John Everson's Blog, page 17

48 is Great?

Friday marks my birthday. Again.

YEP, THIS WEEKEND, I turn 48 years old. I guess time flies when you’re constantly staring at a computer screen!

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time. We met back when I was 28… which also turns out to be the same year I started publishing fiction. It was great catching up but… damn… how did 20 years slip by so fast?

I won’t get all melancholy about it though. This weekend is shaping up to be a fun one — centered around catching up with friends and family. I’ll be having dinner with my friend Jerry from Synapse Films tonight, with my friend Brad and his family on my actual birthday tomorrow night (at my beloved Hofbrauhaus!) and with my dad on Sunday. And in between… I’ll be hanging out all day at a book table on Saturday talking with horror fans at the Indie Horror Film Festival. It’s being held this year at Schurz High School on 3601 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago, so I’m hoping to see some more friends from the Chicago area at that event!

Next weekend, I’ll be returning to DanCon in Orland Park — so I’m hoping to catch up with even more horror and dark fantasy fans then at the Orland Civic Center next Sunday, March 23rd. It’s going to be a blast!

 

Now on Amazon, B&N, Kobo…

It’s… The .48 Sale!

I figured I’d have a little fun with the whole 48 thing, so I’m advertising a “.48″ sale. I put my horror books that I personally have control over (most of my books are with other publishers) on sale this month at $1.48 or $2.48.  So if you don’t have them yet, pick up Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions, Vigilantes of Love or Failure on sale for cheap at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords and Amazon (sort of). Amazon has only adjusted the price of Vigilantes of Love so far, but hopefully the other two will follow. If you already have these books, please post a quick review about them on Amazon — and help spread the word about the sale :-)  Here’s how you can find them:

* Amazon

* B&N

* Kobo

* Smashwords

~ A Heart for Valentine’s Day

I hope everyone has a great Valentine’s Day weekend — sharing the joy that only romantic love can bring. While I don’t quite buy The Beatles’ “Love is all you need” sentiment, love is pretty high up there on the list.  My son was busy this week making Valentines for the kids in his class, and that exercise reminded me of this short story I wrote 20 years ago; it remains one of my favorite short fantasy tales that I’ve written. It originally was published in Sirius Visions magazine in 1994 and was reprinted in my Vigilantes of Love collection.  I hope you’ll enjoy it.

 

HARD HEART

 

TRICIA TUGGED AT THE HEART on her sleeve.  Her face wrinkled in complaint, but after awhile, it came loose, ripping from her arm with a sound like Velcro separated under water. She held the heart with pincer fingers, avoiding its clumsy pulsing attempts to reattach itself.

“Would you take this?” she asked the boy sitting at the other end of the bench from her. “I don’t want it anymore.”

His name was Mark Fisher, and his sleeve was not marred by any such organic accoutrement.

Mark scratched the back of his head. “It’s kind of gross,” he said quietly. “But it’s also kind of cool. Sure, I’ll take it…”

Tricia surrendered the drippy organ to the soft-spoken boy.

She’d seen him sulking around school a lot, and earlier had decided he’d be just the kind of sucker who’d accept the harness of a heart.

Let him, she thought, watching him toy with the steadily throbbing muscle. It climbed up his arm, a centimeter at a time, coming to rest just above the elbow.

She felt a strange hollow pain her chest and throat when a smile crossed Mark’s face. Determined to enjoy her new freedom however, Tricia skipped away, leaving her heart in the hands of the grinning boy.

Tricia thought she’d be ecstatic about getting free of the heart on her sleeve, but the farther she got from the bench where she’d left it, the slower her steps became. It had been a burden, she reminded herself – always announcing to people it was there, making it difficult to blend into a crowd, getting her into trouble in school and with her parents because of its compulsions — she was much better off without it. But as she answered the bell to return to class, her face hung listless, her arms dangled limp as muslin drapes in a house with no windows.

“Hey Trish – you wanna come over today after school?” a voice called from down the hall. Sally Ketchal, the most annoying kid in class. Tricia had found excuses for not going home with Sally a hundred times this year, but now she found her mouth dry of words. She shrugged and nodded.

“You will?” Sally squeaked. Tricia winced inside, but said nothing. “Great! We can play Barbies and maybe my sister will make brownies and…” Sally chattered beside her all the way to class, but Tricia didn’t hear a word.

In Tricia’s head, over and over, she listened to the slurping, tearing, horrible sound of the heart leaving her sleeve – and wondered why it had taken her will with it.

Math class seemed to drag on forever. Until something strange happened: Mark Fisher actually raised his hand and answered a question. She couldn’t remember ever hearing him speak in class before. But now, as he did, she saw her heart — now his heart — beat faster in satisfaction.

That night, Tricia tried to remember why she had wanted to give away her heart. From the moment it had left her arm, she’d felt empty — and bad things kept happening to her.

