James Dorr's Blog, page 154

Urban Fantastic: Bottles to Be in Street Magick Anthology

“Within this anthology,” so said the guidelines, “modern day witches and warlocks shape reality to their will.  Creatures of legend make back-alley deals under cover of darkness.  The city’s inhabitants encounter items and events imbued with mystic power.  Because cities have a life — a magick — all their own.”

Well the city here is Cambridge Massachusetts in the year 1958 and the mood is more noir, with Communists seen around every corner — at least by those who would call themselves patriots.  There are the “Minutemen” — self-styled “militias” — and a burgeoning John Birch Society.  This is, after all, only a few years after the Senate McCarthy hearings, and for a young Puerto Rican woman not exactly a time of tolerance for people who are seen as “different.”  The story, “Bottles” is in fact a reprint, originally published in CROSSINGS (Double Dragon, 2004) and, as I selected it later to be in my 2013 collection THE TEARS OF ISIS, I was suddenly struck by how little some things have changed.  Substitute Near-Eastern extremists for Communists, Mexican-Americans for . . . well, it occurred to me then as now that the story may deserve to be kept in circulation.

Oh yes, and one more thing about “Bottles” — this version of Cambridge has vampires in it.  But of a particularly Hungarian (and presumably anti-Communist) derivation.  Which all adds up to last evening’s email from Charles P. Zaglanis for Elder Signs Press (also editor of White Cat Publications’s AIRSHIPS & AUTOMATONS, cf. May 27 et al.) that “Bottles” has found an additional home in their anthology STREET MAGICK:  TALES OF URBAN FANTASY, currently set for fall 2016.  “Great story.  Please fill out and send back the contract and a bio.”

More to be reported here as it becomes known.

Friday Dec. 4 Blurring the Line Author Interview Subject Is . . . Me

And here it is!  See November 26 for the first, in this case editor interview of the creators of BLURRING THE LINE, the anthology that explores the line between fictional and real life horror.  It has been published, at least electronically with print to follow, and so too the parade of daily (excepting weekends) author interviews has commenced.  And Friday, December 4, to end the first full week, the interviewee in the spotlight . . . c’est moi!

So check it out here for what I have to say about inspiration for my tale “The Good Work,” on Dickensian urchins hunting for witches; the meaning of horror; the number one best horror story and novel; and . . . UFOs?  Well, it seemed to make sense when I answered the question.  But remember, the page won’t go live until 10 a.m. Friday — and that will be Australian time (which, actually, should make it a lot earlier than where I’m writing from . . . but I could be wrong).

And should what you read pique interest a bit one can find out more about the anthology, or even buy it, by checking here (be sure to scroll down its first review to get a blow-by-blow look at the stories).

Bubba Claus Corrections Go Back to “Museum”; Darker Loves Picture Has Link Updated

Yesterday saw proof sheets for my story “Bubba Claus Conquers the Martians” (cf. September 3, et al.) from Joanne Merriam of Upper Rubber Boot Books for the anthology THE MUSEUM OF ALL THINGS AWESOME AND THAT GO BOOM, which in turn were returned by me in the wee hours of this morning with two very minor corrections noted.  This will be the third Christmas story of mine this year that came out, or will come out (THE MUSEUM appears to be on track to be published the first thing in 2016) a month more or less from or after the Yuletide, in anthologies which themselves have nothing to do with Christmas.  The others are ”A Christmas Carnage” published November 13 in THE FIRST ANNUAL GEEKY KINK ANTHOLOGY (see November 18 et al.) and “The Good Work” published on Kindle November 26 with print to be out soon in BLURRING THE LINE (see November 22 et al.), with “Bubba Claus” a tale tipping its hat to perennial “Top Ten Worst Movies” listee SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, originally published in HOUSTON:  WE’VE GOT BUBBAS (Yard Dog Press, 2007).

Then in other news, I discovered today that clicking the center column picture for DARKER LOVES:  TALES OF MYSTERY AND REGRET led to a no longer open web page.  That has been corrected as of this afternoon, with a new link that should take readers to the book’s listing on Amazon.

Last Sunday Poetry Brings Gloomy Tropes to a Gloomy Day (and a Bit of Dark Humor?)

Well it is nearly December, the spirits having been let loose on Halloween, and now spiraling down to the longest night of the year.  So I mentioned in introducing three short poems during the open mike section.  But we had already had featured poet Michelle Gottschlich read, among others, a poem involving a date at local Rose Hill Cemetery (not to mention, from first open mike reader Joan Hawkins, a translation of a “found” invoice concerning shipping a corpse from Tahiti to the US).  The latter also was somewhat in answer to second Featured Poet Eric Rensberger who offered a reading of found and partially “stolen” poems.

The occasion was November’s Last Sunday Poetry Reading, sponsored by the Bloomington Writers Guild and the Monroe County Convention Bureau (cf. October 26, et al.), on an afternoon that, yes, was gloomy and gray, but did have the virtue that it wasn’t raining.  And the poetry wasn’t all necessarily gloomy, though when my turn came I had pre-selected three older poems that played well off the aforementioned  topics, including the introductory remarks I glossed at the top.  Thus I presented “A Little Night Music,” a two-line verse pointing out that love and death happen in daytime too; “Dust to Dust” about a fire in a cemetery, which also had once been part of an arts display project on Bloomington Transit city buses in 2001 (I noted that I didn’t know which the exact bus was, but had hoped it had been the one going past Rose Hill, as well as the fact the experiment was not repeated); and a “Little Willie” (a what?  See February 16; also February 6 2012) which I noted had the distinction of being published not in a genre magazine but a “more respectable” mainstream journal, “Fire in the Hole,” about a naughty boy who dynamites a grave.

Untreed Reads Cyber Monday Sale Includes Peds, Christmas Horror, New Year’s, More

Untreed Reads Publishing has announced a special 40% off sale on CyberMonday, November 30th.  The sale will include all titles in all formats, including my own chapbooks, the near-future dystopic novelette PEDS, Christmas horror I’M DREAMING OF A. . . ., steampunk mystery VANITAS (originally published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE), and the Untreed Reads New Year’s anthology YEAR’S END:  14 TALES OF HOLIDAY HORROR featuring my lead story “Appointment in Time.”  All current promotions for the month of November will be suspended that day only and replaced by the CyberMonday sale.

To take advantage, one can click any of the three titles pictured in the center column or, for any or all four, press here to check out my author page in the Untreed Reads Store — but only on Monday!  All titles then should reflect their regular prices as well as sale prices.

5 Went Out, 4 Came Back: Mermaid Haiku Taken by Star*Line

I don’t usually call them haiku myself, though some euphemize them with genre portmanteaus like “scifiku” or Horrorku” — rather I think of them, in English, as 3-line epigrams that just happen to borrow an approximately 5-7-5 syllable count (which isn’t really exactly what defines the Japanese form either).  As such I generally title them too,

A Mermaid – John William Waterhouse (1849 – 1917)

which purists would not do with real haiku.  But, hey, it’s having fun, no?  And if a title gives it another half-twist (or even not), well, what’s the harm in it.

Thus it happens that I e-sent five of these 3-liners to STAR*LINE a little while back.  And then, today, only four returned, the first retained by Editor Jeannie Bergmann, but with this proviso:  “I like the first poem quite a lot, but would you consider replacing the first line with the title?  I’m not crazy about titled haiku, and not attached to the 5-7-5 form either.  . . .  Let me know if that works.”  Or, in a sense, make it a little more like an actual haiku (though not with a seasonal tag or a sharp descriptive image), a least in form.

Well, in this case, okay so I sent back my nod.   The missing line gave an opening description of sorts but one implied by the rest of the poem, the titleless form fits with STAR*LINE style . . . so what’s the harm in it, eh?  Other than that, all I will say is, as noted above, it has to do with a mermaid or mermaids.

