James Dorr's Blog, page 150

Flightless Rats Part of Mocha Memoirs Women in Horror Month Flash Contest (a Major Lagniappe)

February is Women in Horror Month, and we here at Mocha Memoirs Press love our ladies of horror!  In celebration of “Ghoul Power,” MMP is hosting a February Flash Fiction contest!  Flash fiction is quickly becoming popular on the eBook scene.  They’re super short pieces (usually less than 1000 words) that you can read on your phone, tablet, or eReader while you’re waiting your turn at the salon, stuck in traffic, or right before bed.  So here’s how it works:

The call went on to say stories had to be horror with a female point-of-view character, no more than 1000 words long, and in by a deadline of February 15.  Stories would then be posted on the Mocha Memoirs Press blog on the 17th, whereupon a panel of judges would choose the ten best, with voting for readers to choose from these to start next Tuesday, February 23.  There would be a prize for the best, although not a big one, but nothing was said about sending in reprints (despite the fact that someone had asked in a “comments” section) so why not? I thought.  Authors “of all genders” could submit and the top ten tales would also be “featured in a promotional mini-anthology used to promote Mocha Memoirs Press.”

So I’ve been published by them before (cf. January 18 2016, October 28 2013, et al.; also November 18, 7, 4 2015) and, anyway, that which promotes them also helps promote me, so why not indeed?  Off I sent a more or less 950-word story, “Flightless Rats,” originally published January 12 2015 in T. GENE DAVIS’S SPECULATIVE BLOG (see August 24, January 12 2015, et al.), concerning the vampiress Aimée of the “casket girls” and a date gone bad on a 19th century, gas-lit New Orleans summer night.

But worry not, she could cope.

Anyway the word came Wednesday that the initial stories are up for preview viewing, for which one may press here.  “We had over twenty submissions and each one is more bone-chilling than the last!”  And mine is there, one of the later ones, possibly handicapped as it is labeled “Reprint” at the top (most if not all of the others not being so noted, a quick glance tells me, meaning either they’re all originals or some of the authors may not be the most candid).

So call it a lagniappe, a pretty good freebie which Mocha Memoirs would like you to peruse, adding that you should take note of your favorites as “the top 10 stories (chosen by our own ladies of Horror) will be up for voting next week.”

The Grave: A Southern Gothic Guilty Pleasure?

So let’s add a twenty-fifth title to those in the article cited below.  The 1996 movie THE GRAVE may not be that well known or popular a film (57 percent “like” on ROTTEN TOMATOES), but it’s one I like.  And that’s not even with vampires in it.  So call it a guilty pleasure then?  Be that as it may, it happens I reviewed it a bit more than two years ago right here, on December 13 2013.  And so, herewith:

. . . last night (after midnight so it was  the 13th too) I watched a film that only about five minutes in I realized I’d seen on TV before.  Many years before — but that I still remembered enough to be glad I’d now found at a library sale and could watch again.  THE GRAVE is a surprisingly well acted Southern Gothic, scary as needed and peppered with dark humor.  And in that first five minutes, just the music accompanying the credits also reminded me of the Stephen King/John Mellencamp musical GHOST BROTHERS OF DARKLAND COUNTY (see October 11), reinforced in the opening scene in a prison cell, dark, with two people seen in silhouette, one speaking in a hoarse, raspy voice as a narrator-guide, complete with homey aphorisms here and again as the film played out, reminiscent of (and even sounding like) GHOST BROTHERS’ “Zydeco Cowboy.”

The premise, as others have said, may not be new — the somewhat chance joining of disparate people in a treasure hunt, in this case for a fortune left by the region’s richest man, that no one could find a trace of when he died.  So, getting a clue from one of their fellows, two prisoners escape from the state farm with one of the guards’ help and start the search, bringing in an ex-girlfriend, and a parolee now employed as a mortician, and friends of his, one a good ol’ boy as dumb as a post, and. . . .  Well, the common bond between them is greed, to which add no sense of honor among thieves, and you just know it’s not going to end well.  There’s even one small scene that reminded me of the first SAW movie, which, however,  THE GRAVE preceded by some eight years.

And yes, the treasure is found in a grave, or rather beneath one — and not the grave of the rich man himself — in a cemetery out in the swamp, remote and eerie, and excellently suited for double crosses.

THE GRAVE is available on VHS (though not on DVD that I could find) and, apparently sort of a minor cult classic, may cost a few dollars.  It’s worth the price.

Just now I did a check and it still seems to be on VHS only — and with asking prices in the $30 to $40 and up range.  It is available for download on Amazon though, which can be checked out here.  The film stars Craig Sheffer, Gabrielle Anwar, and Josh Charles and is directed by  Jonas Pate.

South for the Season: Another List for those Cold Winter Viewing Nights

Here’s one of those lists, this one with some classics on it, “10 Great Southern Gothic Films” by Samuel Wigley as presented by BFI FILM FOREVER.  And it’s not just ten, as Wigley ends up with a list of fourteen more culled from suggestions from his readers.  Lots of Tennessee Williams here, not to mention James Dickey’s DELIVERANCE.  Finder’s credit goes to Matt Weber via Facebook’s ON THE EDGE CINEMA.

The picture, in fact, is from one of the “final fourteen,” a favorite of mine (though technically not really set in the South), THE REFLECTING SKIN, one that brings vampires into the mix.  But it does have the flavor — and you know me!  In any event, to see twenty-four sweaty, sun-beating-down suggestions to warm your winter-time viewing, one need but press here.

A HAPPY ST. VALENTINE’S DAY TO ALL!

(but don’t overdo it)

Okay, This One’s Just Weird (or, If You’re Into Elephants. . . .)