Mrs. Engelbright had called on her in class and she hadn’t been able to spit out the answer. Everyone around her smirked and whispered. Then she’d had to endure the inane prattling of Sally all afternoon because she couldn’t seem to open her mouth and change the subject, say shutup or anything. It was not a problem anyone would have ascribed to her before. And then, to top it off, she’d gotten grounded for being late to dinner. Instead of wheedling her way out of it as usual, she’d glumly accepted her punishment (as her parents passed each other sideways glances of shocked surprise).

Mom had lectured her over and over about not speaking her mind to any and everyone, but Tricia had now come to the conclusion that letting her heart rule her head was tons better than having no heart at all.

Lying in bed with tears dampening her pillow, Tricia decided she had to get back her heart, loud obnoxious ornament that it was. Without it, she felt as free as a lion in a cage.

* * * * *

“Hi Tom!”

Tom Harris looked up from the comics rack in surprise. It was that dweeby quiet kid – Mark. What could he want?

“Have you seen those Anne Rice comics they’ve got about that vampire? They’re really cool.”

“Yeah,” Tom grunted. “I’ve got ’em all.”

“No way!” Mark gushed, oblivious to Tom’s leave-me-alone stare. But Mark’s newfound enthusiasm was infectious, and the Anne Rice series was one of Tom’s favorites. Soon they were interrupting each other in excitement. By the end of the day, they were fast friends.

* * * * *

The following day during lunch recess, it was Mark who found Tricia, sitting silent on the bench outside. Their positions weren’t totally reversed – he was not there to trade away his newfound heart.

“How ya doing?” he asked, with a cheer Tricia remembered once being her own. “Okay,” she replied, but her eyes seemed far away. Trapped inside her ribs a voice was yelling, “I’m horrible, I want to scream, I want to cry and I can’t open my mouth! Please, please help me!”

But she only smiled sadly.

“Are you still glad you gave this to me?” he asked a little guiltily, pointing at the bright blob on his arm. He didn’t want to give it back, but he knew it must be pretty valuable. It was a very forward question for Mark, but he felt good asking it.

Tricia nodded, but Mark noticed the gleam in her eyes. She looked away, but not before he saw the tear tracing a slick path down her cheek.

He wanted to turn and run. His heart skipped a beat. She did want it back. He wanted to shut his mouth and walk away. But he couldn’t hide from what he saw – not with this heart on his sleeve. It seemed to push him at the girl.

Instead of retreating, he sat down next to her.

“You want this back, don’t you?” he said quietly. She shook her head again, but he pressed on. “Without it, you’re just like I was, aren’t you? You can’t say anything, can’t do anything – nobody sees you.”

She looked at him with a funny expression. “Yes,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I don’t ever want to be like that again,” Mark declared, thinking of all the times his face had reddened as he fled in angry impotence from the taunts and jeers of the other kids. Of all the times his parents had stood behind him nudging him forward, forcing him to stand in the middle of groups of people when he only wanted to run and hide. Of all the times he’d heard adults say things that he knew were just flat wrong, but his mouth had remained locked shut.

And then he smiled as a possibility came to him. It risked everything he’d gained in these short twenty-four hours, but if it worked…

“Maybe… Maybe we could share it,” he suggested.

Tricia looked puzzled. Mark slid closer to her on the bench, and then closer still, until their arms touched.

Her eyes widened and she moved away. She huddled in the corner like a trapped possum, pinned in by the armrest at the end of the bench.

“What?” she whispered.

And then Mark mushed his shoulder against hers, and she felt a familiar tug on her arm. Fingers of warmth and energy flowed into her, spreading through her body. She had felt dead, empty. Now she felt alive again. The scared lines vanished from her face and were replaced by a sparkle in her eye. Tricia felt her tongue loosen, her limbs lighten.

With the joy came a shadow of compassion; she didn’t want to sentence this boy to live in the deadly-quiet pit forever.

She saw his face darken, his lips clench, as the heart began tearing away from his arm. She realized what taking back her heart would mean to the boy. She couldn’t do this to him… not even if it meant her own imprisonment. She placed her hand on his skinny chest, closed her eyes and shoved.

* * * * *

When he pushed his shoulder against hers, Mark felt the vibrance and energy draining from his arm. Suddenly, he was afraid.

He didn’t want to give up the heart; he didn’t want to be the cowed, quiet loser that everyone ignored, a boy trapped within himself.

He desperately wanted to pull free of the girl, keep the heart to himself. But he reminded himself that the heart was hers, and if it wanted to go back to her, then he couldn’t keep it prisoner on his own arm. He understood the feeling of being trapped too well, and he saw in her face that the heart was even now keying open Tricia’s inner lock.

Mark felt his tongue tightening and inwardly cried, “No, don’t take away my voice again!”

Then Tricia’s hand was on his body, pushing him backwards, separating their heart-joined arms. With a rush of indrawn air, he felt their connection cut, and the playground spun dizzily before his eyes. He blinked, twice, trying to slow the divebomb attack on his senses.

Mark shook his head to clear the cobwebs and saw Tricia doing the same.

