kickstarter reached its first goal of $500, which is enough for me to promise that THE PERFECTLY FINE NEIGHBORHOOD will actually be happening.  But, for the next month, I'm hoping we can make it all the way to our farthest stretch goal of $3,000, which will secure tons of super goodies, including additional uninvited slots and a whole bevy of awesome contributors.

So, if you're interested in making this thrilling reverse haunted house anthology happen, or just to hear a little more about it, click here or on the image below.  Won't you be our neighbor?