David Nickle's Blog, page 16

Is that a steel banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?*

It was just over a week ago that I met up at east-end coffee shop Tango Palace with Devon Wong, the literature and theory correspondent for steelbananas.com - a very cool webzine that subtitles itself 'that post-pomo variety show' - and his photographer, Matt, for a chat about Monstrous Affections, the art of horror and comedy, why lying is sometimes a good thing, and the vocal stylings of Tom Waits. I wore my black leather coat and glowered up a storm to put the fear into 'em, but it didn't...

Monstrous Affections wins a Black Quill Award

Some time back, I mentioned that Monstrous Affections was nominated for a Black Quill Award, for Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection. Well today, I found out that it actually won the award, in the Readers' Choice category. Which means that readers of the webzine Dark Scribe Magazine old and new weighed in on which story collection they liked best. And this year, enough weighed in on Monstrous Affections to give it the prize.


I assume some of you yard-apes had something to do with that. So than...

Tesseracts 14

I was really torn for a minute there. Brett Savory put out word yesterday that the Table of Contents of Tesseracts 14, the next edition of the long-running Canadian sf anthology he's co-editing with John Robert Colombo, will be revealed shortly. Because it is a big secret.

Some time later, I got this... email from Brett. And I thought to myself - can I brag about it on my blog yet? Is it ethical? If it's not, is my ass covered by good company?

I did a google blog search. And doing so, I found t...

There must be something (under) the water...

I'm beginning to think that my hometown of Toronto has more in common with Arkham, Innsmouth and Dunwich than just its aura of loathsomeness to the rest of the country.

Turns out this town is, like Innsmouth, a bastion of eldritchery.

Case in point: Joseph Nanni, a local H.P. Lovecraft fancier and film-maker of great energy and talent. His blog, Bad Advice for Good Times, notes that he and his fellow cultists are embarking on their first feature film, Drawing Baphomet.

I do not know Joseph Nann...

The Secret of My Success

This is not the first time I've sent praise in the direction of Erik Mohr. It may not even be the first time I've posted a blog entry devoted to this clever, diabolical cover designer from northern Ontario. But given recent internet activities surrounding my collection Monstrous Affections, certain things are becoming clear. A large percentage of the people reading the book, and seeming to like it, would not be doing so without the baited hook of Erik's cover and design.


The Publisher's...

The Innsmouth Free Press: A Bastion of Eldritchery

For those of you who haven't checked it out, might I recommend the Innsmouth Free Press - the website of the newspaper that's been covering the community of Innsmouth above and below sea level since the Old Ones walked the Earth. It is a magnificent journal, of which the denizens locals are justly proud.

And if they make the odd mistake - hey, everybody's... well, humanoid.

And I'm always there to help out a fellow journo.

Monstrous Affections: Back In Stock

The downside of selling out the first print run of your story collection in late November, is that all through December, no one can find the damn thing on Amazon.com.* Hopefully, this didn't ruin Christmas for too many yard-apes - or worse, cause them to inadvertently pay $200+ from the online book dealers at Amazon.

The upside of selling out the first print run of your story collection, on the other hand, is that there is a second printing. It's been available for awhile now at Amazon.ca, but...

Another shout-out, Aurora season, and other fine Things in the New Year...

That's the kind of header you get when you have no one thing but many unrelated things to talk about in one day. So let us get to it, Yard-Apes.

First, thanks to Daniel Rabuzzi, whose novel The Choir Boats was released to much happy fanfare from ChiZine Publications, about the same time as Monstrous Affections. He too has a blog, Lobsters and Canaries, and he offered up a year-end summation of pretty much everything, in which he spared many kind words for my short story writing chops. To whit:...

We have some winners...

... in Bob and Dave and Doug's Flash-Flash Fiction Contest, and they're right here, at ChiZine Publications's website.

Dedicated yard-apes may recall that the contest to find the best short-short-short story (300 words or less) closed to submissions last month, with promises that January 2 we'd come up with a winner and two runners-up. The winner would receive copies of we three judges' story collections: Horror Story and Other Horror Stories, by Robert Boyczuk; Objects of Worship by Claude La...

A Happy New Year, from January Magazine...

... appropriately enough.

While the rest of us were whooping it up last night, counting down the end of December 2009, the literary web-zine January Magazine was posting its best fiction of 2009 piece - a list of just over 20 books that its editors liked best from the past year. They liked all kinds of things - books by Raymond Carver and Margaret Atwood, China Mieville and Stephen King, E.L. Doctorow and John Updike and Douglas Coupland. And, apparently, David Nickle. Here's what reviewer Dav...