At the same moment, eyes wide, mouths open in surprise, each raised a finger to point at the other’s arm.

There, above each of their elbows, throbbing contentedly, perched a glowing, red, beating heart. They were smaller by far than the single heart the boy and girl had passed between them, but that didn’t matter.

Mark felt his tongue was tighter perhaps than it had been an hour ago, but certainly more free than before he had taken the quivering heart Tricia had offered him yesterday.

Tricia was smiling. Reaching slowly across Mark’s lap, she took his hand. The heart on his arm beat faster. Hers quickened visibly in response.

“Maybe I won’t get in so much trouble now that it’s smaller,” she mused.

“Maybe they’ll grow,” he answered, and they stood.

Hand in hand, neither yelling nor sulking, they answered the bell signalling the end of recess.

-END-

“Hard Heart” is available in the   

10th anniversary edition of the collection   

Vigilantes of Love, available in e-book and   

trade paperback from Amazon.com  

and BN.com. 

The Kindle and Nook

editions are currently on sale  

for Valentine’s for just $1.99.

 

 

A Heart for Valentine’s Day

I hope everyone has a great Valentine’s Day weekend — sharing the joy that only romantic love can bring. While I don’t quite buy The Beatles’ “Love is all you need” sentiment, love is pretty high up there on the list.  My son was busy this week making Valentines for the kids in his class, and that exercise reminded me of this short story I wrote 20 years ago; it remains one of my favorite short fantasy tales that I’ve written. It originally was published in Sirius Visions magazine in 1994 and was reprinted in my Vigilantes of Love collection.  I hope you’ll enjoy it.

 

HARD HEART

 

TRICIA TUGGED AT THE HEART on her sleeve.  Her face wrinkled in complaint, but after awhile, it came loose, ripping from her arm with a sound like Velcro separated under water. She held the heart with pincer fingers, avoiding its clumsy pulsing attempts to reattach itself.

“Would you take this?” she asked the boy sitting at the other end of the bench from her. “I don’t want it anymore.”

His name was Mark Fisher, and his sleeve was not marred by any such organic accoutrement.

Mark scratched the back of his head. “It’s kind of gross,” he said quietly. “But it’s also kind of cool. Sure, I’ll take it…”

Tricia surrendered the drippy organ to the soft-spoken boy.

She’d seen him sulking around school a lot, and earlier had decided he’d be just the kind of sucker who’d accept the harness of a heart.

Let him, she thought, watching him toy with the steadily throbbing muscle. It climbed up his arm, a centimeter at a time, coming to rest just above the elbow.

She felt a strange hollow pain her chest and throat when a smile crossed Mark’s face. Determined to enjoy her new freedom however, Tricia skipped away, leaving her heart in the hands of the grinning boy.

Tricia thought she’d be ecstatic about getting free of the heart on her sleeve, but the farther she got from the bench where she’d left it, the slower her steps became. It had been a burden, she reminded herself – always announcing to people it was there, making it difficult to blend into a crowd, getting her into trouble in school and with her parents because of its compulsions — she was much better off without it. But as she answered the bell to return to class, her face hung listless, her arms dangled limp as muslin drapes in a house with no windows.

“Hey Trish – you wanna come over today after school?” a voice called from down the hall. Sally Ketchal, the most annoying kid in class. Tricia had found excuses for not going home with Sally a hundred times this year, but now she found her mouth dry of words. She shrugged and nodded.

“You will?” Sally squeaked. Tricia winced inside, but said nothing. “Great! We can play Barbies and maybe my sister will make brownies and…” Sally chattered beside her all the way to class, but Tricia didn’t hear a word.

In Tricia’s head, over and over, she listened to the slurping, tearing, horrible sound of the heart leaving her sleeve – and wondered why it had taken her will with it.

Math class seemed to drag on forever. Until something strange happened: Mark Fisher actually raised his hand and answered a question. She couldn’t remember ever hearing him speak in class before. But now, as he did, she saw her heart — now his heart — beat faster in satisfaction.

That night, Tricia tried to remember why she had wanted to give away her heart. From the moment it had left her arm, she’d felt empty — and bad things kept happening to her.

Mrs. Engelbright had called on her in class and she hadn’t been able to spit out the answer. Everyone around her smirked and whispered. Then she’d had to endure the inane prattling of Sally all afternoon because she couldn’t seem to open her mouth and change the subject, say shutup or anything. It was not a problem anyone would have ascribed to her before. And then, to top it off, she’d gotten grounded for being late to dinner. Instead of wheedling her way out of it as usual, she’d glumly accepted her punishment (as her parents passed each other sideways glances of shocked surprise).

Mom had lectured her over and over about not speaking her mind to any and everyone, but Tricia had now come to the conclusion that letting her heart rule her head was tons better than having no heart at all.

Lying in bed with tears dampening her pillow, Tricia decided she had to get back her heart, loud obnoxious ornament that it was. Without it, she felt as free as a lion in a cage.

