Jeff Strand's Blog, page 42
March 13, 2018
Book Tour!!!
It’s just about time! Tomorrow, March 14th, Lynne Hansen and I will get up really early to beat the Atlanta traffic and drive to Tampa. That’s not an actual “stop” on the tour but we’re going to be at Cigar City Cider & Mead from 7PM-9PM. Join us!
Then on March 15th we’re driving to Cape Coral, where I’ll be spending the the day speaking at Challenger Middle School. (This is, obviously, not open to the public.) When I’ve finished sharing my “wisdom” with the youngsters, we’re off to Coral Springs for the first evening of Coral Springs Festival of the Arts!
On March 16th I’m getting up really really really early and driving back to Cape Coral to speak at Cape Coral High School for their annual Literacy Festival. (Again, not open to the public.) And then it’s back for the second evening of CSFOA.
March 17th we’ll be at CSFOA all day. I’m giving a one-hour talk called “Stick With It! Sustaining Your Passion in a Brutal Business” and Lynne is giving the keynote speech, “How to Thrive as a Working Creative.”
Sunday, March 18th the CSFOA authors will be signing books all day. When that event is over, I’ll be off to the Barnes & Noble in Plantation, Florida, where at 7:00 PM I’ll be signing my newest YA novel How You Ruined My Life and Stacie Ramey will be signing her latest, The Secrets We Bury.
In the wee morning hours of March 19th we’ll be collecting Ms. Ramey and driving all the way back to Woodstock, Georgia (near Atlanta) so Stacie and I can do a Q&A/signing at Foxtale Book Shoppe at 6:30 PM. Ask us anything! We have no secrets! Except for…..The Secrets We Bury. (We’ll be more clever than that at the event, even after a long drive.)
March 20th Stacie and I are off to Nashville, Tennessee to do a signing at McKay’s Books at 6:00 PM. Maybe a notable horror author or two will be hanging out there…
March 21st Stacie and I will be in Charlotte, North Carolina at Park Road Books, joined by the lovely and talented John Hartness, who will be moderating a Q&A. Maybe a notable horror author or two will be hanging out there, too…
March 22nd Stacie and I will be in Greenville, South Carolina at Fiction Addiction. For the groupies following us to every stop, this will be the final signing Stacie and I are doing together (maybe forever–we’ll see how this whole thing works out).
March 23rd, Stacie is off to the airport, and I’m driving to Chattanooga for the Meacham Writers’ Workshop at the University of Tennessee. Though aimed at college students, this is free and open to the public. I’ll be doing a reading on the 23rd, and an hour-long writing seminar on Friday the 24th.
And then I’m back home for some rest and relaxation, by which I mean finishing up my novel Bring Her Back…
March 8, 2018
March 6, 2018
Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!
[image error]Welcome to my website! Whether you were brought here by interest in my work or a Google search gone terribly wrong, I encourage you to hang around and start clicking away!
My new novel, Sick House, is available now in Kindle and paperback editions.
My new novella, An Apocalypse of Our Own, is also available now in a Kindle edition.
And my new short story collection, Everything Has Teeth, is now out in, yes, a Kindle edition!
(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)
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February 23, 2018
StokerCon Schedule!
There are a trillion different things going on at StokerCon next weekend. These are the ones I’m REQUIRED to attend.
Thursday 11:00 PM: Playing a role in a dramatic reading of H.P. Lovecraft’s play Alfredo.
Friday 4:00 PM: PANEL: “Building Your Readership.”
Saturday 11:00 AM: PANEL: “Promoting Your Book to Libraries & Booksellers.”
Saturday 1:00 PM: READING with Michael Arnzen and David E. Cowen.
Saturday 2:00 PM: PANEL: “How To Choose Good Markets.”
Saturday 7:00 PM: Emceeing the Bram Stoker Awards for the 10th and final time.
Though you’ll naturally want to attend all of those, there’s even more, more, more! Check out StokerCon for the full programming schedule.
February 19, 2018
YA E-Book Sale!
The e-book editions of all four of my young adult comedies published by Sourcebooks Fire are on sale for $1.99 from now through Friday, February 23rd! Collect them all!
I Have a Bad Feeling About This
The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever
February 18, 2018
Sick House Review at Horror Drive-In!
Hey, check this out! It’s a review of Sick House (written by Laura Long) posted at the Horror Drive-In site!
