James Dorr's Blog, page 24

3rd Sunday Write on 4th Sunday for February

It was that time again, or technically exactly one week later, for the Bloomington Writers Guild’s Facebook featured “Third Sunday Write” (see January 25, December 19, et al.). So today, one day more, comes my response to the second of four prompts offered, but one a bit unusual too as it’s really a melding of “inspiration” with part of a story already written.

But one that came to mind for a reason, as will be explained at the very end.

A favorite meal — all the details.

(This is cheating, actually, in that the following passage is already written. It’s from a currently unpublished story called “Good Taste,” about a ghoul — a creature that feeds on corpses — who’s been struck by lightning and, his brain thus scrambled, has gained the sensibilities of a gourmet. His name is Jethro.)

(from “Good Taste”) . . . never before had he differentiated between smells of rot as he did now. His ghoul nostrils quivering. Focusing, that is, on separate stenches.

This one an Italian, before he became deceased. See — smell the garlic tang, subtle yet present. While this one, so high-spiced, must have been Hispanic.

This one perhaps English, a bland, boiled aroma. This one a lady, the perfume still on her, mingling its sweetness with that of decay. This one a. . . .

Jethro was thrilled! His appetite grown huge to match his new senses, he did not know where to start. Finding a grave-rag to use as a bib, he bit first into French meat — he knew it by residues left of red Bordeaux it must have had with its meals. That is, when it still lived.

A heady flavor.

Then this one, dead longer, was blended as if a stew, juices and rotted flesh salmagundi-ized, served cold as if a sort of meat salad.

An appetizer.

Then this, whiskey-pickled, perhaps a transient —

He reveled. He gorged. Never before had he had such a banquet, that is not in quantity — cemeteries, in these latter days, often were flooded out. Ghouls lived for such moments. But in variety — Jethro had never known meals served in courses, as rich humans ate them. Some of their corpses, too, made Jethro’s banquet. Nor had he before cared, his taste and smell so focused on different flavors. On shadings of texture, the crunch of the new dead compared with the creamier, almost custard-like smoothness that came with more protracted aging. . .

(This came to mind now because, just Saturday, I received word that “Good Taste” has been short listed — a finalist as it were — for publication in an anthology tentatively called GHOULISH TALES. Will it make it? Who knows? But if so, perhaps not for a month or so though, it will be announced here.)

Monstorm Table of Contents Now Revealed

A quick note for a Friday. MONSTORM, as noted below (cf. February 12, et al.), is still on track for publication next Tuesday, February 28. And I now have a PDF, including a copy of the table of contents.

Thus:

I’m still in number 4 position of stories proper (after, that is, the Foreword and Introduction) with “I’m Dreaming of a . . .,” originally published in 2011 as a chapbook by Untreed Reads, on Page 37. While for more information on MONSTORM, including instructions for early ordering, from (as it were) the horse’s mouth, one can press here. Or if into Amazon, here.

Monstorm Anthology Set to Publish Feb. 28

Things progress, if sometimes slowly. Saturday afternoon brought this word from Editor Josh Strand: I just wanted to shoot out a quick update to let you know we have an official announcement about when MONSTORM is coming out! According to John, the big cheese at Madness Heart Press, we can expect it to release on February 28. Thanks so much for your patience in this process. We are very excited about getting this book out into the real world.

The story in question is a Christmas tale, “I’m Dreaming Of A. . . .” (see January 8, December 21, et al.), originally published as a stand-alone chapbook in 2011 by Untreed Reads. But the time is not that important. What is, is that the anthology’s earnings are earmarked for charity, to go, as I understand, to the All Faiths Food Bank in Sarasota FL. Or, as a truncated part of the blurb explains: This book contains 20 stories by seasoned genre veterans as well as fresh voices and represents the horror community’s response to hurricane Ian. There are stories about storms, the devastation they can cause, and what they reveal about the people who live through them, stories of tearing wind, driving rain, blizzards, hurricanes.

Or in the case of “I’m Dreaming Of A. . . ,” perhaps not a blizzard as such, but a very unusual snowfall just before Christmas. Which, notwithstanding the popular Bing Crosby song its title cites, is perhaps not so much a good thing this time.

To see for yourself, more information on MONSTORM — including instructions for early ordering — can be found here.