* * * * *

“Hi Tom!”

Tom Harris looked up from the comics rack in surprise. It was that dweeby quiet kid – Mark. What could he want?

“Have you seen those Anne Rice comics they’ve got about that vampire? They’re really cool.”

“Yeah,” Tom grunted. “I’ve got ’em all.”

“No way!” Mark gushed, oblivious to Tom’s leave-me-alone stare. But Mark’s newfound enthusiasm was infectious, and the Anne Rice series was one of Tom’s favorites. Soon they were interrupting each other in excitement. By the end of the day, they were fast friends.

* * * * *

The following day during lunch recess, it was Mark who found Tricia, sitting silent on the bench outside. Their positions weren’t totally reversed – he was not there to trade away his newfound heart.

“How ya doing?” he asked, with a cheer Tricia remembered once being her own. “Okay,” she replied, but her eyes seemed far away. Trapped inside her ribs a voice was yelling, “I’m horrible, I want to scream, I want to cry and I can’t open my mouth! Please, please help me!”

But she only smiled sadly.

“Are you still glad you gave this to me?” he asked a little guiltily, pointing at the bright blob on his arm. He didn’t want to give it back, but he knew it must be pretty valuable. It was a very forward question for Mark, but he felt good asking it.

Tricia nodded, but Mark noticed the gleam in her eyes. She looked away, but not before he saw the tear tracing a slick path down her cheek.

He wanted to turn and run. His heart skipped a beat. She did want it back. He wanted to shut his mouth and walk away. But he couldn’t hide from what he saw – not with this heart on his sleeve. It seemed to push him at the girl.

Instead of retreating, he sat down next to her.

“You want this back, don’t you?” he said quietly. She shook her head again, but he pressed on. “Without it, you’re just like I was, aren’t you? You can’t say anything, can’t do anything – nobody sees you.”

She looked at him with a funny expression. “Yes,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I don’t ever want to be like that again,” Mark declared, thinking of all the times his face had reddened as he fled in angry impotence from the taunts and jeers of the other kids. Of all the times his parents had stood behind him nudging him forward, forcing him to stand in the middle of groups of people when he only wanted to run and hide. Of all the times he’d heard adults say things that he knew were just flat wrong, but his mouth had remained locked shut.

And then he smiled as a possibility came to him. It risked everything he’d gained in these short twenty-four hours, but if it worked…

“Maybe… Maybe we could share it,” he suggested.

Tricia looked puzzled. Mark slid closer to her on the bench, and then closer still, until their arms touched.

Her eyes widened and she moved away. She huddled in the corner like a trapped possum, pinned in by the armrest at the end of the bench.

“What?” she whispered.

And then Mark mushed his shoulder against hers, and she felt a familiar tug on her arm. Fingers of warmth and energy flowed into her, spreading through her body. She had felt dead, empty. Now she felt alive again. The scared lines vanished from her face and were replaced by a sparkle in her eye. Tricia felt her tongue loosen, her limbs lighten.

With the joy came a shadow of compassion; she didn’t want to sentence this boy to live in the deadly-quiet pit forever.

She saw his face darken, his lips clench, as the heart began tearing away from his arm. She realized what taking back her heart would mean to the boy. She couldn’t do this to him… not even if it meant her own imprisonment. She placed her hand on his skinny chest, closed her eyes and shoved.

* * * * *

When he pushed his shoulder against hers, Mark felt the vibrance and energy draining from his arm. Suddenly, he was afraid.

He didn’t want to give up the heart; he didn’t want to be the cowed, quiet loser that everyone ignored, a boy trapped within himself.

He desperately wanted to pull free of the girl, keep the heart to himself. But he reminded himself that the heart was hers, and if it wanted to go back to her, then he couldn’t keep it prisoner on his own arm. He understood the feeling of being trapped too well, and he saw in her face that the heart was even now keying open Tricia’s inner lock.

Mark felt his tongue tightening and inwardly cried, “No, don’t take away my voice again!”

Then Tricia’s hand was on his body, pushing him backwards, separating their heart-joined arms. With a rush of indrawn air, he felt their connection cut, and the playground spun dizzily before his eyes. He blinked, twice, trying to slow the divebomb attack on his senses.

Mark shook his head to clear the cobwebs and saw Tricia doing the same.

At the same moment, eyes wide, mouths open in surprise, each raised a finger to point at the other’s arm.

There, above each of their elbows, throbbing contentedly, perched a glowing, red, beating heart. They were smaller by far than the single heart the boy and girl had passed between them, but that didn’t matter.

Mark felt his tongue was tighter perhaps than it had been an hour ago, but certainly more free than before he had taken the quivering heart Tricia had offered him yesterday.

Tricia was smiling. Reaching slowly across Mark’s lap, she took his hand. The heart on his arm beat faster. Hers quickened visibly in response.

“Maybe I won’t get in so much trouble now that it’s smaller,” she mused.

“Maybe they’ll grow,” he answered, and they stood.