So another list, but it might be fun, compiled by James Gaines on UPWORTHY.COM, “14 Elephant Facts You Can Use to Impress People at Parties (If They’re Into Elephants).”  Curious?  Press here.

For A Winter Night’s Viewing, Ten Visually Heightened Horror Movies

Thus today’s e-tease:  Brendan Morrow, “10 Most Visually Stunning Horror Movies Ever” on WHATCULTURE.COM, courtesy of Mike Olson via Facebook’s ON THE EDGE CINEMA.  By contrast to most of these listey things, I think I’ve seen fully nine of them this time (and the one I haven’t only came out in 2015), though some now will bear re-watching.  Also, as noted on other lists of this sort, these are one reviewer’s opinion, but to his credit Morrow offers compelling reasons for his selections.  (Also, as he admits as well, just because they’re visually stunning it doesn’t necessarily mean these are all good films.  But other than Winona Ryder’s sneering her way through Coppola’s DRACULA, none are really bad movies either.)

Be all that as it may, one may check them out for oneself here.

A Valentine Tale for First Sunday Prose; December BSFA Focus, Print Kong Poem Published February 6

Featured readers for this month’s Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose (see January 3, et al.) were local mostly-poet Shana Ritter and optometry professor/novelist (under the name Terry Pinaud) Khashayar Tonekaboni.  Leading off, Ritter read what she said was her first short story, published in FIFTH WEDNESDAY, “The Invitation,” about the cruelty of teen girls, following it with a note from her blog on writing poetry vs. prose, and ended with two excerpts from a novel in progress set at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.  Dr. Tonekaboni followed with excerpts from two novels, the first THE FIXER set in the summer and fall of 1963 prior to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the second in progress, tentatively titled MINE, at the time of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.

None of these would be characterized exactly as happy stories, which I didn’t help when open mike time came.  Fourth of four (six people had signed up, but two apparently left early), and noting it was exactly one week before Valentine’s Day, I read a story I wrote just last month, “A Saint Valentine’s Day Tale,” based on the New Orleanian urban legend of the Casket Girls (cf. April 28 2015, April 17 2014, et al.).*  This one introduced a new fille à la caissette, Claudette, giving a bit more of their history before recounting what happened the night her husband pledged to her his heart.

Speaking of busted love affairs, the day before, Saturday, I received an email announcing the availability of the British Science Fiction Association’s FOCUS magazine.  Or in Poetry Editor Charles Christian’s words:  “At long last the December issue of the BSFA FOCUS magazine is published (actually being only 2 months late is good) and it contains the poetry section I edit.  The contributors included are James Dorr + Andrew Darlington + Pat Tompkins + Herb Kauderer (who sadly has been deprived of his final “R”) + Kelda Crich + Geoffrey A. Landis + Noel Sloboda + John Reinhart + Guy Belleranti + Manos Kounougakis + Karen A. Romanko + Susan Burch + Christina Sng + Julie Kelsey.”  And the cool thing is, in the page shot on Facebook that gives the announcement, my poem is displayed, the print version of “On the Other Hand” that premiered electronically on GRIEVOUS ANGEL on August 30 (see September 5, March 30 2015) on why the torrid romance between Fay Wray and King Kong could never have lasted for the long haul.

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*As MC Joan Hawkins pointed out after, the location was particularly apt, it also being two days before Mardi Gras.

The Twenty Books Most People Have Lied about Reading

In most cases not really genre, of course, but how many have you read?  I count only six and a half for myself (I’ve read a fair bit of Sherlock Holmes but probably not all).  On the other hand, there are one or two I’m proud of having not read — does that make me illiterate?  The compilation, by Joe Ellison, is on SHORTLIST.COM and can be found by pressing here.

Great Tome of Forgotten Relics Cover Unveiled

The full title is THE GREAT TOME OF FORGOTTEN RELICS AND ARTIFACTS and my story in it, originally published in TERMINAL FRIGHT as well as appearing in THE TEARS OF ISIS, is “The Candle Room” (cf. January 7, et al.).  And today another facet has been revealed, the volume’s cover.  This will be one of four volumes in fact, currently scheduled for a March release.  As for the others, well, stories, contents, such details are still in the air so one must be patient, yes?

“The Candle Room” is a tale of magic and fortunes told through the use of candles, one of which is unusual indeed, leading the narrator and his girlfriend to an other-dimensional Neptune and a Lovecraftian plot against Earth.  But for more one must read the story itself.  In the meantime, details and contents for THE GREAT TOME OF FORGOTTEN RELICS AND ARTIFACTS can be found here while more on the series as a whole is available here.

First Last Sunday for 2016 Brings Werewolves, Zombies

It also brought some serious poetry too, but, yes, it was that time again for the Bloomington Writers Guild’s “Last Sunday Poetry Reading & Open Mic,” presented in conjunction with the Bloomington and Monroe County Convention Center.  The featured poets were Hilda Davis, a graduate student in Indiana University’s Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies — and also a seasoned poetry slammer — and Jonathan Holland, a graduate of Ivy Tech as well as a student at Indiana University.  Both presented rhythmic, sonorous works, both personal to them as well as connected to the world about them, ending up almost surprisingly complimenting each other.  This was followed by the open mike session where I had the number four spot in a field of ten, about as many as I’ve seen read from the audience at these events.  I read two poems, one about werewolves and loss of habitat originally published in STAR*LINE, “No One Wants to Run Through the Woods Naked Under a Full Moon Anymore” (see January 27 2012, July 11 2011), and the other as yet unpublished, “Don’t Always Believe Everything You Read,” in which a zombie explains why the New Hampshire motto Live Free or Die fails to reflect reality (“. . . being dead’s cheap enough — / but living free, sorry, / that’s bucks on the barrelhead . . . ).