Josh Kent's Blog, page 2

New Project! Here’s a sample…

I’m writing a new book. Here’s a screen test, unedited…

A Thief at the EV-Library

“Well, let me tell you about the way she looked

The way she acted, the color of her hair

Her voice was soft and cool, her eyes were clear and bright

But she’s not there”

The Zombies, Marquis Songs USA

When the screen went from black to white, Erendylae right-sized herself to sit in the human chair and started clicking away at the keys. The words flitted onto the screen in black characters probably faster than she was typing them. She was sending an encoded message to her partner, Farkas, over in Wyddrum. Wyddrum meant the other side of this world, Deasil… “Earth” or “Reality” as the humans called it. Wyddrum of course was completely unknown to them. Well, nearly completely unknown.

“Excuse me?” An unfriendly voice came from behind her. “That terminal is out of order.”

She turned and flashed her blue eyes at the grim man in the uncomfortable-looking gray uniform of an EV-librarian, his yellow pocket badge identified him as Lawrence Hambold: EV-Archivist.

“Umm, no it isn’t. See?” She turned her half shaved head and her earrings jingled under her pink hair.

“My lord, what are you writing?”

What she had been putting out was baldly raunchy. “Er, not for you!”

He didn’t look away, his eyes darted down the screen.

“Are you really doing that kind of writing? Aren’t you a bit… how old are you?”

“Age is all in your mind sir.” This was annoying. She had to think of a way to get him to move on. She wished she wasn’t such a major talent at cornball steam scenes. She could tell he was hooked. She grimaced at him, tried to wave him away with both hands. In her fuss, the glamour she’d cast over the monitor failed and the formerly veiled message to her partner blazed in bright green against a black screen.

100% TERMINALS WEBBED | KEY 7434 | KEY 5RYT | KEY 9VVX

A nine minute countdown clock appeared and rushed at its dimunition.

“What?” Lawrence Hambold instantly recognized the passcodes to the central information vaults. She was transmitting them! What does “webbed” mean? What’s the countdown for? He yelped and fumbled around in his pants for his library issued mini-com – it stopped fitting his finger after the holidays –  his eyes screwed around wild with panic.

She split. He loped after her.

In his hand now, Lawrence’s decades outmoded library issued mini-com sprang up a lattice-work of green icons on a grid. When the 999 emergency button finally flickered to life, he mashed it repeatedly with his thumb. Algae-green lights blinked on the corners of the room and a klaxon wailed and warbled.

“State the nature of the emergency.” A hollow voice came.

Lawrence cracked his knee on the edge of a metal desk. That stopped him. He wheezed, “I’ve got an EV pirate at Bowerston’s Archive. In broad, bloody daylight!”

“Do you have an image of the perp?”

Lawrence tottered again in Erendylae’s direction. The elevator. Her back was to him just as the old-style doors were closing. Mostly functional, the antique elevator was one of the more homely attractions of the Bowerston Branch Library.

He surprised even himself with a massive lunge for the doors, smacking at the button just in time. The doors dinged opened.

The elevator was empty.

“I don’t? What the? I don’t. Agh! Can’t you upload the security cams or something? She must’ve…”

“With your permission, archivist. Can you send your Employment ID?”

“Oh, piss!” Lawrence jammed his index finger around on the floating number pad.

The voice of the 999 AI was far too perky. “Great! Is this your perpetrator?”

A picture of the pink-haired girl sitting at the computer appeared in fuzzy three-dee.

Lawrence stepped into the old-style elevator looking in the corners and on the ceiling. “She sent all of our data keys to someone. There’s a countdown.”

“Security footage recorded her moving onto the elevator, but the camera malfunctioned once she was inside. We are unable to bring it back online.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Convenient. She’s not in here. There’s no way out.”

In fact, Erendylae was on the elevator with Lawrence, but he couldn’t see, hear, or feel her. Deep in concentration with her glamour, she had become nothing more than a slight change in the temperature of the air to Lawrence’s senses.

“She may have exited through the maintenance door in the ceiling of the elevator,” the emergency unit advised.

“There’s no way to open that.”

“She may have had time to go up and through and close it behind.”

“No. It doesn’t open anymore. It needed a physical key and one of our employees broke the key off in the lock two years ago… we haven’t repaired it just yet. And the hinges were frozen anyway.”

Lawrence went quiet, feeling a bit embarrassed and resentful at having to admit to authority the incompetency of his colleagues and the restraints of the library’s budget. The elevator felt uncharacteristically warm. Hot even. He smelled something. It smelled like lemons and match smoke.

“I smell lemons,” he said. “Why do I smell lemons? It smells like someone set a lemon on fire.”

Leaning back too far in a chair, his dirty running shoes on the console of the 999 emergency office, Chief Antiquary Detective Rykus Twyler chomped on the metal tube of his empty vape-stick. His left eye covered by an rectangular ocular implant. Made of dark strenium, the cyber-eye glittered like a hematite eye-patch in the 999 control room. He’d been dozing, until the wonky librarian reported the scent of lemons.

“You’re sure it’s lemons?” He said without moving.

Lawrence was surprised by the grim and human-sounding voice that suddenly rasped on the line. “Who’s that?”

“CAD Rykus Twyler. Is it just a citrus scent or is there more?”

“There is something more. Like someone lit a match and blew it out. Oh, no! Am I being poisoned?”

Erendylae was straining her glamour now, running out of energy. She was going to have to make a break for it, but this doofus was clogging the door.

“No poison, friend. Just find a safe place and stay there. We’re coming.” The mumbly mouthed CAD ended the call.

“Oh, piss!” Lawrence Hambold stared at the red words “CALL ENDED”.

Rykus Twyler? Erendylae was positive she’d heard the name before. Where had she heard that name?

She was about to be made. Her glamour was all but run out. The elevator doors were closed and mister library man was in there with her sniffing around. If she appeared now, in her weakened state, he could easily restrain her in the tiny space. She had to get him to open the doors so she could get out. With just one or two little pops of energy left in her, she could feel herself flickering into resolution.

Think fast! Think fast! She needed minimum effort, maximum results. She had it! An eruption of sound shook the elevator. The thundering roar of a lion as blood-curdling as any you would hear on the savannah blasted Lawrence. She was even able to add the wet-hot sensation of carcass-laden breath to the back of Lawrence’s neck.

Lawrence flailed against the door, shrieking in primal terror. He banged on all the buttons until the door swished open. Lawrence tumbled into the aisles of blinky-winky databanks and fled into their maze of safety.

The doors closed and D appeared fully in the elevator. She hit the starred “G”, but the security alarm had locked the elevator on this floor. She darted for a green door on the outside corner of the room which showed an evacuation map. There were no windows, so it was to be the stairs.

She popped open the door to the stairwell and bounded down and down and down. Finally on the ground floor, she could feel her energy flow returning. It happened so fast in Deasil. Being so close to the source was a thrill. She had enough to fly again.

The common area of the EV-library was an atrium. It was dusk and a row of the top panels were open to the evening breeze and the sounds of traffic. She was about to flit through – out into the skyline – find Farkas and get through the portal back to Wyddrum, but Chief Antiquary Detective Rykus Twyler’s lift meandered through the air and came to an awkward float just outside her open windows. The lift was an old model; boxy, gray and its over-sized props chopped at the air. THWOP THWOP THWOP

The door flung open and he peered out, with a whimsical look on his face, a near smile as he grabbed a bag of gear and took a sip of whatever was in his company travel mug. He rolled down the boarding plank and stomped down to the entrance. He gave a pronounced thumbs up to his lift. The plank retracted and the hover car THWOPPED up and away to sky level parking somewhere.

She remembered where she’d heard his name. The Sidhe had booked a profile on him some years ago. He was on the list. He’d been exposed – to them.

Detective Twyler came in the front door sniffing the air and Erendylae, thanking her stars her energy was refilled so quickly in Deasil, turned invisible and started to float toward the ceiling. Was he smelling for her?

Rykus was containedly ecstatic. His tight, tough guy face was betrayed by a twinkle in his real eye. Also, he was feeling sentimental from whiskey and limber because of the pills. He paused at the threshold and grabbed around in his beat up satchel. He produced a black box. Finding an empty counter he set the box down and clicked it open. He gazed around the room and squinted with his good eye and then removed the mirrored plate that covered the place where his left eye used to be. Underneath the silver plate was a dark, mottled hole with round scars all around. There was a white data cable sticking out of the cavity where his eye should be. The receptor on the end blinked alternately green and blue.

Poor schlub. Erendylae thought.

Then he put a new patch on with a wet click. This one was silver bright, but the metal had a darkish swirl in it as though it was once a liquid in motion. The surface was a flat oval and looked… like a mercury mirror!

He put the other patch in the case and put in his his bag and took another sip from his mug.

“Fee fey fohfum.” He said and took a deep, calm breath in through his nose.

Erendylae found herself ruminating on the phrase, distracted, her mind working it out. Fee fey fohfuhm? A folktale giant? Jack and Beanstalk?

His left eye glittered in the silver and glass atrium of the Bowerston Electronic Virtuality Library entrance. “It’s not exactly matches is it? It’s more like lemons and… “ he sniffed a few times, “Yes. Lemons and gunpowder.”

His eyes flicked in her direction and, even though she was tect, invisible to humans, she dived to hide behind a spiral rack of data towers. E ransacked her memory trying to recall what she’d been taught about mercury mirrors and what they could and could not reveal. They were so rare, outlawed 500 years ago. E paid zero attention to those details in class. Could it reflect a tect pixin? She couldn’t remember if the answer was yes or no or sometimes or most often not or only in a moon beam or only for children whose mentras were wide open. She shot down to the floor and making herself into a foldable mass, crammed herself into a corner with a dustball and a the hollow leavings of long-legged spider that had outgrown her carapace. She was using energy faster than it was filling up, but this guy was making her nervous. Even though she was tect, she still felt he might see her with this weird mirror-eye.

The detective made some notes in an old fashioned journal and yes, with a crudely sharpened, lead pencil. This guy was definitely an intense antiquarian. She recalled now more of his profile and why he was a worry. He was an autodidact fairy scholar who’d become consumed with researching fairy folklore after his daughter died. She recalled this was some ten years ago or more in earth years. He was also an alcoholic and an addict. Daedahlia Iskriit had been involved. She waited.

Rykus made these notes:

October 11th, 4022|313 Capitol Ave. Bwrstn EV arhives / scent lemon gunpowder – no visual at 6:46PM. Don’t buy hotdogs at Gerry’s |

Rykus closed his little book and glanced around with his custom built, quicksilver, occipital Hermes artifice and his normal right eye. His real, organic right eye had always the worst vision from when he was a boy. It was rife with floaters and had zero depth perception. On a good day he could read big font at 11 inches away. The Hermes was preferable and showed him stunning, graphic detail and had all the bells and whistles of augmented reality, military grade navigation, night, heat, kirlian, really just about everything that his precinct could legally install. Of course, he’d tricked it out the some features on his own. Namely the mercury lens. It was experimental. His theory had never been proven and there was a major risk to wearing it.

No matter how clean the connection or what kind of screens he fitted it with,the live mercury found its way into his blood stream. There was a micro-molecular transfer, a quantum, skittering detritus of the fluid – it got past the magnetic filters and through the micro-mesh.

He crunched numbers and took blood samples and discovered the math that would prevent his madness. He couldn’t utilize the Hermes for more than 66 minutes every 6 days. He feared erethism, what was once called “Mad Hatter Syndrome”, would bring the final blows of dementia and insanity to his already shattering reputation.

Of course, the drinking and the pills were what was currently crumbling his career and scraping away at his sanity. It didn’t help that he’d taken a decade long dive into studying fairies.

However, he might say, there is so much that a man of his station has to process mentally, emotionally, spiritually possibly – not to mention the anomolous cranial pain, most likely caused by trigeminal neuralgia, what they called tic de la reu, or nervous tic he’d acquired upon the horrible loss of his eye from an antique shotgun blast. Just the thought of the weapon caused the areas in his left cheek and around his empty occipital orb to radiate with a sensitive expectation. It was neuropathic pain that gave him the need for the opioid analgesics and not to mention the stultifying pressure of being who he was, Detective Rykus Twyler. The responsibility of being such a prodigy as he saw in the mirror, the crown of the unique genius heavy upon on his head and the looming shadow of mute grief cast on his heart that came from knowing the depravement of humanity. These burdensome terrors of his brilliance could only be relieved by the black vacuum of drink.

He sipped cheap whiskey again from his mug and wandered in the direction of Erendylae. The erethism countdown pulsed away in mint numbers inside the HUD of his Hermes. If there was a fairy here, he’d the full 66 minutes at his disposal. This could be a momentous night. Not like those others. Today could be the day that…

Erendylae saw him coming but was far too sharp at this game for his kind. Erendylae was a pixy of the Nyrvaehn tribe. Nyrvaehns were gifted with prescience, among many other glamors and skills common to fairy-kind. Prescience meant she could see the vape-sticks he would buy a week from now even though he’d quit that seven years ago. If she peered hard enough she could see into the murk of the future and then deduct the most probable line of action down to the his menu order at Gerry Dogs. She could see the orange glow of his future footprints coming her way a full 15 seconds before he even thought to take a step. But she had to concentrate and concentration in this world, earth, Deasil, was hard. Though the planet restored her energy quickly, it bled her power away hungrily when she used any of her glamors. The world her kind called Deasil, Earth, this reality where the humans resided, it was a loud and too bright obstacle course; braggadocious technologies, rude tourists, and garish architectures jabbed, cursed, zig-zagged in blaring, artificial grandiosity. The natural world had been exploited and obfuscated by their zealous fascination with there own creations. Her years were many, but she’d never had to before and didn’t plan to spend any of her days in Deasil. The past five days on this damned data-mining assignment had been overwhelming for her.

The detective stopped.

She looked right at his face and she was sure he could see her there folded like a pretzel in baseboards.

His face went slack and she saw his fingers twitching on the old-fashioned ink pen he held. He pressed it to the paper in the little book and wrote something or drew something. She realized that the detective was in awe.

She tapped her com, “I think he can see me!” she whisper-shouted to Farkas, who couldn’t hear her anymore only a high-pitched static. There was some kind of interference on the com-link. What had happened?

She remembered her training. Immediately, she used all her energy to morph into a furry rolling object. This made her fully visible, but very, very odd looking and small – like the strands of hair from a purple wig being blown across the floor by a puff of air. She rolled fast as a lightning bolt through the space under the nearest door. It was a bathroom. Once inside, she shot up into the vent as she heard the door burst open beneath her, “Fee fey fohfuhm!” The words mixed her mind again and she found herself fully unraveled, and right-sized, panting in a duct. Luckily her actual size of just over two-feet tall, kept her from being stuck in the air duct. She started a crawl. Those damn words! Somehow they were distracting her, ruining her concentration. Those damn words from Jack in the Beanstalk! Really?

She wriggled up into a crawlspace and another and through a maze of vents and cables and then, covered in gray dust, she emerged from the rooftop, her eyes and teeth shining out from her grimy face. She sighed and then coughed. She was away from detective Twyler and his mirror eye and word powers.

And there was Farkas was standing at the edge of the roof, pointing his dowsing wands towards the portal, “It’s over on Brighton.”

“In the park?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and vanished.

“Let me guess… the graveyard fountain?”

“Saint Francis of Assisi feeding the fish, yep. We go down the drain.”

He could tell by the shock on her face that something bad had happened.

“He saw you?” Farkas asked floating in her direction and making her disappear too.

She swallowed, “Pretty sure.”

“Well, pretty sure’s not enough to report to the Sidhe in my opinion.” He started away, but then said, “Besides. It’s Rykus Twyler. Humans don’t believe what crazy drunks like Rykus Twyler say. Especially when they say things about fairies. How did you get away?”

“I used the rolling purple fur disguise.”

Farkas Aerynkn laughed aloud his pointy fangs looking unusually bright white in the earth sun. He grinned with a proud chin forward and tweaked her nose. “Nicely done, sugarbun. I love it! Who would ever believe that in a statement? ‘I saw a fairy and it turned into purple hair and rolled away!’”

She smirked and shrugged, clearly flattered by his praise. The two of them floated away to the park and through the portal back home to Wyddrum.

hammrammer and collepex

Who doesn’t love surveys of folklore and ancient beliefs? I had no idea of my love for the survey until I read Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough.  It was like my brain was eating too many potato chips and not minding it in the least. In fact, I am so excited about some books I am in the midst of munching that I have to blog about them before I am even finished. Werewolves by Konstantinos and Fairies: A Dangerous History by Richard Sugg and Magical Folk by Simon Young and Ceri Houlbrook.

But, what am I learning? Well, it would be a disservice to the research if I just gave you the cliff notes. So, you’re just going to have to wait for my next novel – BUT – I will tell you that you absolutely should read one or all of these books if you are even the least bit interested in these subjects. Also, fairyist.com has an amazing and recently released digital archive of fairy sightings, that you can submit your own experience to!

Obviously, my next book will have something to do with the good people and with the were-people, but just how that will play out is something that we will have to think about. The new book is like nothing I’ve ever written.

In the meantime, I will leave you to puzzle out hammrammar and collepex.

 

Defining Magick (writing about witches part 2)

I’ve always liked to spell it ‘Magick’ it just seems more magical, doesn’t it?

Honestly, defining magic is troublesome. Once you define something it becomes limited.

Sir James George Frazer wrote probably my favorite treatise on this subject in The Golden Bough, and I can’t do that justice and won’t rehash it here. One of the many, many takeaways is that at one time science and magic were not separated, and religion and spirituality intermingled freely with them too. So that what we now call magic was then part of science, spirituality, and religion (and vice versa).

The differential was in the means by which a particular effect was invoked. For example, a spiritualist or religious leader may petition a god or some other being to heal someone, an alchemist would mix her elixir for the same purpose, an enchantress may wave her wand and recite ancient words to mend a wound, and a witch may do any combination of these things to produce the healing effect.

All of these means to an end were treated as prescriptions, as recipes, as processes – and records were kept detailing exactly how the desired outcome could be produced. Like scientists, the magic users experimented with different words, different spells, different ingredients, different prayers all the while meticulously recording the process and results. This is where the ancient tomes and spell-books come from.

Many experiments failed, but when they did not, it was magic. Nowadays we call a liquid that helps you heal quickly from an infection an “antibiotic” and we say that’s the biological sciences and medicine, but there was a time when amoxicillin would have been considered pure magic.

In writing about witches, I find myself fascinated not only by the process but also by the character of a person who would painstakingly test and record and fail and try again with her spells. A scientist-type. It came upon me that any witch I would write about would have to be a kind of ancient mastermind whose exterior self – personality, and physicality – was mostly a kind of social camouflage. These witches could not be frightening, decrepit creatures of the shadows (at least on the outside) and neither need they be alluring feminine mysteries. They needed to blend in. They needed to be normal; to be florists and teachers, veterinarians and therapists, neighbors and church-goers, awkward or gregarious, depressed or manic. Otherwise, they would not be left alone, trusted with homes and basements and garages and other convenient places to run their continuous chains of experimental projects. Otherwise, they would be hunted.

Indeed, I believe that if you would happen upon a true witch in the 21st century, this is the kind of person she would be: mostly ordinary, inquisitive, fiercely logical yet open-minded, capable of any profession, and brimming with the desire to practice and to experiment with magic.

The experimental and scientific nature of magic caught my imagination. It then became important for me to at least create a framework for the kind of magic I would be writing about. As I said, I didn’t want to limit anything by strictly defining it, yet I knew that without certain rules and boundaries, the magic wouldn’t seem real. Spells and incantations wouldn’t seem real unless they had a specific kind of language, certain symbols, and the spells had to reference “right” seeming ingredients or call upon the correct spirits.