Hand in hand, neither yelling nor sulking, they answered the bell signalling the end of recess.

-END-

“Hard Heart” is available in the   

10th anniversary edition of the collection   

Vigilantes of Love, available in e-book and   

trade paperback from Amazon.com  

and BN.com. 

The Kindle and Nook

editions are currently on sale  

for Valentine’s for just $1.99.

 

 

~ Goodbye Lucky ’13!

As I sit down to write this, in just a few minutes, the ball will drop in New York, signalling the end of 2013. How did 12 months slip by so fast?

2013 was the year that we lost one of my personal heroes, Roger Ebert. He was a Chicago critic who I really admired, and he was also a fellow alum of the University of Illinois. I read his reviews and columns my entire adult life.

2013 brought us the second Star Trek reboot sequel, Into Darkness and a monster pop hit in “Blurred Lines,” from Robin Thicke, the son of Alan Thicke, the “dad” on the old wholesome family TV show “Growing Pains.”

It was also the year that gave us those mentally scarring viral videos “What Does the Fox Say?” and “Wrecking Ball.”

OK, 2013 gave us some things to remember too. For me, it was a year of many firsts, frustrations and final victories. And amid all of the stress and craziness, I was able to visit many interesting places, enjoy evenings with many good and far-flung friends, and I sampled a wide array of breweries all around North America — I don’t stop in a city without trying to check out what their local brewery scene is!

I always like to look back on New Year’s Eve at the highpoints of the past 12 months. It’s easy to forget all of the amazing moments that happen amid the endless running around trying to just “keep up.”

When 2013 began, I called it Lucky ’13. I had a lot of hopes for the year, and it definitely turned out to have some special moments. Many of them dealt with my fiction-life, but not all. Here in no particular order are my personal highlights of 2013:

I celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary with my beautiful, long-suffering wife Geri. We had a romantic dinner and overnight stay in Chicago and went to see the wildly irreverent and completely hilarious Book of Mormon in July. It was a wonderful 24 hours… if too short!


I visited South America for the first time in February. Thanks to a business trip, I went to Santiago, Chile for nearly a week and was able to take a side trip to see the beautiful coastal city of Valparaiso, on the South Pacific Ocean. Last night, in fact, I shared with a friend one of the three bottles of Chilean beer I managed to bring home in my suitcase 10 months ago  (see photo above). The distinct flavor instantly took me back…


As part of my dayjob I help videotape surgeries for educational use. This year? I saw the top half of a skull cut off with the live brain quivering just three feet away from me. I saw nerves extracted from a calf and implanted into an eyeball. I also filmed a sex change surgery. Trust me guys, you don’t want to be the cameraman when they make that last SNIP.


My novel NightWhere was a finalist in the Bram Stoker Awards, and I had the honor of sitting at the Samhain Publishing table right in the front of the room for the New Orleans ceremony.  NightWhere was also released in a limited edition hardcover from Bad Moon Books.


NightWhere was contracted for translation in Poland and NightWhere and The Pumpkin Man were picked up for translation in Germany.


I met William Shatner!!!!  Right here in Naperville!!!


Did I mention that I met William Shatner?


I was invited to help launch Amazon.com’s new Kindle Worlds storefront, and was able to write a tie-in story in the Vampire Diaries TV series world (“Witch Trapped,” published in June.)


I was also invited to help launch Amazon’s new Story Front label and at the start of December my story “Fish Bait”  debuted with the new store front.


I went to the Bram Stoker Awards/ World Horror Convention in New Orleans, and had bookselling/autograph tables at the Chicago-area DanCon, DucKon and Flashback Weekend as well as at Horrorhound in Indianapolis.


I took the family to Key Lime Cove, a waterpark, for a much-needed short weekend “Spring Break.”


My seventh novel, Violet Eyes , debuted in October, just in time for Halloween!


Amazon acquired my first five novels when they bought the Leisure Books’ catalog last year, and in 2013, they started putting some of their promotional arm on my titles, which resulted in me selling more e-book copies of Siren and The Pumpkin Man than when they were available in paperback in every Borders Store across the country. In February, Amazon put Siren in the top slot on a “Kindle Books for Under $3.99 list — and sold 7,500 copies in a month! They’ve since featured Covenant, Sacrifice, The 13th and The Pumpkin Man on various promotional lists both in the U.S. and the UK. I paid a lot more daily attention to Amazon “sales rank” numbers this year than ever before as I watched those special sales unfold.


My town, Naperville, staged its first “Ale Fest” this summer which was a big success and a ton of fun. I definitely drank my fill that afternoon as we sampled the taps of dozens of breweries from around the country.


I brought back and roasted 10 pounds of fresh Hatch Chili Peppers when I returned from a business trip to Santa Fe, NM. They helped make this year’s Christmas Chili awesome!


Speaking of food, I got a Weber Rocky Mountain Smoker Grill this summer and have enjoyed experimenting with smoking chickens, pork and beef brisket! Maybe next year I’ll earn my “pitmaster” stripes…


I finally got my first Kindle for Christmas this year.  I know, way late to the party!

