Steve Vernon's Blog, page 7

Live radio interview...

Those of you within radio range can catch my live radio interview tomorrow night. Those of you too far away (and there are many) can still listen live at the website.

And, (I believe), there will be a downloadable podcast of the interview made available a little later on.

Check it out.

http://www.nightfrightshow.com/index....

Yours in storytelling,


Steve Vernon

What I've been waiting to hear...

Well, I received the word from my YA editor. She loves the rewrite and wants to see me run with it. So that's what I am doing this morning. Continuing my revision - using her notes for guidance and inspiration - trying to tighten and pick up the pace.

It is going to be a truly grand book.

I'm going to work a little later today but I'm writing, right now.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

rare days...

I've just recieved a copy of the introduction that Richard Chizmar has written for my upcoming short story collection Do-Overs and Detours (Dark Regions Press).

Rich is a great guy. I've known and worked with him since the very 2nd issue of his magazine Cemetery Dance, a magazine that is now over sixty issues old.

Rich published one of my earliest stories and several stories afterward. He gave me a market for my many book reviews and interviews. He will be publishing my four author, four novella weird western collection FOUR RODE OUT - with my self, Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon and Tim Curran. He put my story "The Forever Long Snake of Olan Walker" in the pages of Shivers V. He has done a lot for my career in horror fiction.

Nowadays I am still wondering how much longer I will write horror. My regional writing has done very well and I am hoping my YA career will outshine that. How many fields can one man hoe?

I'm still figuring on that.

Still, the stories in the collection Do-Overs and Detours are awfully solid and I am darned proud to have written them. I am twice as proud when I read the introduction that Rich wrote for me. In fact, by the end of it I was damned near choked up.

Good days like these are awfully rare.

Yours in storytelling,


Steve Vernon

Yahoo - a new review!

A brand new review, best one yet, of Maritime Monsters!

http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol16/no20...

Steve

A new interview...

There's a new interview of me up at Kinderscares, a Canadian-based blog site for kid-aimed horror.

I hope some of you folks get a chance to read it.

http://kinderscares.blogspot.com/2010...

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

The Strangers...

Rented a copy and watched it last night. Talk about a slow blowing popcorn fart. All that preamble for a punkass fizzling finish - nothing to recommend but Liv Tyler's big tits and bigger lips. Braindead protagonists, a painfully crawling attempt at suspense, and a little eek at the end of it - somebody actually thought this piece of shit qualified as a horror movie? I had heard good things about it but I guess you can't believe everything that you hear, now can you?

Rome - the series...

I fell in love with the Roman era thanks to Conn Iggulden's EMPEROR series (and I have long wanted to watch the HBO television series. However, I can't afford anything beyond the basic cable package - so I missed out on the original presentation.

This Christmas I picked up the first season of Rome as a dvd set and thought I'd risk the twenty six bucks they were asking for it. My wife and I stomped through it in about three days. I went out to our local dvd dealer and rented season 2 and stomped through that as well.

Loved it.

The production values were amazing. The costumes, the set work, the battle scenes and the pomp astounded me. The writing was top notch and the acting memorable. There were only two seasons produced and I am kind of glad it ended where it did. I did want to see more of the two "main" characters - Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus - but the story of Rome itself had pretty well been told.

Still, I am going to have to rewatch Punisher: War Zone to see how Ray Stevenson (the actor who played Pullo) did as The Punisher.

Yours in storytelling,


Steve Vernon

What is a good read...

I am a member of the SFC (the Speculative Fiction Writers of Canada), as of one year ago. Today somebody asked if there were any members of either goodreads or Librarything. I hadn't heard of either, so I listened intently (how do you listen to a web ring?), Most of the writers who knew said that Goodreads was the place to go.

So, here I am.

I have been writing fiction since the mid-eighties, selling primarily to the horror small press of North America - with early sales to The Horror Show, Cemetery Dance, Flesh & Blood, Karl Edward Wagner's Year's Best Horror and many other markets and magazines. I still write for the horror genre but I have also begun writing for a regional publisher and I have really finally come into my own.

For the most part my regional work is a series of ghost story collections - including Haunted Harbours (2006), Wicked Woods (2008) and Halifax Haunts (2009). I have also recently released a children's picture book - Maritime Monsters. And Nimbus, (my publisher), has just hinted that they might publish my very first YA novel - perhaps by next fall.

Needless to say, I will keep you folks posted.

I still write regularly for Cemetery Dance and was one of their primary book reviewers for at least a year. I've backed out of the book review business - because, although it did pay and I did enjoy recieving free books - I just don't have the time to make that sort of a commitment any more. I am hoping that Goodreads will give me the chance to get back into my book reviewing without having to stress about deadlines and such.

Talk to you later.

yours in storytelling,


Steve Vernon