If this doesn’t make you want to read the book, you’re officially not part of the target audience. That’s cool. It’s fine. We’re still friends.
Check it out HERE.
February 16, 2018
March Appearances
March is gonna be crazy! If you live in Rhode Island, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, or South Carolina, come out and say hi!
March 1-4, 2018. STOKERCON. Providence, Rhode Island. This will be my tenth (!) and final time emceeing the Bram Stoker Awards banquet. Be there!
March 15-18, 2018. CORAL SPRINGS FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS. Coral Springs, Florida. On the 17th, I’ll be doing an hour-long workshop on “Stick With It! Sustaining Your Writing Passion in a Brutal Business.”
March 18, 2018. BARNES & NOBLE PLANTATION. Plantation, Florida. 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. It’s the first stop of the How You Ruined My Life / The Secrets We Bury book tour with Stacie Ramey!
March 19, 2018. FOXTALE BOOK SHOPPE. Woodstock, Georgia. 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. My book tour with fellow YA author Stacie Ramey continues!
March 20, 2018. McKAY’S BOOKS. Nashville, Tennessee. 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. By now I suspect that Stacie Ramey and I will be pretty much sick of each other, but there’s still…
March 21, 2018. PARK ROAD BOOKS. Charlotte, North Carolina. 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. With Stacie Ramey, and also special guest John Hartness!
March 22, 2018: FICTION ADDICTION. Greenville, South Carolina. 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. The final chance (for this particular book tour) to see Stacie Ramey and I together.
March 23-24, 2018: MEACHAM WRITERS’ WORKSHOP. Chattanooga, Tennessee. (This actually starts on Thursday the 22nd.) A free and open to the public extravaganza at the University of Tennessee!
February 5, 2018
1st Annual Splatterpunk Awards
The finalists for the 1st Annual Splatterpunk Awards have been announced, and I’m honored to say that Everything Has Teeth is up for Best Collection and “The Tipping Point” is up for Best Short Story. In the Best Anthology category, I have a story in DOA III and I wrote one of the two forewords for VS: X.
I will be forever haunted by what it took to bribe the judges of a splatterpunk award (they don’t take cash OR sexual favors) but I can’t argue with the results.
Obviously, when I shared my fond remembrance of Jack Ketchum, I didn’t know that I’d be competing against him in the 1st annual Splatterpunk Awards. I won’t retract what I said; however, true story, I was with him once at Necon, and there was a cat outside, and he went “Awwww…” I ask the Splatterpunk Award judges: Does a man who would go “Awwww…” over a cute kitty truly exemplify the spirit of these awards? I trust you’ll make the right decision.
Here’s the official press release:
For Immediate Release — 2/5/2018
Splatterpunk Award founders Wrath James White and Brian Keene are pleased to announce the nominees for the 2018 Splatterpunk Awards, recognizing works of superior achievement in Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror that were published in 2017. The nominees are:
BEST NOVEL
CONTAINMENT by Charlee Jacob (Necro Publications)
EXORCIST FALLS by Jonathan Janz (Sinister Grin Press)
THE HEMATOPHAGES by Stephen Kozeniewski (Sinister Grin Press)
SPERMJACKERS FROM HELL by Christine Morgan (Deadite Press)
WHITE TRASH GOTHIC by Edward Lee (Deadite Press)
BEST NOVELLA
THE BIG BAD by K. Trap Jones (Necro Publications)
DAMN DIRTY APES by Adam Howe (Thunderstorm Books)
HEADER 3 by Edward Lee and Ryan Harding (Necro Publications)
KILLER CHRONICLES by Somer Canon (Thunderstorm Books)
THE LUCKY ONES DIED FIRST by Jack Bantry (Deadite Press)
BEST SHORT STORY
“Dirty Desk” by Jeffrey Thomas, from Chopping Block Party (Necro Publications)
“Extinction Therapy” by Bracken MacLeod, from Splatterpunk Fighting Back (Splatterpunk Zine)
“Melvin” by Matt Shaw, from Splatterpunk Fighting Back (Splatterpunk Zine)
“Molly” by Glenn Rolfe, from Splatterpunk Fighting Back (Splatterpunk Zine)
“The Tipping Point” by Jeff Strand, from Everything Has Teeth (Thunderstorm Books)
BEST COLLECTION
2017: A YEAR OF HORROR AND PAIN, PART ONE by Matt Shaw (Amazon Digital Services)
EVERYTHING HAS TEETH by Jeff Strand (Thunderstorm Books)
THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT by Alessandro Manzetti (Comet Press)
GORILLA IN MY ROOM by Jack Ketchum (Cemetery Dance Publications)
BEST ANTHOLOGY
CHOPPING BLOCK PARTY, edited by Brendan Deneen and David G. Barnett (Necro Publications)
DOA III, edited by Marc Ciccarone and Andrea Dawn (Blood Bound Books)
SPLATTERPUNK FIGHTING BACK, edited by Jack Bantry and Kit Power (Splatterpunk Zine)
VS:X: U.S. VS U.K. EXTREME HORROR, edited by Dawn Cano (Shadow Work Publishing)
YEAR’S BEST HARDCORE HORROR VOLUME 2, edited by Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax (Comet Press)
J.F. GONZALEZ LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
David J. Schow
Congratulations to all! Works on the ballot were selected by fans and readers. Winners in each category will be voted on by the 2018 Splatterpunk Awards jury.