 

I’ve been traveling more and more for the dayjob over the past couple years, and this year, along with my horror convention appearances, those jaunts kept me out of state at least once a month — and usually more. In 2013 I visited:

Naples, FL
Santiago, Chile
Washington, D.C.
Houston
Ann Arbor, MI (three times!)
Seattle
Calgary, Canada
New Orleans
Dallas
Santa Fe
Lexington, KY
Indianapolis
San Diego
Racine, WI
Toronto

As the year wound down, after all that running around, I was more than happy to take the last couple weeks of the year off, and just stay home. I kinda like it here — that’s why I bought the place, after all! And I definitely didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I’d like these past few months.

In the end, the best thing about this year were the little things — barbecuing on my patio for my family, and watching my son grow up — a little bit every week.

It’s been a good year. I don’t wish it away. But I am hopeful that 2014 is as fruitful and kind!

For Auld Lang Syne!

 

~ Christmas is the time…

Christmas is the time to celebrate your family and friends. It’s a time to remember and rekindle. It’s my favorite time of the year, not because of gifts, but because it’s when you get together with friends and relatives who you might not see often, if at all, during the rest of the year.

My Christmas week has started out great — I am on vacation for the next couple weeks, and so last night, I staged my third annual Christmas Ale (and bourbon) and Chili by the Pool Table night, with a group of guys from our neighborhood.

Because I was home yesterday, I was able to take a break from my afternoon of chili-concocting to go watch Shaun’s school sing Christmas carols in the gym. I also got to see Shaun throw a pie in his teacher’s face! One of the school’s fundraising drives this year was to sell pies — and my wife Geri was one of the masterminds in charge of this year’s event. To spur on pie sales, they staged an event where if you bought a pie, your kid got entered in a drawing to be able to throw a pie in a teacher’s face at the Christmas party yesterday. Ironically, Shaun’s name was drawn by the principal!  It was a fun hour and the kids had a blast… and Shaun got to do something most kids never have a chance to do!

Then I went back to my kitchen to finish preparing my jalapeno cornbread and three flavors of Chili. I’m a “bean” chili kind of guy, so my chili has hamburger with kidney beans and chili beans, along with a healthy collection of sweet red and green peppers, onions, some homegrown tomatoes, garlic and different varieties of hot peppers, some of which I brought back from New Mexico and froze a few months ago:

1) Mild Green Hatch chili pepper and Poblano (the base for all three chilis)

2) Hot Green Hatch Chili Peppers with Jalapenos and Serranos

3) Hot Green Hatch Chili Peppers with Jalapenos, Serranos and Habaneros. Plus Red Hatch Chili powder.

Seven of my friends from the neighborhood came over last night, and we pretty much polished off most of a giant vat’s worth of Chili. I filled a big silver soup pot to the brim during the afternoon before dividing it into three crock pots and adding the different peppers. The little bowl in front of the soup pot in the picture below is all that was left this morning!

Everyone brought their favorite holiday ales, and after the chili, we cooled off the gullets with plenty of those, as well as some bourbon. We spent much of the night around the air hockey and pool table, trading off stream-of-consciousness DJ-ing via YouTube and my iPod library.  3 a.m. came really fast!

After a great evening with friends last night, tonight we went out to a new local brewery — Hopvine — for dinner with another family. Shaun and their boys spent the whole time messing around with the iPad and iPhones while the adults got to catch up. The food and company made for a relaxing evening. And I love the Ben Franklin quote they have posted above the bar there (click the picture to see it).

This is the way life should be all the time — getting together with your friends every week, but we’re usually too busy running around “taking care of business” to make it happen very often.

I wish Christmas came more than once a year!

 

~ Get some Christmas Spirit with CHRISTMAS TALES

very year I post a little Christmas cheer on my website – visit my Christmas page for some holiday wallpaper, a special book deal and to hear a holiday song I wrote and recorded with a band several years ago. You can also listen to a demo song that inspired “Will You Spend This Christmas Night With Me?” one of the short stories that appear in my holiday fantasy short story collection Christmas Tales.

To read that story and a couple of my other Christmas fantasy stories, please click the links above to download the e-book from your preferred store (Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com). You can also now get copies at the Apple iBookstore or the Kobo Store.

Here is the Amazon description of the book:

CHRISTMAS TALES offers three “ghosts of Christmas” in its three stories celebrating the magic of the season, as well as the lyrics of four original holiday songs. While primarily known as a Bram Stoker Award-winning horror author, John Everson explores his lighter side with CHRISTMAS TALES. It’s a book with heart that can be enjoyed by all ages.

“Christmas, The Hard Way,” was originally written as a holiday gift to family and friends. The story is a fantastical look at the Christmas holiday from the point of view of Will, a boy who comes from a family of… well… witches. To them, magic comes naturally. But at Christmastime, they pledge to give up magic to rediscover the importance of doing and making things with the sweat of honest labor. That will be a difficult – but important – lesson for Will to learn.

