James Dorr's Blog, page 176

Sunday Haibun Class Offered by Writers Guild, Library – Poster’s First Effort Included as Lagniappe; Not Quite Sneak Peek of A Martian . . . Cover on Facebook

For a little bit of a change of pace, today I attended a presentation on “Haibun:  The Best of Both Worlds,” courtesy of the Bloomington Writers Guild (cf. October 9, et al.) and the Monroe County Public Library.  For those unfamiliar, this is from the session handout:  “A haibun is a hybrid form that is composed of heightened prose and one or more haiku.  The prose elements and the haiku work synergistically and each heightens the effect of the other.  It can be written in in various styles:  stream of consciousness, description, memoir, slice of life, but has traditionally been based on real life experiences including travel.”  The class went on to explain that its popularity in English is fairly new and that it is continuing to evolve, while discussion also touched on haiku by itself, and the symbiotic relationship between the prose and the poetic parts of haibun.

As in similar sessions the library and Writers Guild have offered, there was time for hands on practice as well, the first to be inspired by the participant’s choice from a group of photographs, mostly of nature, that were passed around.  And so for an example, my effort will appear below as a sort of lagniappe, a little literary freebie as a reward for having read this far.

Also today, Editor J Alan Erwine sent, via Facebook, a preliminary cover design for the upcoming sf/humor anthology A ROBOT, A CYBORG, AND A MARTIAN WALK INTO A SPACE BAR, with my story “Toast” in it (see October 22, September 26, et al.).  To quote the publisher, “[t]his isn’t quite the final version, but we love this cover so much, we wanted to share it with all of you.  We will be starting a Kickstarter for the collection very soon, so keep your wallets ready!”  Thus, it not being exactly the official to-be-published version, I don’t think it proper to display it here, but since it is available to the public on Facebook it’s not exactly a secret either.

What to do?  What to do?  How about this — for those who wish for a wholly “unofficial” sneak peek, it can be found by scrolling down my Facebook page here.  And returning to haibun, information on the Writers Guild and programs to come can be found here, while here is the sample promised:

(untitled)

Trees, second growth, abound in this wood.  Thin, angular branches bared mostly by fall.  A smell of tartness, of leaves turning — mossy as well as they slowly decompose.  It is afternoon.  One feels the sun’s heat as if it wishes its presence known in the brief time left during its setting, while shadows, like arrows, lead the hiker on to an unexpected clearing, a platform of rough planks.  On that reposes a single bench, empty.  Even the wind has died down and is silent.

    lonely bench

    still warm from the sun’s descent

    or one just called home 

Space Opera Contract Speedy Arrival; Assassins Proof Sheets also Reviewed

Talk about fast work! Yesterday I received the acceptance for “The Needle-Heat Gun” for Geminid Press’s not-yet-titled Space Opera anthology, as related just below; today the contract arrived from Editor Phillip Garver.  So part of this afternoon’s activity has been reading through it and, a few hours ago, sending it back with electronic signature affixed.  Also just a few days before I received and sent back the final proof sheets for my story, “The Labyrinth,” to be published in the Smart Rhino Publications anthology INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS (for details on which see September 9).  Such is the writer’s life, in part.  “The Labyrinth,” a fantasy/mystery set in modern Crete but with intimations of ancient Greek myth, is hoped to be out in early 2015; “The Needle-Heat Gun” in the mid-to-latter part of next year.

Science Fiction Acceptance from Geminid Press

Yes, I do write science fiction sometimes — in fact I had started off with science fiction before I finally settled for mostly working in horror.  And while I don’t do very much SF now, every once in awhile the opportunity will come around. . . .

Besides, this story features a few standard horror tropes as well.

Thus the call went out from Geminid Press for an as yet untitled “Space Opera” anthology.  “Rock us with cool short stories that have laser beams, spaceships, heroes — both male and female — and far out faraway places.”  I had just happened to have written a space opera parody of sorts, called “The Needle-Heat Gun,” which could fit the bill.  Moreover they were offering five cents a word, until recently a professional rate by SFWA standards and, I believe, still so for HWA.  It would have been wrong for me to desist.

They wanted a “tagline” in the cover letter so I also sent them this.  “’The Needle-Heat Gun’ is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek 7000-word story about how interstellar space hero Sledge Baxter saves the day, fights off at least three kinds of alien monsters, rescues the girl who then falls in love with him, ending up rich and beloved by all except by his sidekick who did all the actual work — but who has come to hate him for a completely different reason.”  What reason, you ask?

The good news came today from Editor Phillip Garver:  “Thank you for sending us ‘The Needle-Heat Gun.’  We loved it and would like to publish it in our upcoming anthology.”  Currently they’re looking toward a mid-to-late 2015 release, so you can find out then.  And as for what the book’s final title will be, etc., more information will be posted here as it becomes revealed.

Lycan Lore Received with Two Woofie Poems; Rhysling Antho with One for the Vamps

The one two punch of books received!  Today’s mail brought a much anticipated copy of LYCAN LORE (see July 29), new publisher Source Point Press’s selection of werewolf poetry and short fiction.  My dogs in this pack are in the poetry section, “Running” concerning the joys of “going native” and “Cruella” about old habits dying hard.

Then yesterday afternoon the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2014 RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY had arrived, having taken some time in preparation, with my vampire poem, “The Specialist” (cf. April 12), originally published in the June 2013 DISTURBED DIGEST.  In this poem a vampire explains her true purpose in The Great Scheme of Things.

The RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY has its own special purpose as a presentation of nominees for the Rhysling Award that SFPA members can use in their voting.  However, the anthology is also offered to the general public, with more information available here.

To End the Weekend: November “First Sunday” with Chocolat

That’s “Chocolat,” and yes, it’s not a misspelling nor does it mean French candy was on the refreshment table.  Rather it’s a flash story by me, as yet unpublished, about what happens when commercial interests allow the adulteration of fine foods.  And, more to the point, it was my “Open Mic” offering at this month’s Bloomington Writers Guild’s First Sundays Prose Readings (cf. October 5, when I was one of the featured readers, September 7, et al.).

This month’s featured readers were Katie Moulton, a former INDIANA REVIEW editor-in-chief and contributor to such publications as New York’s VILLAGE VOICE, who offered essays; Lana Spendl who read part of a story set in Sarajevo after the Bosnian war that followed the split-up of Yugoslavia; and Alexandria Barkmeier, current INDIANA REVIEW fiction editor, who read from “sort of a neo-ghost story.”  Following these there was a break and, for me, the sampling of  a pumpkin pie which was on the refreshment table, along with some other goodies left over from Halloween.

And then there were the three-minute segments offered by audience members, five in all of which mine was next-to-last, a short tale of food because, I explained, Halloween being over the next major holiday will be Thanksgiving.  And after, some schmoozing with, as it happened, three of the other open mike readers including a bit of discussion of movies described in the last two entries below.

These things are fun and only one of a number of Writers Guild offerings each month — for more information on which one can check here.

Halloween Movie-Fest Ends with Strange Tears

The theme of this year’s Halloween weekend may be madness, at least cinematically. Saturday afternoon opened with a double feature, two movies made in 1935 (though from different studios) about brilliant surgeons driven to madness by unrequited love. The first was THE RAVEN (not to be confused with the 1963 Roger Corman flick) which starts off with Bela Lugosi reading some lines from the Edgar Allan Poe poem, because as it turns out he’s quite the Poe fan, even going so far as to have built torture machines from Poe’s stories in his basement. A surgeon, he saves a judge’s daughter’s life via a delicate nerve operation, falling in love with her in the process. However she’s taken, already engaged to a young man her father approves, and besides, given their age difference if nothing else, the whole thing seems creepy.

So just about then, who should show up but Boris Karloff as a murderer/torturer on the run seeking a quick plastic surgery job, which Lugosi provides by making him uglier. “If a man looks ugly, he does ugly things,” the doctor opines, and to be made looking normal again Karloff must help Lugosi put his basement hobby to use on the judge, the fiancé, and the daughter.

Things don’t quite work out as planned, of course, but even though Karloff gets top billing, the real fun is watching an unhinged Lugosi as a thunderstorm outside grows wilder and wilder.

This was followed by MAD LOVE, a remake of 1924’s silent THE HANDS OF ORLAC, about a pianist whose hands are mutilated in an accident and, once again by a brilliant surgeon, are replaced by the hands of an executed murderer. Naturally the hands begin to take on a life of their own, leading the poor pianist to come to doubt his own sanity. But in this version, the real story lies with the Parisian surgeon who did the transplant, wonderfully played by Peter Lorre (in his first American film), who had already become infatuated by the pianist’s about-to-retire-from-the-stage actress wife.

So the fact that the donor was a knife murderer may have been a coincidence of convenience (Lorre, somewhat like Lugosi, also has an unusual hobby, in his case liking to watch criminals being guillotined — but also now having obtained a waxwork statue of the actress-wife, talking to it in his apartment), but Lorre enlists it in his favor, helping the pianist fear for his sanity while Lorre visibly is losing his own. Of the two, this is the better film, aided immensely by Lorre’s portrayal of a man gone way around the bend, as well as by the parts of the wife (a bit overwrought herself, perhaps helped by the theater she worked in having been Le Grand Guignol where she played . . . wait for it . . . a torture victim), and, for comic relief , Lorre’s drunken housekeeper.

Finally Saturday night’s film was THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS for which I don’t really have too much to say. In a sense the movie itself is madness, a Belgian-French production of a homage to the Italian Giallo horror of the 1970s, but with modern techniques and, in some cases, attitudes. A man, “Dan,” comes home from a business trip and finds his wife is missing, but he seems not too mentally stabile himself. Like MALPERTUIS and THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM yesterday, the film seems fragmented into different “rooms,” in this case the differing experiences of various tenants in the man’s building, the police detective he calls, items he finds among his wife’s things, etc., as well as the discovery of hidden passages (corridors walled off when the building had been converted into apartments), eroticism, symbolism, stabbings, and plenty of blood. To quote from the IU Cinema brochure, “Dan’s search for answers leads him down a psychosexual rabbit hole. THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS is a bloody and taut thriller that invites the audience to revel in the sadomasochistic eroticism of [directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s] ultra-saturated color scheme.”

Of that last bit I will say the movie is beautifully filmed, reminding me in some ways of ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (cf. June 26) in terms of its visuals. Also I can say I liked the film but would probably have to see it again to begin to understand it (it should be coming out on DVD in December, whereas, for now, one thing I jotted down on my walk home — a first impression, if one will — is it struck me one key may have to do with the contrast of who one is on the outside, as seen by others and even to oneself, vs. on the inside).

That said however, and mindful of the doctors in the two previous films, I will now refer readers to a specialist, Simon Abrams on rogerebert.com, for which press here.

November 1 Begins Poem-A-Day Writer’s Digest Challenge; Malpertuis Start of Halloween Movie-Fest

Yes, it’s that time of the year again (or, actually two times, see, e.g., April 1 below) when WRITER’S DIGEST Poetry Editor Robert Brewer offers a poetry prompt per day for a month for poets who care to use them.  April is the other month, to celebrate National Poetry Month, so today we celebrate Just A Little Over A Half Year Past National Poetry Month in the same manner — by writing lots of poems.  For me, I usually add a horror or sometimes science fiction theme to the prompt du jour, but that’s up to the writer.  One poet I know uses it for an excuse to try out new (to her) obscure forms.

Also Editor Brewer’s site often offers additional challenges, such as to send in a number of poems for a chapbook challenge, although in my case I prefer to send the better results out to various markets, which if successful generally get reported here (cf. October 26, 3, September 29, et al.).  But whatever the results, at worst it’s good practice.

For more information as well as the day’s prompt, press their blog site here.  Also on months other than April and November, the same url will get you a weekly prompt every Wednesday*.

So Halloween night the weather broke.  Following an unusually temperate week for the end of October, Friday was damp and gusty, with a cold intermittent rain in the evening (possibly to turn to snow according to the Weather Channel) when I ventured out to the IU Cinema.  Last Sunday I had seen THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM, a Polish film about memory and time — “a visionary, artistic, poetic reflection on the nature of time and the irreversibility of death,” to quote from the Cinema’s brochure — while Halloween brought MALPERTUIS, combining, again from the brochure, “elements of fantasy, horror, and exploitation in a cinematic fever dream where nothing is what it seems . . . [v]eering between classicism, existentialism, and camp, the film is an often-overlooked work from [Harry] Kumel, master of the cinematic fantastique.”  This was the “director’s cut,” adding about twenty minutes of footage cut from the version originally shown at Cannes.  For horror fans, it might be added that this film followed the Flemish filmmaker’s DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, which had itself been successful enough to allow him to cast none other than Orson Welles in this one as the patriarchal, dying Uncle Cassavius, master of the labyrinthine mansion called Malpertuis and peopled by . . . well, that’s the fascination.  The sailor Jan who’s been kidnapped there and his sister Nancy; Lampernist with his fixation with light; Philaris, the artist at taxidermy; Alice/Alecto, the prettiest of three black-clad sisters; the enigmatic Euryale who Jan is in love with.  Or is any of what we see real?  Or some of it mythical?  Or all — or some — a dream as the ending quotation in the film might suggest, from Lewis Carroll:  “Life, what is it but a dream?”

