Jeff Strand's Blog, page 56

World Horror Convention Schedule

The World Horror Convention (in Provo, Utah) has posted the subject-to-change 2016 programming schedule. You can see the entire thing HERE, but for your convenience or my own egomania, here’s what I’ll be doing.

Thursday, April 28

7:00 – 8:00 PM. Humor In Horror. Panel discussion with me, Kevin J. Anderson, Michael Arnzen, Carter Reid, and Jaleta Clegg.

Friday, Apri 29

9:00 – 10:00 AM. Using Social Media Effectively. Panel discussion with me, Stephen Kozeniewski, and Willow Becker.

4:30 – 5:30 PM. Horror in the Small Press. Panel discussion with me, Michael Arnzen, Stephen Kozeniewski, and Steven Booth.

7:15 – 9:45 PM. Mass Booksigning. Buy books. Bring books from home to get signed. Ask me to sign your official WHC program. If you’ve got it, I’ll scrawl my name on it.

10:00 – midnight. Gross-Out Contest. What foul, disgusting, distasteful tale will I read…?

Saturday, April 30

9:00 – 10:00 AM (Wait, another morning panel? Gaahh!!!) Self-Published vs. Traditional vs. Hybrid. Panel discussion with me, Kevin J. Anderson, Michaelbrent Collings, John L. Campbell, Martin Bervin-Gorvine, and Stephen Kozeniewski, who will certainly be getting sick of me by this point.

10:15 – 11:15 AM. My Favorite Horror Film. Panel discussion with Darren Shan, Linda Addison, Sunni K. Brock, Sanford Allen, and Thomas M. Sipos.

12:45 – 1:45 PM. Kaffeeklatsch. Yes, this is your chance to sit down with me, your favorite author having a kaffeeklatsch at that particular moment (unless you like Michael Arnzen better) for an informal chat.

Sunday, May 1

10:15 – 11:15 AM. Collaboration and Co-Authors. Panel discussion with Kevin J. Anderson, Jack Ketchum, and David Boop.

Clearly, you’re out of your fool mind if you miss it. Check out the official website HERE.

Sharing An E-Mail

I don’t generally post fan mail here, but this one was particularly cool, so I’m sharing it with permission. (There’s no punchline–it’s real!)

Good Morning Mr. Strand,

I am the Principal of an alternative high school in South Jamaica Queens NY City. And a huge fan…(I have issues according to my students).  Our students are what we call over aged and under credited and come to us to get a real deal  high school diploma in two years…no excuses, hopefully going on to continue pursuing a college degree. Many have failed to attend their old traditional schools for reasons as diverse as having children of their own, incarceration, disciplinary issues or just plain “I was bored and invisible in my old school”. A typical class has students anywhere from 16 to 20 years old that have a variety of reading levels and academic skills which pose a real significant challenge for our staff. …That is an understatement…Really.

That was the “jargon” explanation above. The reality is that many of students just hate to read. Never read. Do not like to read. Or are apathetic about learning and attending school.  In order to engage our students my English teachers are always looking to expose them to out of the box literature. Not the usual cliff notes stuff.  Our entire existence depends on getting the students interested in reading. That’s where Owen, Ivan, Specimen 313 and Dr. Prethorious come in…Seriously.

Making a long story longer…I have been co teaching and planning a high school literature class whose focus is on Monsters in Literature. (Again big fan). We have used several works by you over the past few months…The Principal (Me) is a big fan. Wolf Hunt…Dweller…Specimen 313…Comeuppance…Which I wonder if you ever had been told was used in a high school English literature class before. I tend to think that most schools are doing the usual ye olde English novella that has extremely nonfunctional and obsolete vocabulary work. I wanted to let you know how your work has transformed a group of real disinterested readers into those requesting to sign out Kindles for the weekend…All above 17 with permissions to review your work from their guardians…You do tend to throw in a few gory details in the stories here and there, but they are older than the usual high school student.

They find your work “Gleefully Macabre” and have been engaged in your materials beyond anything I am sure they have ever been exposed to. I am probably not explaining this as well as I should…I can’t express how cool it is for my particular set of students who never read novels laughing and discussing how Ivan in Wolf Hunt argues about getting a happy meal…How they are “close” reading in class even after the bell rings asking ”why are those dogs attacking the car. Is he really a werewolf. OMG Ivan is crazy’..…Or analyzing how corrosive to himself the cursed vengeance of the narrator was in Comeuppance…(Seriously why did he put make up on…?)..or how they debated for over an hour the reasoning behind Toby feeding the bullies to Owen…One student asked another if they were ever anyone’s Owen? (Not the killing part but the sticking up for someone bullied). My co-teacher, bless the woman’s soul is deeply disturbed yet a fan of your work now as well. Especially when our students are having rich discussions of your work.

Oh..And they definitely agree with me that Specimen 313 is a love story…Best one we ever read. Students like it as much as Romeo and Juliet (DiCaprio version of course).

So…Thank you for being a real crazy and funny author. Maybe at times even better than some of those other people like Salinger or  Shakespeare (my opinion of course). Our students appreciate it. Visitors may not understand a bulletin board that has pictures of a yellowed eyed… fanged monster or a man eating plant..or Ivan…But hey…we had a 100% passing rate on The Common Core English Exam.