“Frost,” the second tale of the collection, opens with David, a young boy from a broken home on an uneasy trip home for the holidays after visiting with his dad. But his trip takes an unexpected turn when a frost sprite in the plane window escorts him on a sidetrip journey that can only be seen as the start of “growing up”… and the beginning of a rekindled Christmas.

“Will You Spend This Christmas Night With Me?”, a new story written just for this Christmas collection, looks into the heart of a “lost man” who is living aloof and alone. The love in his heart has been buried with the memories of his family. Based on one of John Everson’s original Christmas songs (the lyric also appears in the book), it tells the life-altering story of a lonely man who takes in a homeless child – or is she? – on Christmas Eve.

Heartwarming contemporary fantasies all, CHRISTMAS TALES – which also includes a handful of original holiday song lyrics and a link for readers to hear some original holiday recordings – will bring the spirit of Christmas to your heart.

I hope you’ll enjoy my Christmas Tales  this year!

Happy Holidays!

~ “A Putrescent Pile of Bat Guano…”

You know when you read a review that begins with the line “Welcome back to our ongoing dissection of the putrescent pile of bat guano…” that it’s going to be a must-read review. I mean… there’s no question WHERE the review is headed, but it’s obviously going to be a fun, albeit damning ride.

So when I was on Google today trying to find something I had posted and ran across a review of Covenant that compared my first novel to a pile of bat shit… I had to take a look. That’s when I realized that this was actually Part VII of an ongoing “review” of Covenant. Which, really, isn’t a review at all. I quickly realized that this is actually a mean-spirited Cliff Notes of my book. A wickedly snarky Cliff Notes, admittedly, but a “review” doesn’t retell and then skewer EVERY SINGLE PLOT POINT of a story, page by page, through eight installments (yes, spoilers indeed LOL!) It goes on for so many pages (with a plethora of amusing graphics too!) that I copied it into Word to get a word count to see just how long it is. This poor, venomous woman spent hours and hours writing about my book!

20,000 words!

How cool is that?

Covenant itself is only 86,000 words. The amount this woman wrote ABOUT the book is more than 1/5 as long as the book itself! This, my friends, is what is called “making an impression.”

I skipped back to Part I of the review, and read the sad story of how my novel snuck into her home, stowed away there for a couple years until she read it, threw it against a wall and then somehow escaped the garbage bag when she thought she’d taken it to the resale shop to rid herself of its excrementitious pages. I read about how the story wouldn’t leave her (see? I did my job!) so that she decided the only way to rid herself of it was to put down every thought and feeling she had about the book to try to exorcise it from her mind. And then maybe burn it.

Wow. 20,000 words of piss and vinegar about Covenant. She builds up to a higher pitch than the novel manages itself, and I was really anxious to see how it all finally summed up in Part VIII of the “review.”

Only to find out when I got there… she ISN’T DONE!!! Problem is, it’s been a month since she posted the last installment (this rant apparently started in August). So now I’m worried that I may never see how it ends. Talk about a mean tease!

If you’ve read Covenant, you have to take a look at this. It is absolutely the most enjoyable thing I’ve read this year! She had me laughing uncontrollably about my own book several times.

You can’t say I didn’t make an impression. And isn’t that what art is all about? Generating emotional response? I guess I did it!  Read the “review” here. But be warned, there is alcohol use and lots of nasty words involved:

http://www.nerdsraging.com/2013/08/11/a-rage-filled-review-covenant-by-john-everson-or-rape-rape-the-rapening/

~ and the Halloween Winner is….

I’ve had a blast this week participating in my 3rd Coffin Hop!

Over the course of this week, we’ve talked about nothing, spiders,  horror movies, horror books, jack-o-lanterns, costumes, and visited the PumpkinMan Ouija board… and everyone who posted to one of those blogs was entered into a daily contest, as well as tonight’s  grand prize drawing.

Every day you entered got you another entry in the Great Pumpkin. Some people entered once… but only one person (if I counted right) entered all seven days. That stamina honor is held by Michael F.

This afternoon, as the rain finally gave way to some blustery wind, we went out trick-or-treating with Shaun (who was Jake, from Adventure Time) and one of his friends. Geri wore a witch-hat made by Noa Chandler, while I donned my usual cheerful mask.

It was a good time and afterwards, we came home and lit the jack-o-lanterns outside that we carved last night. Then we enjoyed some homemade chili with friends and gave out candy to a few latecomers.

Tonight, just before he went to bed, Shaun and I pulled together all of the contest entries and put them into the Great Pumpkin.

There were 118 entries in all, from 59 people. A pretty good contest!

And then it was time. Shaun takes this job seriously – he’s been doing it for a few years now, and he said he has been looking forward to doing the drawing all week.

 

And the winner is…

Lynn Neering!

 

Shaun also pulled the last name for the daily free e-book copy of Violet Lagoon — that will be going to Tim Ward.