Also, being a horror poem, its conclusion is not nice.

Blurring the Line on Kindle with Print to Follow, Interview with Editor Live

“I also wanted these stories offset against non-fiction material.  Some people might not get why non-fiction is included, or find this jarring, but it was an attempt at trying something a little different to what is standard practice.  For me, it’s one thing to suspend belief for a story’s sake because you know, deep down, that what you’re reading isn’t real, no matter how realistic it might be.  That’s the whole fun of horror fiction, right?  It’s a safe scare.  But it’s something else altogether to read details of actual real events or technological breakthrough that defy belief or cause you to question the world.”

So says Editor Marty Young of Cohesion Press’s BLURRING THE LINE (see below, November 22 et al.) in the first of a daily series of interviews of the anthology’s authors.  That is, look for mine in a few days too!  But for now, the lead interview also marks the promised November 26 publication date of the book as well, at least on Kindle, with the print edition to follow soon.  And so, to hear from the horse’s mouth (in a manner of speaking) just what the book’s all about, readers may press here.  And if you like what Marty has to say, Amazon’s page can be found here.

Zen Arrived For Holiday Reading

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

“Invisible” Dystopian Express PDF Arrives, Up-to-Date Table of Contents, Cover

In the email station even as I write, a pdf copy of the Hydra Publications anthology DYSTOPIAN EXPRESS, with my story “Invisible People” (see October 30, et al.), has been received.  And with it has come a table of contents in story order, subject to only last-minute corrections, with mine the third to last car on the train.  “Invisible People” is an early story, first published in the Winter 1992-93 issue of DARK INFINITY, yet one that may still be pertinent today, of what happens when people are so disaffected that society has forgotten about them.  But in this case it’s society itself that has forced them out in the first place.

“Occupy,” anyone?  Well not exactly, but certainly not the movements still within politics either, no matter how loudly they may claim to be excluded.  Nor terrorists either, at least not exactly — for these are people who, if not wishing to be entirely unseen, had found that blending in with the crowd, to not be too noticed, could work as a kind of survival technique.

At least up to now.

And these are the problems of just one world as depicted aboard the DYSTOPIAN EXPRESS.  There are eighteen other worlds that appear with it, as we can see here:

.

Table of Contents

Friending, Gregory L. Norris — 1

Republic of Masks, Josh Brown — 4

Greater Good, Jeff Provine — 8

An Unfettered Life, C. Bryan Brown — 17

Surrender, Bob Brown — 32

The Hating, Nigel Anthony Sellars — 39

The Unbinding, M. P. Neal — 59

Cohort 17, Val Muller — 67

Data Crabs, Deborah Walker — 86

The First Price, Benjamin Sperduto — 94

Jötnar, Colonel D. R. Acula — 110

Fudgesickles, Brick Marlin — 122

Scarecrow, Scarecrow on the Hill, Tracy Fahey — 130

The Unnaturals, Michael J. Epstein — 138

Fit to Rule, Stephanie Neilan — 142

When the Wind Blows, Pam Farley — 146

Invisible People, James Dorr — 149

Twenty-One Seconds, Ian Neack — 161

Finding Chidera, Dave Creek — 169

Tricking the Devil: Stephanie Buosi Interview Up

This morning’s email brought the announcement, from HOW TO TRICK THE DEVIL Editor Stephanie Buosi, that her interview of me (cf. November 10) is now up and available under the title “James Dorr, Author of Tears of Isis, talks Inspiration, and the Life of a Full Time Writer.”  Well, maybe that “full time writer” requires a tad of nuance, but it’s in the interview which can be read by pressing here.  Not to mention, to also find out about such lore as the attraction of “the dark,” juxtaposition of ideas, the origins of “Lobster Boy and the Hand of Satan,” and even a small lagniappe from my poetry book VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE).