Maurice Broaddus's Blog, page 55

Look What My Nipples Have Done*

At the World Horror Convention I did my first reading: my essay "Man-O-Gram," first published in Morbid Curiosity #8. Morbid Curiosity, a non-fiction market for true life tales of horror, sadly came to an end with it's tenth issue, but my essay has been included as part of the best of collection, Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Stories of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual is now available from Scribner. This collects 40 stories from the cult nonfiction magazine, Morbid...

Living With a Writer

There she is, front and center. Do you see the glee on my wife's face? Matched only by the devilish glint in Christie White's eyes. You bear witness to the "what the hell was Wrath James White (and apparently Monica O'Rourke) thinking putting our wives together as the tag team of evil" on the panel the Seven Deadly Sins of Living With a Writer: the Highs and Lows of Life With A Writer at KillerCon. I am still torn about whether this was the worst idea ever or the most insightful panel I'v...

Supernatural Season Four – A Review

"The Journey of Two Brothers"

I'm playing catch up on season four of one of my favorite shows, Supernatural, as episodes of season five stack up on my DVR. As the inheritor to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel brand of television horror, the season opens with the episode Lazarus Rising, with Dean (Jensen Ackles) returning from Hell (reminiscent of one of Buffy's season cliffhangers and openers). His brother, Sam (Jared Padalecki), recipient of special powers due to the blood of a demon, had...

KillerCon 2009 Report

For folks who don't know, Wrath James White and I are basically like brothers. Overly competitive brothers who like to one up one another. Orgy of Souls was written that way. In what constitutes the rest of our real life, I do a chili, he has to do a chili. He gets a book deal, I have to get a book deal. I do a convention, he has to do a convention. And par for course, KillerCon was Mo*Con on steroids.

As he didn't learn any lessons after so often mocking me during my Mo*Con prep, I watc...

Life in the Broaddus Creative Mind

When I was in second grade, my teacher (Ms. Rainey) didn't know what to do with me. I wasn't exactly a bad or troublesome student, but I was the only black student in my class and obviously bored. Ms. Rainey had an overloaded class and had her hands full catching kids up to the current curriculum in class much less deal with students who were ahead of the curve. So she put me in a corner with a stack of paper and told me to just "create whatever appealed to" me. So I wrote, drew, created...

Context 2009 Report (Much Belated Due to Deadline Constraints)

I make no bones about it: I love ConText. It's one of my favorite cons to go to, not just because it's a convenient drive for me to go to, but because they have great guests of honor such as Chris Golden, Jason Sizemore (you'll note that Geoff Girard considers himself a Guest of Honor wherever he goes), and Steve Gilberts









which draw some great folks (Gene O'Neil, Gord Rollo, and the Brothers Grin aka Doug Warrick and Kyle Johnson).









and it's a great atmosphere. This year they changed hote...

Off to Killer*Con

Sorry. It's been a flurry of activity trying to get my stack of piling up reviews written, work through the myriad details regarding the Dark Faith anthology, and writing a novel (not to mention that there are a lot of blog topics swirling around in my head that won't leave me alone until I post them). Anyway, those are the main reasons for the blog silence, though I maintain a steady stream of gibberish via my Twitter.

And this weekend I'm off to KillerCon. Here's my schedule for those loo...

Devil's Marionette Reviews

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The Pontifications of Maurice Broaddus

Top horror novels blogs

I have no idea what this means or their criteria, especially since Nick Kaufmann has gotten TWO of these, but now I'm obligated to do something vaguely horror novel related ... so I'll talk about ME!

Just like I did with Orgy of Souls, I will keep an updated list of reviews of Devil's Marionette as they come in. An early review has stuck with me, however. I normally don't engage reviews/reviewers as they took the time to read my work

Sally Baffles Me

I suppose I'm long overdue for an update on my life as some folks have been wondering. To be straight, we're still working through things, taking life together day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month.

After going very public with our situation, I mentally braced for the worst: expecting the relief of public humiliation, the security of the pillory. I'd go to church, sit by myself, then leave. Only in the last two weeks have I even taken Communion. I was accused of wearing a look which came

Oddest Places - A Spirit & Place Essay

The Spirit and Place Festival invited me to write an essay on its theme of "Inspirational Places." The essay is up on their site but I thought I'd preserve here also:

The terrible secret of my writing is that I don't have a great
imagination. I have to go to a place, soak in its atmosphere, its
nuance, and let it speak to me. I'm sitting in a rear corner booth in
a bar/café in downtown Indianapolis, a known haunt for
prostitutes and strippers when they are "off shift." Under the
crimson glare of the