But there’s another Carroll quotation too, from the opening credits behind which is a little girl’s voice reading from THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS:  “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas — only I don’t exactly know what they are!”  This can be said of both MALPERTUIS and THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM, both of which function as openings into a series of rooms, of visions.  Both of which are beautifully filmed and worth seeing for what they are — whatever that may be.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die;

 

Ever drifting down the stream —

Lingering in the golden gleam —

Life, what is it but a dream?

 

(*No relation to the resident cave cat, see post just below.)

For a Halloween Treat – A MUCH Nicer Picture of Musidora; Also Cave Cat Wednesday 10 Year Anniversary, Untreed Reads Halloween Sale Final Day

For those who recall the illustration with October 19th’s post, here is a much nicer portrait of early French film actress, director, producer, and “vamp,” Musidora. (1889 – 1957)

(Musidora is also to some extent the visual model for Aimée in “Casket Girls,” cf. April 17, 3, et al.)

Then two quick items:  Today is the tenth anniversary of Wednesday the cave cat’s coming to the computer cave, for more about which check out “Wednesday” under “PAGES” on the right or else press here.  And Untreed Reads Publishing reminds us that this is the final day of their Halloween sale, including special low prices on my I’M DREAMING OF A. . . . and the New Year’s anthology YEAR’S END with my lead-off story “Appointment in Time,” for more on which press here.

School Nights Out in Kindle in Gothic Blue Book IV, Author List Included

GOTHIC BLUE BOOK IV: THE FOLKLORE EDITION is out as of at least a couple of days, including my short-short “School Nights” (cf. September 16, 8) about a young girl who . . . learns. At least it’s out in a Kindle edition but, presumably, a print version should follow soon. And what’s this GOTHIC BLUE BOOK thing about? To quote Editors Cynthia (cina) and Gerardo Pelayo: “A collection of short stories and poems resurrect the spirit of the Gothic Blue Book. Gothic Blue Books were short fictions popular in the 18th and 19th century. They were descendants of the chap book trade. Burial Day Books presents its fourth Gothic Blue Book, The Folklore Edition.”

Below is a contents list for the volume while for additional information, including ordering (at least in Kindle) one may press here.

Authors:

Aisha Abram – Friend Of The Family

Jay Bonansinga- Bivouac

Bruce Boston – Collected Poems

Chad P. Brown – Bones Chimes

Tara Cleves – The Butterfly Gardener

M. Frank Darbe – Parcel Post

Lance Davis – Spooklight

Nicole DeGennaro – Making Friends

James Dorr – School Nights

Christina Glenn – Down By The River

Agustin Guerrero – Hunting The Devil

Emma Hinge – Seaside Bound

Kelly Hoolihan – Bus Stop

K. Trap Jones – Where It All Started

Kerry G. S. Lipp – Fairborn, Ohio Where Trains And Ghosts Still Run

Sean Logan – The Crawling Man

David Massengill – Looking Glass

Edward J. McFadden III – Lost Days

Meredith Morgenstern – Atheists In The Cemetery

g. Elmer Munson – Family Business

Lawrence Salani – The Cursed

Cathy Smith – Gifts From A Grim Godfather

Blood Type Included in Nightscape Press Half-Off Halloween Horror Sale

A quick note to announce that Robert Shane Wilson of Nightscape Press has proclaimed a half-off sale for all titles, ebook or print, from now through Halloween.  Of particular interest (at least to me), this includes BLOOD TYPE:  AN ANTHOLOGY OF VAMPIRE SF ON THE CUTTING EDGE (see September 17, August 13, et al.) in which my story is that of “Eudora,” characterized by one reviewer as “the kind of girl your mother warned you about.”  Remember back.  You know who she was . . . and maybe you’ve wondered what might have happened should you have met her and dated her anyway?

Now you can find out for only $8.49 ($2.49 for the ebook), along with noting some other great pre-Halloween offers, by pressing here.