Orrin Grey's Blog: Shovel Murders & Monologues, page 69

Why I'm in no hurry to do this for a living...

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to not ever do anything else for a living ever again but write stories about monsters and skeletons and old dark houses. I would dearly love to write and dream for eight hours a day, instead of around eight hours a month, which seems closer to the mark I usually hit these days. I'm just not in any particular hurry to do so, and, not to put too fine a point on it, here's why:

Over on her journal, Caitlin R. Kiernan recently wrote: If, tomorrow, someone gave me...

The Mignola Front

When other artists started drawing regular runs of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series, I regarded the move with trepidation. Mignola is not only my favorite creator but also my favorite artist (as anyone reading this probably already knows), and the idea of other people taking on his signature character seemed like a losing proposition. And certainly, you will rarely find me saying that I'm glad when Mike Mignola didn't draw something, but so far most of the other artists who have come on board ha...

Jonah Hex & Others

Yeah, Jonah Hex was pretty lousy, though probably not as bad as you might've heard. Its biggest sin wasn't in being stupid (though there was certainly stupid to spare) but in being boring, which is sort of unforgiveable for a movie with a runtime in the 80 minute range. Of course, twenty of those eighty minutes (probably an exaggeration, but not by much) were recycled footage that we'd already seen earlier in the movie. Maybe if Jonah Hex had been only an hour long it would've been a better m...

Kris Reisz Interview

I recently interviewed Kris Reisz on the occasion of the re-release of his second novel Unleashed . As of today, the interview is up at Innsmouth Free Press.

We talk about writing, comics, Guys Lit Wire, and Lovecraft, among other things. Missing from the interview: A discussion of whether or not giant catfish count as monsters.

Reminder Roundup

I've been posting a lot of signal boosts and calls to action and whatnot lately, and so I thought it might be good to do a quick post collecting them all into one place so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. So here they all are again:


Reyna's amazing Octopus Mesmerist t-shirt design is still in the running at Threadless for only four more days, so go vote if you've got a love for cephalopods mind-controlling morticians on your casual wear. (And who doesn't?)
My story "Nature vs. Nurture...

The Madness of Mountains

This is ancient news by now, but Guillermo del Toro is off The Hobbit. As an avowed del Toro fan (though we don't talk about Hellboy 2), I think this is good news. The Hobbit was a stalled project, at best, that was guaranteed to eat up several more years of his time, and I'd just as soon see him move on to other things. If The Hobbit ever does finally go before cameras (there's rumors of David Yates and possibly even Sam Raimi taking over the vacated director's chair) I'll be eagerly looking...

The Octopus Mesmerist!

Reyna, who most of you know as the artist behind my "author photo" and the great Nigerian Skull-Faced Toad, has a design up for voting at Threadless, and it would make an awesome t-shirt.

So go here to cast your vote for "The Octopus Mesmerist!"

Because, seriously, if you don't want a shirt of an octopus hypnotizing a guy, then I'm not sure can be friends anymore.

Nigerian Skull-Faced Toad Sighted at Everyday Weirdness!

Some of you may remember that, some time ago, I wrote a very short story called "Ex Libris" for a contest that Molly was running on her 'blog. It didn't win the contest, but it did give rise to the Nigerian Skull-Faced Toad and now it has found a home (Skull-Faced Toad and all) at Everyday Weirdness.

The turnaround time from acceptance to publication on this one was, I do believe, the shortest I've ever experienced, since I got the letter of acceptance on Friday. I'm fond of the story (and the...

Cast Your Vote!

In other news, my story "Nature vs. Nurture" is in the running for a sort of readers' choice award that Innsmouth Free Press offers to one author in each of their fiction issues. The winner gets $50 and bragging rights. Go here to read the issue if you haven't already, and to cast your vote.

How It's Going To Be

I'm back from vacation and instantly busy. I should probably post a bit about what happened while I was away, god knows there's plenty to talk about, but I don't really feel like I have the leisure for it, the room to let a post like that stretch out. We went to the Kansas City Zoo (which was sort of disappointing) and the World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial (which was awesome). We saw my folks, and Grace's sister got married in a very pretty ceremony with a very nice reception following. ...