In essence, the framework I found for magic in my writing consists of two major guidelines. 1. Magic must have its own language and symbol lexicon that consists of ancient, dead tongues and 2. There must be a process associated with the incantations. When a witch simply opens her hand and a flame appears, that is one thing – but when a witch plucks a firefly from the air, spits on it, and whispers, “Vystrelit Eya” and a yellow green flame bursts from the insect and floats, twisting above her palm – that is another.

INTERVIEW: Jamie Clay, author

In case you haven’t heard, a group of writers (including me) were recently published in a book of short stories called Murder They Wrote – available here!

All of us were anxious to see the publication, but two of us were tweeting about it. That’s how I met author Jamie Clay. You too can follow her on Twitter @mystcwind

Clay’s story “Murdered on a Midnight Train” accomplishes in a few dozen pages the intensity, depth, and twists of a full-length novel. You just have to to read it. I was graced with an interview with the new author.  Here’s how it went |

JK – When did you first know you wanted to write? What or who first inspired you to write?

Jamie Clay – I think that I have always written since I learned how to form sentences! One of my earliest school memories is from Ms. Belle’s class in 3rd grade. We had an author/poet come to the class and talk to us. I was captivated by her. Before she left she had everyone in the class do a writing exercise. While everyone moaned about the project I was excited and took it seriously. Ms. Belle later told my mom how creative I was, how well written my story was for someone so young and that I would be a writer when I “grew up.” So I would say that my inspiration has always come and still does come from the people who believe in me.

JK – Who are your top three writers or influences?

JC – My answer may surprise you! My favorite band of all time, is “The Cure.” The lead singer Robert Smith has written all of their songs. He is brilliant. I call him a literary genius. There is so much shock value to what he says, and it flows perfectly. I truly believe that I have formed this same writing style. Of course there is also Edgar Allan Poe, who as far I know I have read every piece that he has ever written. It always bothered me that the greatest artistic minds were unheard of until posthumously. Anne Rice is another huge influence on me. She took horror and made it beautiful.

JK – Your characters are very real. What kind of character work or research do you do?

JC – I usually just go for it! I will typically come up with a title first though, no matter what I am writing. The story develops itself. I have to connect with my characters. I have to see their past and feel what they are feeling, never exactly knowing what the future holds for them. In the case of this story, I had an entirely different concept going into it, almost a different story. But, I didn’t spend enough time with my main character and I didn’t truly know her, so to me the story was garbage. Only after I connected with her through another character did I understand her and the story became what it is. This was a factual based story in many ways so I did do research, even down to the weather on one particular day! I actually don’t like to do research online though. I prefer books for knowledge.

JK – Excluding horror, what’s your favorite genre?

JC – This question continues my answer from the last, I love non-fiction! Mythology, witchcraft, organized crime, religion, biographies of Kings and Queens. I suppose anything with a cult like following. I learn so much and retain the information so well that I apply what I learn to my lifestyle. I don’t believe in boring conversation, and if you are well read it really helps with socializing. History is astounding, the writers of the past have in every way influenced today’s way of thinking.

JK – What project are you working on? What’s next for Jamie Clay?

JC – I always have multiple pieces in the works. Now that I am brave enough to put myself out there this is just the beginning for me! I have a novel that I have been working on since I was 16. So fifteen years later it has grew with me and became such a part of me that for awhile I almost forgot to try and publish it. It is a Vampire story but also so much deeper than that. You must remember though that I started this before the Vampire craze ever existed and they have been changed so much that my story literally takes you back to Vampire roots in more ways than one. So my hope and dream is to get it out there. Along with other stories and poems I have written and still continue to write, both large and small. Writing is it for me. I have done many other things but nothing is as fulfilling as seeing your name in print.

JK -Thanks so much for taking the time out to answer these questions! Looking forward to your next project!

 

 

Why witches in 2017?

Note:

The articles I’m about to write are nothing new. I’ve read some things, but am so far behind, there’s no way I could claim this work to be scholarly. I’ll leave that to the experts. Why I write about witches is what this is about. But I have been heavily influenced by The Malleus Maleficarum, The World of Witches, by Julio Caro Baroja, The Golden Bough, by Sir James George Frazer, The Popul Vuh, The Devil in Massachusetts, by Marion Starkey, and the many enlightening lectures and books of Joseph Campbell – to name a few.

Part One

Snakes, Bulls, and Moons

One reason I’m writing about witches is to try to show that witches’ are completely misunderstood. They are vital, complex, and, in different ways than we may think, very real. The power of the witch is essentially the energy at the origins of our reality, we’ve been handed a system that has cruelly, detestably, and murderously denied that.

I started writing The Witch at Sparrow Creek in 2005 and it was published in 2015. Sometime in those early years of writing, I learned about cave drawings showing the moon’s connection to the counting of the months and days – a mathematical system was created to track menses. Math – and a bull’s skull and horns in the shape of a uterus. The horns were later attached to Satan’s head, the moon became the strange power that caused lunacy, and over time, feminine energy became associated with the night, darkness, and magic.

In the Abrahamic religions, the woman’s power was originally associated with life and creation, but the creation myth flipped the game. In other cultures, you can look up snakes and always see them around or at the base of trees, representative of the energy of life, luck, and resurrection. In Eden, the major drama does not occur between a man and an evil snake he must slay (knight and dragon), but a woman and her own symbol. Following the snake encounter, Eve gets her powers inverted. The patriarchy is born from the original matriarchy. However, Eden is the ideal state from which humankind falls. The ideal state originally consisted of a woman interpreting and interacting with the wisest of creatures in the garden, the snake, and a man following her orders.

The lens that most view a witch through is carved from the flipped matriarchy and the association with the moon, night time, and everything that goes bump. I guess I want to change that because we’ve come to believe that magic doesn’t really exist; so that these stories, tales of power, or secret wisdom, must only be fiction. I’ll tell you in the next essay why they’re not.

INTERVIEW – Author JD Tippey

A few months ago my wife, Sarah, did something that I’ve asked her not to do. She told someone I was an author. She’s smarter than me, by the way. The person she told was JD Tippey, author of The Waking Dream: Or The Tower of Vessels. He was visiting Charleston for the WV Book Fair back in October of last year.

I talked with him for a bit at the fair and decided to buy his book. I picked it up and flipped through a bit and was immediately pulled in by the graceful style and the depth of field coming through the prose. I was surprised to learn that this was a kind of “zombie” story. My experience with zombie-genre has been shallow and I’ve never taken to it well – but this was very different. It was epic. JD Tippey absolutely raises the zombie motif to a literary level.