 

Again thank you,

Chris Losurdo

Principal

Voyages South Preparatory High School

Jamaica, NY 11434

 

Deadline Approacheth…

I’ve got a book that’s due really, really, really soon, and so I won’t be updating this blog until……..no, wait, actually I’ll probably be updating it MORE often.

Because I’m an author, and we love to work on other stuff besides the thing we’re supposed to be working on. It’s how we roll, baby.

 

National Sibling Day

Since today is National Sibling Day, I thought I would share this vintage photograph of my sister Wendy and me. [WARNING: Contains violent content.]

Dead Clown Barbecue in German!

Voodoo Press has just published the German-language edition of Dead Clown Barbecue. They’ve done some of my other books (Fangboy, Benjamin’s Parasite, and The Sinister Mr. Corpse, with Wolf Hunt on the way very soon) but this one is a limited edition hardcover, which also includes 10 interior illustrations by Christian Krank.

If you can read German, or just want an unspeakably awesome collector’s edition, check it out HERE.

Shameless Redirection

I’ve posted a sneak peek at the cover to my new novel on my Facebook fan page.

Sure, I COULD post it here, and obviously it’ll be on my website before long, so ultimately this is a shameless attempt to drive traffic HERE.

(Well, okay, I’m a little ashamed of this technique.)

Upcoming Appearances

I just updated my Appearances page, and figured that since I have a few events coming up soon, I’d post ’em here, too:

April 7, 2016: CRITICAL DRINKING. St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ll be at the Wine Madonna (111 2nd Ave NE) at 7:00 PM talking about my novel Kumquat. Have some wine and talk about books. Or just have some wine.

April 15, 2016: TRINITY PREP AUTHOR FAIR. Orlando, Florida. I’ll be there with several other delightful YA authors for signings, panels, trivia, etc. Free and open to all ages.

April 17, 2016: WORDIER THAN THOU. St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ll be one of the featured authors at this open mic reading. Starts at 7:00 PM at The Studio@620 (620 1st Ave S). Sit back and enjoy the readings, or read something of your own!

April 28-May 1, 2016: WORLD HORROR CONVENTION. Provo, Utah. Horror writers galore!

May 12-15, 2016. STOKERCON. Las Vegas, Nevada. Yes, kids, the Bram Stoker Awards have permanently become a separate event from the World Horror Convention, and have been rebranded as StokerCon! Once again, I will be emcee of the awards banquet, wearing the same tuxedo. The biggest change is the Horror University programming track, a series of workshops on topics a-plenty!

June 10, 2016: B&N TEEN BOOK FESTIVAL. Tampa, Florida. Barnes & Noble locations across the nation will be hosting YA authors on the same night! I’ll be at the Tampa location at 11802 N. Dale Mabry Highway, doing a reading and signing at 7:00 PM.

June 23-28, 2016. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. Orlando, Florida. I’ll be doing a signing at the Sourcebooks booth Sunday at 11:30 AM, and I’ll also be hanging out at the Horror Writers Association booth.

July 21-24, 2016. NECON. The most fun convention of them all! Where else can you play miniature golf with a bunch of horror writers? And I’ll be emcee of the infamous Necon roast. Who will be the victim this year? Maybe…YOU!!!

Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!

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, The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever, is available at bookstore near YOU! Or, if you’re on online shopper, pre-order it from Amazon.

The hardcover limited edition of Wolf Hunt 2 is now available! Get it from Dark Regions Press or the paperback edition from Amazon. Or get it for your Kindle!

My novel, Kumquat, is now available! Get the Kindle edition or the print edition from Amazon!

(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)

Friend me on Facebook ! Follow me on Twitter ! Like my Facebook Fan Page! Friend me on Goodreads!

JLG & WH2

Look! It’s my certificate and very stylish pin from the Junior Library Guild for The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever. Being a Junior Library Guild Selection means that if your school does not teach The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever alongside Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird, every member of the school board can be arrested.

(I think. Admittedly, I didn’t research it, but that sounds reasonable.)

Meanwhile, the audio book edition of Wolf Hunt 2 is now available at Audible and Amazon! It’s read by the lovely and talented Scott Thomas, who filled your ears with the sounds of the first Wolf Hunt.

 

Doughnut Cone Paradise

This delicious treat is a doughnut cone from Datz Dough. This concoction consisted of an ice cream cone made out of a cinnamon doughnut. But then, as if that weren’t enough, the doughnut was lined with Nutella. “Wow,” you’re saying. “That’s decadent.” No! The ice cream is a jelly doughnut flavored soft serve, which I suppose doesn’t really add a new level of decadence, since you already knew there was ice cream in there, but still, the ice cream is flavored like a jelly doughnut! Madness!

And then on top? Cotton candy! Bacon caramel popcorn! Whipped cream! And a cherry!

It was a test item that sold out in just over an hour, so you can’t have one now, but I’m sure they’ll bring ’em back, so be ever vigilant.

It’s amazing that I can type this, considering that I’m currently in a coma.