Michael A. Arnzen's Blog

A few bits of "writer"-related news to note:

I'll be returning as a guest lecturer at the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop next Summer (applications for early admission due Jan 30th!). The kind folks at Odyssey just interviewed me for their blog, too, where I talk about how I persisted in the early years of my career, and where I share some advice for writers of genre fiction. [I'll also be returning to teach at the Alpha Workshops for Young SF/F/H Writers next summer, as well!]

A shorter...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

I've gathered all the books I've reviewed in The Goreletter (since 2002) into some fun listmania lists over at amazon.com, and I'll keep adding titles to them from the "Not Dead Yet" department into the future.

I've also been having way too much fun trolling around amazon for weird discoveries, and I have compiled a few other funky lists, like the Goofy Gory Gifts Galore list and other novelty lists. I'm apparently a listmaniac.

Amazon Listmania Collects Books Reviewed

After many years of...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

Book Collectors, Arnzenophiliacs, and Ebayaholics, look out! Your chance to win some pretty rare swag in my 20th Anniversary Contest is ending sooner than you think! I'm extending the deadline to December 13th!

Up for grabs are some exceptionally hard-to-find items:

Live and Vile CD

A "test design" pressing of the Live and Vile audio disc. This CD (pictured above) was released in only 26 lettered edition copies, bundled with the leather bound edition of my novella, The B*tchfight, from Bad M...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

Join Me for The Fiction Project

I've decided to challenge myself with an art & fiction experiment that is being hosted by The Art House Co-op called "The Fiction Project."</p>

How it works is like this: I registered on their site and will soon receive a Moleskine sketchbook and a random surprise "theme" that they will send me in the mail. I next will create a story along with images somehow based on that theme (and it can be as loosely based as I want it to be). I will share scans of my work in...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

If you got your free ebook for subscribing to the Goreletter, but don't know how to read it, did you know that Amazon.com recently released a free Kindle reader for the PC? (New versions for other platforms are coming soon, too). Here's how: simply download and install Kindle Reader for PC…and then double click on the file for your ebook from inside of Windows. Voila! It's easy. Then go back to amazon's kindle shop and download any of the INNUMERABLE other free ebooks they've got....

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

Last week I posted a batch of creative writing sparks just for novelists to inspire some craziness during the launch of NaNoWriMo ("National Novel Writing Month")

Now it's a week later. Many writers have quit. Still others are beginning to lose steam. So I'm offering another batch of Instigation to possibly keep the fires burning weirdly.

Remember: finishing is not enough. You have to GO CRAZY! The glee of the twisted is a communicable disease that many readers love to catch. Good...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

The first Zoomquilt, back in 2005, was an amazing feat of online collaborative art. It took me five years to break out of its infinite loop. Little did I know that in 2007, it returned in a sequel that's even darker and more addictively hypnotic than the first. Are you ready for…

ZOOMQUILT II

Let's play a scavenger hunt together, shall we? See if you can spot the following on your never-ending journey into madness:

+ a pirate flag
+ a "warning dynamic killa" flag
+ "the end is nigh" flag
+ a...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

He skins action figures

for his masks and stalks

the model railroad village

weilding his deadly pushpin

every Halloween

until Giant Michael Myers

tosses him aside, bored,

leaving him fallen

paralyzed on the tracks

for an eternity of waiting

in suspense

for the train that never comes –

his tiny imagination

a cruel justice

worse than a thousand thousand

carnage-ridden runovers

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

Horror author Brian Keene is being massacred today by writers across the globe…fictionally, of course, and in the name of drumming up donations to the Shirley Jackson Award society.

Here's my unsolicited and wholly unwarranted contribution, written impulsively just a few moments ago, because I like Brian and I like the Shirley Jackson Awards. Be sure to click over to Keene's website, where there are plenty of entertaining alternatives by numerous twisted writers. All in good fun!

BRIAN...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »

NaNoWriMo — aka National Novel Writing Month — launched today (and I have a suspicion that Starbucks' stock will, too)! Since I know that a lot of writers follow this blog, I thought it might be cool if I shared some "Instigation" prompts just for novelists who are speeding through a caffeinated session of binge writing but hitting roadblocks along the way.

These prompts are intended to help you get over those hurdles more than just help you get started — but whatever they do, I hope they i...

View full post on Michael A. Arnzen's website »