And since he is the only one who entered every day but didn’t win, I decided that the “Stamina Award” should go to Michael F – he’ll get a Violet Lagoon as well.

Lynn Neering, our Grand Prize winner will receive:

* an autographed copy of Violet Eyes,

* an autographed copy of Creeptych, the mini-hardcover collection where “Violet Lagoon” first appeared. (It’s a rare, out-of-print limited edition, and my last extra copy!)

* a cool spider candle holder,

* a highly coveted Samhain Publishing Blood-Pen, and finally,

* an e-book copy of the brand new Carnival 13 novella, just released this week!

(this is a round robin novella benefiting Scares That Care)

 

 

Congratulations to everyone who has won this week — Sandy Czernik, Lori Parker, Kate, Sheila Halterman, Lionel Green and Meli K. — and now Tim Ward, Michael F. and Lynn Neering!

Thanks to everyone for entering and hanging out with me on the blog this week.

I hope you had a great Halloween!

~ Halloween… the big day is here!

Today is Halloween! The big day! And the final day of the Coffin Hop!

I hope you’ve scored some goodies on the various blogs participating on the Hop so far!  So far, Sandy Czernik, Lori Parker, Kate, Sheila Halterman, Lionel Green and Meli K. have won e-book copies of Violet Lagoon on drawings here the past few nights.

So far this week, we’ve talked about horror movies, horror books, jack-o-lanterns… today it’s time for costumes!

I am not a big costume guy. I know, it’s Halloween and I love this holiday but… I just never have been much into “dress up.” That said… I have donned a monster mask on occasion… after all – I need to keep up with my 8-year-old son, right?

Today I’ll be going out with him and my wife to gather a bag of candy… and I’ll likely be wearing the same mask as I have the past couple years. I kinda like it. It’s me.

What do you do for Halloween costumes? Do you dress up? Are you brave enough to share a photo for me to post on the blog? Whatever you do, post it in the comments below (you’ll have to email me the photo, if you have one you want to share – john@johneverson.com).

Post your response in the comments section below about your Costume habits… and you’ll be entered in tonight’s big, final contest to win:

* an autographed copy of the rare hardcover collection Creeptych (which includes “Violet Lagoon”),

* an autographed copy of Violet Eyes,

* a cool spider candle holder, and

* a highly coveted Samhain Publishing Blood-Pen.

 

So talk to me about trick or treating and costumes today… and tonight, my son Shaun will reach into the Great Pumpkin with ALL of the contest entries from the week in it, and draw the grand prize winner!

(Oh – and take this last chance to visit all of the other blogs on the Coffin Hop too — there are dozens of contests and giveaways spread throughout the Hop blogs! The list of participants on the web here.)

~ Coffin Hop 2013: Time for Jack!

Today is Wednesday… It’s Halloween Eve and the the seventh day of the Coffin Hop!

I hope you’ve scored some goodies on the various blogs participating in the sites on the Hop so far! I entered a couple contests myself last night. So far, Sandy Czernik, Lori Parker, Kate, Sheila Halterman and Lionel Green have won e-book copies of Violet Lagoon on drawings here the past few nights.

So far this week, we’ve talked about horror movies and horror books… but what about the staple of Halloween – the Jack-o-Lantern?

I carve two or three every year, and save the seeds for a batch of oven-dried, deliciously salty pumpkin seeds (super easy to make – soak em in saltwater for a bit, throw them on a cookie pan and dry them out on low heat in the oven ’til they’re crunchy!)

Tonight’s the night for carving at my house, and you can bet that one of the resulting jack-o-lanterns will look like this. I carve free-form, and always make a lot of teeth. This is a picture of one from last year:

So today’s contest is about Halloween prep. What do you do? Do you carve pumpkins? Do you paint them? Do you make pumpkin seeds?

Post your response in the comments section below about your pumpkin story…  and you’ll be entered in today’s contest to win an e-book copy of Violet Lagoon… Remember, everyone who enters the daily contest will be entered in tomorrow night’s grand prize drawing. BTW – my comments here don’t allow you to post pictures… but if you have a great picture of one of your creations, send it to me on email and I’ll post them on the blog tonight (john@johneverson.com).

On Halloween night, I’ll be pulling names from all the entrants to the daily contest this week for these things:

* an autographed copy of the rare hardcover collection Creeptych (which includes “Violet Lagoon”),

* an autographed copy of Violet Eyes,

* a cool spider candle holder, and

* a highly coveted Samhain Publishing Blood-Pen.

* maybe one more secret thing specific to the Hop to be named later…

So talk to me about horror books today… and then come back again tomorrow to see what other webs we might weave!

(Oh – and visit all of the other blogs on the Coffin Hop too — there are dozens of contests and giveaways spread throughout the Hop blogs! You can follow the lists of people I’ve posted on Twitter or get the list of participants on the web here.)

 

Here are a couple pictures from today’s contest entries:

Eric Grizzle:

 

Phil:

 

And here’s what I carved tonight: