James Dorr's Blog, page 187

Winning Lead Story in Hard Luck Noir Anthology

This was a strange one in its way, a sort of acceptance but talking instead about possible editing, more emails, etc., with no single moment I can point to when it passed the border from almost-accepted to having-been-accepted-and-on-its-way-to-publication.  But never mind.  My story, “The Winning,” arrived in my e-mailbox earlier Tuesday in a PDF attachment of HARD LUCK, an anthology of  “dark fiction/horror/psychological horror” from Burnt Offerings Books.  Thus it had advanced to almost-published and, late this evening, has just crossed that border in paperback form from Createspace.  Kindle edition is expected soon.  The guidelines, briefly quoted above, spoke more of mood than genre or plot points, but the mood I drew from it was “noir,” and the story I sent, originally published in the Spring 1994 issue of OVER MY DEAD BODY, seemed just the right fit to me.  So in it went!  And, as to how well my assessment was justified, you can find out by pressing here.

 

Cthulhu Haiku II Slithers Into Mailbox

Does Cthulhu slither? Whatever it does, CTHULHU HAIKU II AND MORE MYTHOS MADNESS, to give it its full name, officially published by Popcorn Press in January (cf. January 7, October 25) but with various delays bedeviling its actual appearance in the, um, flesh, was seen today in my very own mailbox.  Sitting now on the table, preparatory to more dipping into, ultimately to find its home on a shelf of books in the shade of such titles as BIZARRO BIZARRO, UNTIL THE END, WE WALK INVISIBLE, MISERIA’S CHORALE, and DAILY SCIENCE FICTION, is that a faint pulsing one sees in its pages?  An unhealthy sheen to its garish cover?  But never mind — at last it has appeared. And details on how it can be yours too can be discovered by pressing here.

My slime in this sea-spume consists of five poems, titled (in order of their appearance) “Slow-Motion,” “The Vampiress Dreams of an Evening in Innsmouth,” “Bad Vacation,” “With the Economy What It Is, Maybe We’ll Take Any Job We Can Get,” and “It Must Have Been That New Fish Food.”  The first and last of these are reprints, having had the poor taste to originally appear in CTHULHU A LOVE STORY (PROSPECTIVE: A JOURNAL OF SPECULATION, October 2012), while the remaining three are original to CTHULHU HAIKU II.

Musical Saturday; Prosaic Sunday?

Another weekend in the can, this one a fun and somewhat unusual one.  In my non-writing mode, one thing I do is lead and play tenor in a recorder consort that performs Renaissance dance music at local (and occasional non-local) Society for Creative Anachronism events.  Our definition of recorder has become expansive, including at present a “harp recorder” and a “fiddle recorder” along with the usual recorder recorders, but one works with what one has, yes?  So Saturday saw the coronation of a new king of the “Middle Kingdom” with the event, at a county fairground one county north of us, hosted by the local SCA group.  And this event would include a ball to follow the evening feast.

A fun part was this:  I arranged for musicians to practice that afternoon with any other Middle Kingdom musicians present, thus including meeting new people, trying to balance in a new expanded instrument mix (including another harp, another violin — this one playing melodies while our “regular” fiddler joined me playing lower rhythmic lines — and even a cello!), and, while I had us play from a list of music from the dance mistress who would be presiding over the ball, we generally had fun jamming together.

Following that, the dance mistress and I worked out the order of dances we would play, arranging them into two sets, the second one possibly not to be played all the way through depending on time and how many dancers there would be left.  And then came what could have been disaster, an announcement just before the feast that it would be delayed up to an hour and a half due to a power loss in the kitchen earlier that afternoon.  So since (a) time had to be filled, and (b) if the feast now ended that much later there’d be no time for dancing after, the dance mistress happily got permission from event stewards to clear a portion of the feast hall floor and hold the dance early while people were waiting, while rounding up the musicians who were present (some, not planning to attend the feast, unfortunately were off-site getting their dinners elsewhere, thus making for another new mix).  Helped by some offbeat decisions we’d made regarding the dance order (notably starting off the first set with a korobushka, a noisy, rowdy Russian dance which attracted some of the men who might otherwise not have joined in, pushing the normal more staid processional back to the second set opening) we got people dancing, getting through the entire first set and filling in what otherwise would have been a disastrously long time of inactivity.

So who says chamber dance musicians aren’t heroes too?

Then Sunday being the first one in May, the afternoon was spent at the Bloomington Writers Guild’s First Sunday prose reading (cf. April 6, et al.).  The featured readers were Patsy Rahn, poet, prose writer, and previous chair of the Writers Guild, who read two short pieces followed by a triptych of flash stories; and Wendy Teller, whose specialties include historical fiction, nonfiction, and humor, who read a humorous piece about hobbies getting out of hand.  This was the last monthly reading before a two-month summer hiatus, and on a lovely sunny day, which may have contributed to a slightly smaller audience than normal, however, with relatively few readers for the open mike session afterward.

My contribution there was a very short horror vignette about ants in the summer called “City Cousins” which, inspired by one of the featured pieces, I followed with the Halloween haiku “Paranormal Botany,” scheduled to come out in STAR*LINE this fall (see April 15).

Addition to WHC Poetry Panel — C’est Moi; Spring Star*Line Received

Good news!  The (almost — there may still be small adjustments to be made for occasional scheduling glitches) final 2014 World Horror Convention schedule has been unveiled.  So naturally I scrolled down to the poetry panel and it wasn’t there.  Say what?  But a bit more scrolling revealed that it had simply been moved back a few hours, to 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, and I’m now listed on it.  I’m still on the early-bat vampire panel (official title: “How to Suck the Best: Writing Vampire Fiction”) on Sunday, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., too, as well as the Mass Autograph Signing on Friday evening from 6 to 9 p.m. though, recalling that last year they divided the session into two shifts, it may be I’ll actually be there at a table for only a portion of the time.

And one thing more.  Recalling that my short story collection, THE TEARS OF ISIS (obligatory plug), is up for a possible Stoker® so I’m committed to be at the Saturday evening Award Ceremony anyway (with banquet, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.; award-giving only from 7:30 on), I have also been named an official presenter with Mike Arnzen (who’s also on the poetry panel.  Coincidence?  I doubt it) for the best Poetry Collection award.

Then in other news, the Spring STAR*LINE arrived in today’s mail (cf. April 15, et al.).  My polecat at this poetry picnic is a shortie on page 6, “You Can Never Go Back,” really perhaps more an aphorism addressing a real problem some may have when they try to return home.

Matisse Presentations Trump Last Sunday Poets

Conflicts occasionally happen.  This would normally be my day for the Bloomington Writers Guild’s Last Sundays poetry (cf. March 30, et al.) but, as luck would have it, the Indiana University Art Museum was holding a “Matisse in Focus” lecture in conjunction with their “Matisse’s Jazz and Other Works from IU Collections,” followed by an IU Cinema presentation of A GREAT FRENCH PAINTER:  HENRI MATISSE (1946, directed by François Campaux) and A MODEL FOR MATISSE (2003, dir. Barbara Freed).  For various reasons I chose the art, mainly because of an emphasis not so much on the finished art but of the creative process.  This is something I wonder about myself in terms of creating fiction and poetry and I find that looking at it from the perspective of other disciplines can sometimes give me insights I wouldn’t find elsewhere.  An example of sorts is the title story of THE TEARS OF ISIS, written almost two decades ago, in which I followed a fictional sculptress’s quest for inspiration for her next work, in the process of which I hoped to work through some questions I had been having myself at the time concerning the nature of  inspiration.

The lecture and the films were quite interesting, especially A MODEL FOR MATISSE about Matisse’s final masterpiece, the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France, as well as his relation with Dominican Sister Jacques-Marie who both inspired and assisted him on the project.  (A note of interest on the other film though:  It has rarely been seen in the U.S., in part because it’s in French and has never been dubbed or subtitled — except for this version which local associate French Studies professor Brett Bowles provided a special translation for.  One of the advantages of being in a university town!)  Much of what I get out of these may not come for days or weeks, but I think my choice — in spite of foregoing the poetry for this month — was the right one to make.

I had intended to walk back to the museum after the films, but a storm was threatening when I got out so I went directly home instead, but reveling in the muted light of haze and clouds over sun and, once there (and it looking more like the storm wouldn’t hit, a least for the moment), a “new” look at the periwinkle just up in the front yard and, behind the house, an almost-blooming redbud and other trees, including cherry trees only now growing new leaves.  So for now I’ll plan to get back to the museum sometime in the next few days (Wednesdays are usually not too busy — not a reference to the resident cave cat) and, for the spoken word, there’s the First Sundays prose reading coming up next week.

Early Rising Vampires’ Panel at WHC Sunday

And you thought vampires weren’t morning people!  According to the preliminary schedule for World Horror Convention, in Portland Oregon on May 8 through 11, the hemophages will be up on Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., and I will be with them on a panel with Nancy Kilpatrick, Lisa Manetti, and possible others.  This is very preliminary, of course — in fact one listed “possible other” apparently will have already had to leave Saturday night — but it’s a start.  Also, while that’s the only panel I’m listed on for the moment, I have put in a specific request to join Linda Addison, Rain Graves, Mike Arnzen, and Dan Clore on “Verse and Violence” (that is, the horror poetry panel) on Friday afternoon.

So that will leave Saturday to be a fan, browsing other people’s panels, checking the dealers’ and art rooms, maybe sightseeing. . . .  Until, that is, Saturday night when, at the Stoker® Banquet, I will await word on ISIS’s fate in the Fiction Collection award category.  “Isis anticipates, I sweat bullets.”  But so it goes, eh?

Then for one other scheduling item, I will also be part of the Mass Autograph Signing Friday evening.  However I will be traveling light, which means I’ll only be able to bring a couple of copies of THE TEARS OF ISIS to show, and I understand the publisher, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, won’t be able to have a table there to sell them either.  So if you don’t have a copy, or want one, please consider ordering it now and bringing it with you — because I’ll be delighted to sign it!  (Also check out the dealers room anyway since there may be anthologies or other books there with stuff by me in it.)

And, given my Sunday panel, I may bring a few copies myself to sell of VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE), my poetry book about . . . vampires.

Untreed Reads Titles Half Off for OmniLit, All Romance Earth Day eBook Extravaganza

This is good only for orders today as I understand it.  Nor do I think my titles are even sold by AllRomanceEbooks (but they are by OmniLit — I checked), but here’s the skinny as emailed to me by Untreed Reads Publishing late last night:  “Beginning at midnight CST, OmniLit.com and AllRomanceEbooks.com will be offering a 50% rebate to anyone who purchases titles through them on April 22nd.  This will be handled as a credit to the customer’s account to be used on a future purchase.”  My Untreed Reads titles are VANITAS (a steampunk/mystery originally published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE), I’M DREAMING OF A. . . (a short sf/horror tale for Christmas), PEDS (a near-future novelette), and the leadoff story in YEAR’S END: FOURTEEN TALES OF HOLIDAY HORROR (New Year’s Eve gone bad), and both sites offer books in PDF, Kindle, and EPUB formats.  If interested, OmniLit can be reached by pressing here, and AllRomance here — but best hurry because the sale ends at midnight tonight (also Central Time).

Untreed Reads Titles Half Off for OmniLit, AllRomance Earth Day eBook Extravaganza

This is good only for orders today as I understand it.  Nor do I think my titles are even sold by AllRomanceEbooks (but they are by OmniLit — I checked), but here’s the skinny as emailed to me by Untreed Reads Publishing late last night:  “Beginning at midnight CST, OmniLit.com and AllRomanceEbooks.com will be offering a 50% rebate to anyone who purchases titles through them on April 22nd.  This will be handled as a credit to the customer’s account to be used on a future purchase.”  My Untreed Reads titles are VANITAS (a steampunk/mystery originally published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE), I’M DREAMING OF A. . . (a short sf/horror tale for Christmas), PEDS (a near-future novelette), and the leadoff story in YEAR’S END: FOURTEEN TALES OF HOLIDAY HORROR (New Year’s Eve gone bad), and both sites offer books in PDF, Kindle, and EPUB formats.  If interested, OmniLit can be reached by pressing here, and AllRomance here — but best hurry because the sale ends at midnight tonight (also Central Time).

PDF Proof for Fantastic Stories; A Belated Happy Bat Appreciation Day!

A proof copy arrived today of FANTASTIC STORIES PRESENTS: SCIENCE FICTION SUPER PACK #1 (cf. April 9, March 31), and what a super pack it is!  More than 700 pages with some shockingly big name authors represented, among whom I am humbled to appear as well.  This is a reprint-only anthology (my entry, “No Place to Hide,” was originally published in the long-defunct professional journal SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW) and will, according to another announcement, be followed by at least one FANTASY SUPER PACK as well, for which there are still a few slots open.  Perhaps I’ll submit to that one too — but as for now, more information will be forthcoming as soon as I have it.

On other matters:  My apologies that I missed this one, National Bat Appreciation Day on April 17.  Or, to quote the site, “[t]his is the best time of the year to celebrate bats as they are now beginning to emerge from hibernation and National Bat Appreciation Day is also a good time to learn about bats roles in nature.”  So, better four days late than never, eh?  For more, press here — and don’t miss, especially, the list of Fun Bat Facts the site includes!  And if that weren’t enough, for celebration hints for use any time of year, be sure to check here.

Kudos go to Suford Lewis for bringing Bat Appreciation Day to my attention. And don’t forget (again from the site), “the ‘insectivorous’ bats rid our world of many bothersome insects.  In one hour, they can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes.”

Nightmare Stalkers & Dream Walkers Available Also on Google Play

Following the availability of its Kindle edition (see April 11), Horrified Press has announced today that its NIGHTMARE STALKERS & DREAM WALKERS anthology can also be purchased via Google Play for $3.00 — and, at least as of my check this afternoon, possibly at a markdown from that.  I would assume that the discount is temporary, but to check it out for yourself, press here.  My story in this one is the somewhat surrealistic “Flesh,” about a person whose dreams instruct him to get fat, and was originally published in the Spring 1999 issue of MAELSTROM SPECULATIVE FICTION.