The winners will be announced the the inaugural Splatterpunk Awards ceremony, taking place August 24th through the 26th at KillerCon in Austin, Texas. For more information on the convention and the awards, click here.
January 30, 2018
Dark Regions Interview
Look, it’s a new interview with me! This one, by Brian M. Sammons, appears on the Dark Regions website.
Check it out HERE!
January 29, 2018
January 29
On Facebook, my favorite place outside of the real world, H. Michael Casper asked whatever happened to my vampire novel. Instead of a succinct response on social media, I’ve decided to do a rambling response here.
My young adult novels are contracted before they’re written. So I sold How You Ruined My Life based on a couple of sample chapters and a synopsis, and I had a deadline, and though I wasn’t locked in to every plot detail, I was expected to turn in a book that bore a reasonably strong resemblance to the novel I’d pitched.
The same was true for most of my adult work. Though the digital editions of books like Wolf Hunt 2 and Blister were self-published, the print editions came first, and I was obligated to deliver a book called Wolf Hunt 2 to the publisher or they would send men in dark suits to my place of residence in the middle of the night.
When my dad died, it put me behind on all of my writing, and soon I had deadlines bouncing into other deadlines. My publishers, not being complete monsters, didn’t say, “Sorry, dude, your dead father ain’t our problem,” but it was still a pretty stressful few months as I tried to get caught up.
Finally I did, and I decided that my life would be jollier with fewer deadlines. Now, writing is my only source of income, and I’m not a New York Times bestselling author, so “I want fewer deadlines” is not the same as “I shall tinker at the keyboard at my leisure, sipping sparkling water as I await the moment where the muse doth grace me with its presence.” I still have to crank ’em out. I just decided to go with a “I’ll worry about the print edition after the book is done” model.
Which basically means that I can write whatever I want, within the parameters of knowing that Blister sold extremely well and Kumquat sold poorly, so if I want to keep paying my rent I’d be wise to write more Blisters and fewer Kumquats.
So one fine day I came up with a cool idea for a vampire novel called Miles of Night, one that’s basically a 300-page action sequence. It’s awesome. You’ll love it. I announced that I was working on it, without sharing any plot details beyond “vampire novel.” No projected publication date.
Writing a book where the action never lets up is tough, and I thought I would also enjoy working on a slow burn, dialogue-driven haunted house novel when I needed a break. Sick House was supposed to be a side project. But two things happened:
I started to really, really like Sick House .
I had the idea to turn it into something that played by the rules of the “home invasion” sub-genre instead of a typical ghost story.
I decided to promote Sick House to my main project. Since nobody was screaming “Where the hell is Miles of Night, you contract-breaching bastard???” I could do that.
Though there’s still a slow burn element, the pacing in Sick House goes crazy at a certain point, which meant that ultimately it was no “easier” to write than the novel that it replaced as my main project. Irony.
When I finished the book, I weighed a couple of options. Obviously, if I returned to a book in progress, there’d be less left to write. On the other hand, starting fresh with a brand new project at the beginning of the new year had appeal.
I ended up going with a brand-new project. Bring Her Back is psychological horror, written in 1st person. I’m a little over a third of the way done. When that book is finished, I will probably return to Miles of Night.
Or I’ll start something completely new.
We’ll see what happens.