I’m so thrilled that Mr. Tippey accepted my invitation to interview for my blog. Get yourself a copy of The Waking Dream. If you like Tolkien, Lewis, or zombies… get this book. Mr. Tippey has even allowed me to post the prelude to this great novel at the end of this interview. Please enjoy!

JK: Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write ‘The Waking Dream’?

JTD: So the secret truth behind it all is that I’m actually not really a fan of most things zombie. I have a little more love for the post-apocalyptic setting, but even that’s not normally a genre at the very top of my favorites list. So writing about what the zombies are up to three hundred years into their post-apocalyptic world, some people might ask, what have I gotten myself into?

The key to that is the three hundred years part, which I’ll get back to in a minute. First I have to start in 2013. I went to see World War Z with a group of friends when it came out that summer, and something happened to me in the time between entering and exiting the theater. It wasn’t that I thought the film was a masterpiece (although I think I enjoyed it more than most of the critics), but I think it was just having zombies on the brain that took my mind where it ended up going, and in the specific case of World War Z, zombies that were portrayed in a slightly different thematic way than I had seen before.

I start any story with a picture in my head, generally with no idea what it means or where it fits into its own world, but not long after having seen World War Z, I suddenly had two images standing in front of me, both of which became the foundation of The Waking Dream. If you’ve read the book, you’ll immediately know when, where, and how these two images apply.

The first was of two military men, the captain, Ford Taylor, in his early forties, the corporal, James Bell, in his late twenties, both traveling together as the last survivors of a desperate mission, slowly making their way through an overgrown and perilous wilderness. The younger one had been bitten in the fight that took the lives of their five companions, and it was only by his captain’s quick thinking that James was able to endure in life a little longer. From then on, the small cut that Ford had made in his arm would have to provide a little bit of his living blood into James’s canteen, keeping him from the fullness of the turn into Condition Z, but at a growing consequence to the young corporal’s nightly dreams, which neither man could have expected.

The second image involved a young man and his father, but for the sake of spoilers, that’s all I’ll say.

Where were they? An American wilderness left to crumble after the living fortified the coastlines of all the major continents, leaving the dead to roam the Inland wilds. When were they? This was the big one. Three hundred years after the downfall of humanity. Now these pictures in my head had something to work with. For a generally non-zombie fan, this wasn’t about the death and destruction of a world falling to its knees. This was about the civilizations and philosophies that had grown up with questions of life and death pushed right in front of their face. Hope in their world was about more than just survival, it was about the war to rebuild what had been lost. The mission of Captain Taylor and Corporal Bell was all about the chance to redeem their human race, the living and the dead. Now there were compelling things to explore on this journey through the Inland.

JK: One of the things I like most about the book, is its epic, romantic, and elegant voice. Not a quality I think would be typical of the zombie-genre. Who and what are your influences for this book?

JDT:When it comes to fantasy and sci-fi, I live and breathe the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century; J.R.R. Tolkien, George Macdonald, Pierre Boulle, Ray Bradbury, C.S. Lewis, and others who were as deeply interested in the humanity of a story as they were in the elves, spaceships, or time travel.

More than that, I think the term I’d use for all of these writers is “haunting”, and that’s what I wanted for the world of The Waking Dream. If you want zombies, you’ll get zombies, but you won’t exactly get The Walking Dead, more their ethereal cousins. As I was writing it, I joked that it was Tolkien’s The Silmarillion with zombies. Or with my background in the film and TV world, I also sometimes put it in Alfred Hitchcock terms. If most zombie stories are the violence and terror of Psycho, then The Waking Dream is the beautiful intrigue of Vertigo.

As someone who started their career in film and TV before transitioning to books, movies were incredibly influential growing up. There were three in particular that shaped my general passion for storytelling, seeing Disney’s Fantasia at age four, the original Star Wars trilogy at age seven, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring at eleven.

In 2002, my dad and I left the movie theater on a cold January afternoon, and I told him that I would spend the rest of my life creating for others what I had just experienced on the big screen. That same intention crosses over into my books. I want to give readers a very “cinematic”, all-consuming experience. If I’ve done my job right, then the readers will lose themselves to the page just as I lost myself to the screen at eleven years old.

JK: You’ve travelled and lived in different areas of the US, how much does your own travel color your writing and your perspective?

JTD: From a very early age, travel has absolutely colored everything I’ve been drawn to read or write. My dad’s job as an aeronautical engineer took us from one air force town to the next, and for a kid, especially one spending ages six through nine in the harshly beautiful deserts and mountains of New Mexico, that question of “What’s waiting out on the horizon” gets sewn into your bones. I think every great myth asks that question, and travel connected me to those kinds of stories.

Myth, with everything that word encapsulates, is the inspiration for the story of Ford and James. Travel asks more than just “what’s out there”, but more importantly, “who do we become as we set out to find it”.

JK: What project are you currently working on?

JTD: I’ve recently begun public speaking on the writing and filmmaking process, and I’ve been really enjoying that. Getting to meet people face to face is why I’ve loved doing book signings this past year, and public speaking is along the same lines.

When I’m not on the road, I’m finishing the last few chapters of The Waking Dream’s sequel, Heart of the Inland. The title is a reference to the final sentence of The Waking Dream’s first chapter, but given the setting and story of the sequel, also might evoke the idea of the American heartland, which features prominently, as well as the idea of heading up river into the Heart of Darkness, but again for spoilers’ sake, I’ll leave it at that.

Here is the YouTube link to the recently released teaser for Heart of the Inland.

Also, the incredibly gifted Yolanda Mott and I are finalizing the release of our original song that plays at the end of The Waking Dream’s audiobook. I wrote the lyrics to “How Silver Shone the Sea” and Yolanda was its composer and singer.

JK: What would you say is challenging about writing a novel that is different from screenwriting?

 JTD: It’s interesting that you bring that up because my second novel, A Reflection, was released this past Christmas and it originally started life as a screenplay.

The differences in format aside, the only extra challenge with a novel is that you can’t hide behind a stage direction. In a screenplay it can be tempting to write your dialogue and then simply say “Johnny leaves the room”. Even for a script, I think that’s sometimes the lazier choice, but you certainly have the option to do it.

As for why exactly Johnny left the room in that moment or what was going through his head, a screenwriter can sometimes just leave certain nuances for the director to figure out on set. In writing a novel, you don’t have that excuse. You certainly don’t want to beat people over the head with clunky dialogue or purely expositional narrating, but at the same time, you don’t have the follow up of visuals to lean on. In a novel, if it’s not on the page in some way, shape or form, then it doesn’t exist.

  JK: Tell us about your process – how do you go about weaving the plot and characters together for such a big book with a long timeline? How do you keep continuity?

JTD: I’ve had to do more backstory outlines the further I’ve gone into the sequel, but I don’t like to start out that way. For me, starting with an outline kills the joy of creating. So with The Waking Dream, I had a good sense of the mythology behind what was going on in this world, but I didn’t let that guide how the characters would react to it as they continued on down their road.

That’s not to say that I don’t take enough notes to fill several books of their own, but notes are just ideas I can go back to at some point in the review process, and I don’t consider notes to be anywhere near the rigidness of what an outline can often end up being. 

JK: What are you reading right now?

 JTD: Apart from your own mysterious The Witch at Sparrow Creek, I’m currently making my way through C.S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image. Like Lewis, I’m a fan of medieval literary study, and this is one of the best explorations of it that I’ve ever read.

JK: Name one or two of your favorite authors and tell us why you like their writings.

 JTD: I grew up on Lewis, and then would go on to discover Tolkien and the ancients in middle school: Homer, Virgil, Aristotle, Elias Lönnrot, Beowulf, the Pearl Poet, and others like them.

Along with the authors I mentioned in the question about influences, what I love about them is their ability to weave substance with a deep-rooted sense of atmosphere. Normally you seem to get either one or the other, a dry allegory or a rich feast of style and mood with little to find underneath.

JK: You have audio clips and a nice trailer on your site for your novel. What do you think the future holds for the printed book? 

 JTD: When it comes to holding something in your hands, I’m a print guy all the way. With lots of travel for work, I’ve come to love audiobooks too, but I can’t get into e-readers. I think those kinds of digital mediums will continue to be popular, but I can’t see print taking a backseat any time soon.

There are a handful of readers I’ve heard from who wouldn’t have picked up a copy of The Waking Dream if they hadn’t first seen the trailer, so I think that for those who will continue to support print formats, the approach going forward is not going to be about pitting print against digital, but about how we use things like clips and trailers to grab someone’s initial attention and lead them on from there.

JK: How do you see story-telling changing with the digital-mediums available?

JTD: However people find a story, I think that what has always mattered and what will always continue to matter is whether they can find their story. We talk about escapism in storytelling, but I think that’s only half the journey. We don’t ultimately want to escape away from our lives and our world; we want to travel deep enough into that other place to find the mirror that looks back at ourselves and shows us something we hadn’t seen before.

This is partially why I approached award-winning actress Irene Bedard to read The Waking Dream’s audiobook. Apart from being a Golden Globe nominee, she’s also known for voicing Pocahontas in the 90’s Disney movie. What she brought to the reading was not only a powerful narration or a diverse variety of voices for every character, but it was also her reputation as a distinguished performer. With every book signing since the audiobook’s release in October, that piece of advertising has done wonders for getting a second look from people who would have kept walking at hearing the word “zombie”.

It probably helps to already have as much of a passion for other storytelling mediums, but the way I see it, however people come to take the journey with Ford, James, Miyako, Jon, Ava, and the rest, as long as that source has as much artistic dignity as I hope can be found in the pages of the original, then these characters that I love are able to connect with others, and for that, I can’t complain.

JK: Any advice for aspiring writers?

 JTD: If you want to write, then write, the only thing holding you back is you. If you want make a career out of writing, then the same advice applies, just throw in some planning ahead. My day job was working full time in the film industry before I’d saved up enough money to take a few months off. Then because I’d had to earn that time off through a lot of hard work, it was a lot more valuable to me, and I made sure to write in every waking moment that I had. So practice your craft, manage your time, and you’re off the races.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk books and hopefully inspire other current or future writers out there! It’s been a pleasure!

And for any of your readers that have managed to soldier on through all of my ramblings, here is the full prologue to The Waking Dream.

Thanks!

– PROLOGUE –
CONDITION Z

The open hills of the American South rose high on their journey to find the sun amidst neighboring leaf-topped crowns, for those summits of stone upon the heights were glimpsed only few and far between in the life of a year, wholly a myth in deep summer when the land was wild and in its power. In that time, both stone and traveler alike were hidden from the yellow eye above, cloaked by shrouds of green.

From this passage of the shaded vales came two out of the South who entered the grasses of Old Virginia as men who might have seemed as ghosts out of the past to any that met them. But their path kept them far from the Coast, and in this age of Inland terrors, few were left who did not make their home by the reassuring sounds of the Sea.

They were captain and corporal after the order of the ranking of warriors that had survived through the Dark Years and beyond into the years called Pale. But they were not at war, not in the way it had been deemed when those titles were last held in more than faded ceremony. The Dark Years had soaked up war into the earth like a cloth upon a red wound until the taste of it hung in the air down generations. The armies of man had crumbled to dust against an enemy that could take life and not easily lose it, an enemy that had little left of true life to give.

That enemy bore the virus, the affliction, the curse, the name that would change as legacies which were lost to time and tradition bore on remembrance through the ever-widening chasm of myth: Condition Z, as they first labeled it. It was a terror of the mind that took its prey without prejudice. The good, the decent, the wicked, all came to the same end under its hold losing will and sapience over long weeks of slow torment, but as the plague grew in power, these instruments of the mind were claimed only in days and then minutes. In time, flesh began to rot and stink and eyes fade so that those windows to the soul were forever stained with mist.

What then lay within the clouded glass, none could know, though a few hoped that something more than the bloodthirst, something of their old humanity, had survived in the dead that lived, and these that believed it stood in defense of the afflicted against the might of the many until families, cities, and nations broke beneath the War of Redemption. And in the end, no answer was found, and none of the plagued were redeemed, though many were cut down, falling alongside their defenders, some whom the dead themselves had slain and ravaged, leaving little for crows.

Two generations were consumed by the war that broke the world, and the third came into life with the dawning of the Pale Years when the threat of the Enemy had finally driven the two sides together, and those who would still hope for a cure had at last given in to back the final campaigns against the growing horde that fell only by grievous wounds and claimed new hosts among the living by clawing teeth.

The wilds were lost in the first years of war, and when it ended, when the living retreated from last assaults, they fled to the Sea to surround themselves with the high walls and tall towers that had been raised up in the earliest days of the fight. There they would linger on and renew the remains of humankind if peace could be left to them.

Ports breathed life into trade, and the world outside a man’s walls was not as small as it might have been. Sailors and traders spoke of islands still untouched by the Enemy, and some journeyed there to start anew. That deepest human desire for dominion let contentment find its foothold, and three hundred years found themselves passed into history while life continued on the shores, where the dead would not come.

With time standing between that ancient age of horrors and the lives of sons and daughters who had never known the shadow of the Inland, the living would find the heart to venture again into the bones of their old countries, far from the safe calls of the seabirds. Scouts were sent to spy near lands, companies and units that had lasted into peacetime among the scattered city-states when standing armies had long fallen out of need.

Over many months, word began to spread as rangers returned with news of a menace that had not been seen for some twelve generations. The Enemy had not vanished forever from the earth, but they were not as the stories had told either. Like wild beasts, they now often ran in packs, sometimes numbering four or five, sometimes more than twenty, though others could be found in lone wanderings. When clothing had decayed, the wrappings of pale flesh had seared under the sun forging plates of caked armor, a hide that weathered the ages. Perhaps, it was thought, this was why they grew dormant in the light of day unless provoked, for only the cool winds of night drew out their furious daring, though they feared fire, and travelers far from home learned to fan the flames of their camp till dawn.

When greater courage was mustered, wider expanses were covered, and the long-empty spires of concrete and steel that had once held life above their faded pavement were lifted out of the mind’s eye and into the sight of those few who made the journey, discovering not only the barren remains of their old world, but also the world that had survived in its own way amongst the scattered wild woodsmen of the Inland. Tales and relics returned out of lands drowned in legend, and history stepped out of myth, rallying greater bravery and intrigue in the hearts of those nestled so long behind sheltering walls.

Under the unceasing eye of many perils, they plundered the cities of what might find value in the trade, and rangers raised outposts and forts some ten or twenty miles beyond the gates of their cities. But the Enemy was unforgiving to strangers and demanded the living pay the price of blood to secure a hold again on the paths inland.

Those paths had led Captain Ford Taylor and Corporal James Bell out of the summer heats of the Carolinas and onto the borders of the North. In forty-three years, Ford had never made so far a trek from their Texas home, nor had James in his twenty-seven ever seen one hundred and fifty miles inland.

The sun had deepened Ford’s black skin, though James’s own had not bronzed out of its olive hue but sickened to the greening pallor of the illness he carried. Only the dark waves of his hair seemed to have some life still as they grazed his shoulders. The length of his beard had grown into short tangles set against the elder’s bare face, which was revived often through the journey by knife and wild waters. No more alike in color than in stature, the younger staggered on each day beneath the looming height of his captain.

They had known no other world than this, no other way than that given down the line of fathers and grandfathers where death and life were bound together by the blood of men. For as many to which the long night brought rest, there were the hordes that walked the waking sleep.

INTERVIEW – MARK DEBRYAN, AUTHOR “Family Reunion: An Apocalypse Family Novel”

I’ve met Mark DeBryan twice now. Once at WV Shockacon and once at the WV Book Festival. For such a prolific writer with a masterful story-style and superb readability, you’d expect his nose to be buried in a tiny laptop, tapping away and shooing off questions and photo-ops.

Quite different is the real Mark DeBryan, who not only greets you with his mischievous, knowing grin and a hearty handshake, but is the life of the booth party at the con. Every WV author I’ve met has an infectious, inspiring attitude and Mark DeBryan is tops when it comes to that.

Also, he’s a big-bang of a storyteller in the zombie, virus, end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it department. I’m currently reading his debut novel ‘Family Reunion’ – what a blast! Log off your Netflix and Hulu and binge on this! “When the apocalypse happens, only one thing matters… FAMILY!”

He graced me with an interview – here it is:

MD: First Josh, I want to thank you for having me here today.

JK: Tell us how you got started writing.

MD: I entered a writing contest and had my short story In for a Dollar, In for a Dime published by an established author. I then turned that short story into a full length novel that became Family Reunion book one.

JK: What do you think the Appalachian or WV experience brings to your stories?

MD: I have lived in West Virginia 27 years. I was raised in California but found I loved the laid back pace and the people of West Virginia and put down my roots here. We just went through a record flood in our area and the way people came together is a good example of community and how much people care for each other here. I try to infuse that idea into my writing.

JK: What are you reading right now?

MD: I just finished Bobby Akhart’s post apocalyptic novel 36 hours. It is an intense look at perils faced by our country, and how most people would not be prepared to survive a grid down situation. I love the eye opening type of fiction that serves a purpose beyond entertainment.

JK: What’s your current or next project?

MD: I am currently working on the third book in the Apocalypse Family series. It will pick up where book one Family Reunion left off. Book two Family Reunion “J” actually parallels book one and follows Ryan’s (the main character from book one) wife and kids back in West Virginia. It also answers many questions about the virus and vaccine that are not cover in the original story.

JK: Anything else or advice for aspiring storytellers?

MD: If you are an aspiring writer I have some simple advice. WRITE! Pay for a good edit, and invest in a good cover.

About the Author

Mark has always been a bit of a vagabond. Born in Washington, raised in California, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard after high school. During his Coast Guard career, he was an admiral’s driver in San Francisco, a deckhand on a cutter in the Bering Sea, and an aviation electrician in North Carolina, Texas, and Florida. After he left the Coast Guard he worked security, first guarding MX nuclear missiles, then at a nuclear power plant in California. Eventually he went to college in Wisconsin, only to drop out after meeting his future wife. He went on to finish college at age 36 and owned a Miracle Ear franchise for a while. He went into publishing for a short time before becoming an information systems specialist. Mark currently splits his time between West (by God) Virginia and Surfside Beach, South Carolina.

pmarkdebryan.com

Facebook

facebook.com/P.MarkDeBryan

Email

pmdebryan@gmail.com

JK: Mark, thanks so much for the interview – keep those novels coming!

 

 

 

Mark DeBryan Interview on the Way and Me – Portraying Martin Luther

I am backed up. I’ve met several cool authors recently and they agreed to do interviews for my blog. Then, there were a-zillion things happening that were attention grabbers. Oh, you know, elections, protests, and those things. Very, very, very important things. I gave them space. They still need space.

A few quick updates…

MOST EXCITING UPDATE

I’m in an upcoming Horror Anthology from Serial Sikk! The anthology is called “Murder They Wrote” and will publish when they fill it! So I’ll keep tweeting and FBing when it’s ready. The short story is called “Erla Wyford’s New Family” and, of course, there’s a witch. Maybe someday I will tell everyone why I like to write about witches with a long scholarly explanation, but – in short – it’s my way of getting out some feminine power. Seriously, f’d up history for witches and women. So, I’m a little obsessed.

WEIRD THEATER COLLAPSE UPDATE

A Thing of Shadows, which was my retelling of John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” is a finished piece – about 2 hours of script.  Ohio City Theatre Project, who was originally backing the script, unfortunately disassembled sometime mid-2016 and is unable to secure resources for the play. So any directors, actors, or playhouses out there that want something spooky and classic, come and get it! Contact me at joshuatkent@me.com

SLEEPING

I’ve been sleeping well. Which means no late night writing binges – only Game of Thrones binges or Star Wars Battlefront or Overwatch until I’m too clumsy to shoot. Basically, no more writing for now.

NEXT PROJECTS

An epic adventure novel with a working title of “The Red and the Black” is upcoming.

The sequel to The Witch at Sparrow Creek with a working title of “The Angel in the Wyddr: A Jim Falk Novel” also coming along. By the way, thanks everyone for the reviews and for helping me sell over one hundred copies last year!!!

I will portray Martin Luther in a short monologue series in October – dates and times TBA. Keep watching my blog for more info on that.

INTERVIEW with awesome guy and total author Mark DeBryan coming very, very soon.

WV Writer: Dustin Coffman

I had the pleasure of meeting “West Virginia’s Stephen King”, Dustin Coffman, earlier this year at our state’s premiere horror fan gathering, Shockacon

A prolific author with a vast imagination, you’d expect Dustin to be aloof, moody, or maybe brimming with cynicism. The Dustin Coffman that I met was not like that. In fact, more recently, as my wife and I were headed into IHOP, a car stopped and the window rolled down and there he was inside just to say “Hi”. I hope I’m not ruining his rep as an evil genius because that is a reputation he well deserves. His newest collection “Blow Your Mind” shows off his mastery with everything from dragons to cyborgs, twisted urban legends, and – yes -poetry. Get it here! and rev up your DVR because you’ll forget you even have a TV until you’re done.

Dustin agreed for an interview and here’s the way it went: ENJOY

Tell us how you got started writing.

I hear this one a lot, everyone always asks why you write or what got you started? For me, I think I was born a story teller. Now I know that sounds corny, but I can remember writing in kindergarten. Of course it wasn’t the next New York Times best seller, but it was a start. I have always loved coming up with stories, I have so many ideas running around in my head that I would probably be locked up in a nuthouse if I didn’t write. Now if you told young Dustin that he would one day actually be a published author, he would have laughed in your face. See one thing I really never talk about anymore is that I’m dyslexic, which basically means growing up I always thought I was stupid. Reading out loud and messing up words in front of class isn’t a fun thing I will tell you that. Lucky for me I had a teacher in High School that really pushed me to be a writer. She loved my papers and told me I could be a published writer so easily, but it took years for me to break out of the fog that I wasn’t good enough. Looking back on that now, I can’t even say how that makes me feel. I have done so much, published stories all over the world, been in Revolver Magazine, and have three books out. I’m very thankful to be where I am, and I will never forget where I came from. And I can promise that I will never stop writing. It’s a part of me, and that will never change. Lol That’s the second question I hear the most…Do you still write? Yes, a million times Yes!

What do you think the Appalachian or WV experience brings to your stories?

I love writing about West Virginia, I don’t do it a lot, but I try to at least write one story with home roots per year. We aren’t called Wild and Wonderful for nothing. There are so many legends and folklore to work with; I find that the stories almost write themselves. In Vol 1 of my short story collection (Twisted Tales from a Twisted Mind) I did a ghost story about an old house in WV. I grew up with this ghost story and I have even seen it with my own eyes, and I loved taking that story and making it my own. Of course I changed a lot in my take, but it was based on some facts. In Vol 2 (Blow Your Mind) I wrote about WV werewolves, this story was a last minute thing and I feel it is one of the strongest stories in the book. So yeah, I guess every writer should be proud of where they come from, after all, the whole world is a strange but beautiful place.

Who influences your writing / who are your favorites?

Love this one, to start I grew up on Anne Rice and Stephen King, two of the all-time best teachers to have growing up. They helped mold me in ways some of my real teachers couldn’t. A young mind is blank slate after all. But nowadays I feel I draw a lot from Jim Butcher, the man has a way with words that clicks for me. I love his smartass style and I do try to add some here and there in my stories. You can’t just have everything being dark all the time, got to add some humor into the mix.

What’s your current or next project?

This answer should make a lot of my readers happy. My first published piece ever was a 500 page novel called Damien the Newborn Devil, a vampire story set in New York City, and readers loved it. I have been promising more books in the series for a long time, but got sidetracked along the way. So with that I can say that I am 110% focused on finishing the next novel in the ‘Eternal Life’ series. How far along am I? Well a good ways, I even have a cover for it and it is breathe taking, so set back and relax. All the hate mail (for real, I got a lot of hate mail to get off my ass), got me working, thanks for showing you cared some much about something I wrote. Fingers crossed 2017 is the year for vampires!

 

 

Weird and Wicked Appalachian Writers

My parents moved to Ravenswood, WV sometime before I started kindergarten. A few years before we moved to Ravenswood, I was born – in Ravenna, OH. Neither place has any connection to Edgar Allen Poe’s raven, but Edgar Allen Poe is considered by some to be the father of Weird Fiction. Perhaps my geography has something to do with my attraction to the darker, stranger side. Maybe it was because my friends and I used to play around an abandoned casket factory in my hometown whose football team was once called the Casket Makers – or maybe it was the Sunday sermons I listened to growing up whose main focus continually was death, Hell, and the wiles of the devil. Yes, we sang “One, two, three, the devil’s after me! Four, five, six, he’s always playing tricks!” It’s just in my nature now to be intrigued and inspired by the occult, ghost stories, and folk legends.

Now, we’ve been in Charleston, W. Va. – as the natives are apt to abbreviate it –  for six years. For those of you who leave WV and return, you notice certain feelings associated with the land and mountains here. The feelings are legendary and contagious. West Virginia seems one of the few truly magical places on earth – when the heavy mists bloom upward from the green forests and the amber sun sets, when thick nature quiets the frenetic noise of modern America into the oceanic shushing of the wind through the trees – hold your breath, squint, and lean toward that shifting shadow that sways and waits at the very edge of your senses. There it is. That’s it. It’s luring you to step out of your day-to-day and into a wild, darkling country.

Here, in the shimmering twilight of West Virginia, things slow down. There is time for hearth fire and songs. In the orange glow of the westering sun and the purring of flames, one feels the stretching of the heart and imagination out into the realms of myth and mountain, song and sorrow, wicked and whimsy. People from all over have stories to tell, but in West Virginia, the legends still breathe.

It is because of the unique experiences and story telling styles of Appalachian writers that I think it important to showcase and support these incredible artists – their terrors, humor, and the deep romance they have with the land and the waters and the mountains.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be interviewing a few of these fine magicians for my blog.

….DON’T FORGET

Next year, Contagious Magic, Inc., my nascent publishing company, will begin taking submissions for publication.

The mission of Contagious Magic, Inc. is to amplify and archive the weird and wild storytellers of Appalachia in print and publication.

Keep watching my blog for updates and follow me on Twitter @joshuatkent