Fairy Tales Part of First Sunday Prose Fun

For February the Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose was on the first Sunday (cf. January 8; December 4 2022, et al.), at Morgenstern Books, with past IU Alumni Association and Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies publications/PR worker and author of mystery novel BLOOD TERMINAL, with a second in the editing stages, Carol Edge as first featured reader, with two memoirs of childhood/teen life in Birmingham Alabama in pre-integration days, one, “Whistling Dixie,” on events around her — including the assassination of President Kennedy — and the other, “Daddy’s Knife,” on more intimate relations with family and, especially, her father. She was followed by Literary Representative for the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington and Writers Guild coordinator for Last Sunday Poetry, as well as author and poet of numerous works including JOYCE & JUNG: THE “FOUR STAGES OF EROTICISM” IN A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN and poetry volumes ICARUS BURNING and ICARUS REDUX, among others, Hiromi Yoshida, reading a series of prose poems (including two, of two parts each, on the fairy tales “Bluebeard” and “The Goose Girl,” of which more in a moment), followed by a personal narrative originally published in THE BLOOMINGTONIAN in 2021.

Then came the break and, after, a group of five “Open Mic” readers with me at number four, followed by moderator Joan Hawkins ending the session. A bit nonplussed as we would be using a hand-held microphone this time instead of our usual one on a stand, but happening to have as well as my book, THE TEARS OF ISIS, that had the story I’d planned to read, a more juggle-able text in manuscript form of a different story, but also of an appropriate length, I made a last-moment substitution. And by sheer coincidence, given Hiromi’s fairytale-based poems, the story I now read was a jaundiced account of a hopeful, but vain young lady named Cinderella, titled “The Mouse Game,” in the voice of one of the mice temporarily transformed into horses to draw her heavy pumpkin-become-coach to the prince’s ball and her subsequent triumph.

But you may be sure, by the end, that the mice will have their own agenda.

Live First Wednesday Spoken Word Returns

Co-sponsored by the Indiana Arts Commission, Bloomington Arts Commission, Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association, and downtown host-venue Back Space Gallery, the Bloomington Writers Guild’s First Wednesday Spoken Word Series (cf. October 5 2022; March 4 2020, et al.) has returned in its pre-Covid, non-zoom live format. Two readers were featured, interspersed with interpretive music by ORTET with additional guest trumpet David Miller, along with an also live open-mic session.

Cleveland poet and 2022-23 U.S. Beat Poet Laureate, and author of RATTLE & NUMB: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS, 1992-2019, John Burroughs was lead reader with a number of short poems on varied subjects, including such things as bubbles and childhood, dogs, the “City of Lost Places,” and trying to get out of ruts, all dramatically read and often amusing; followed by the Writers Guild’s own Joan Hawkins, accompanied by ORTET, with “Bill and Joan In the Bardo,” an imagined conversation with experimental author William S. Burroughs and the wife he had shot, after both of their deaths.

Then after the break there were four walk-on readers of which I was third, with “The Flavor of the Jest,” the first tale in my five-part “Casket Suite,” originally published as a finalist (and ultimate winner, see February 2, January 17 2022, et al.) of DEFENESTRATIONISM.NET’s 2022 Flash Suite Competition. Based on a vampiric New Orleanian urban legend, it also included an implicit warning that the remainder of the “suite” will be doled out over the next four or so First Wednesday sessions.

Vampiricon, Casket Girls Premiere Now Available in Print Version Only

The premiere, that is the reprint of the original “casket girls”story — not too unexpectedly titled “Casket Girls” — in its latest manifestation, has now been released. The book: THE VAMPIRICON (see January 23, et al.), from Mind’s Eye Publications.

Or to quote today’s email: THE VAMPIRICON is published! [followed by a link to a special contributors-only PDF copy, whereas, for others] . . . This book will be available in print ONLY via the Lulu dot com service. I have priced it at $15.00. . . . Unless a forthcoming (to be announced) KICKSTARTER is successful — hoping to increase pay rates for successful contributor’s work and broader publication options — this will remain the standard for publications henceforth. Whereas, as for the Casket Girls themselves (to quote myself from December 5): ­These are the ladies sent [to New Orleans] from France in 1728, by orders of King Louis XV, to marry the colony’s most influential — and richest — men, to induce them to settle down and raise families. But who had brought with them the one named Aimée who had special dietary preferences, which the rest of them now shared too. And so they continue to this day, their original story, “Casket Girls,” first published on April 10 2014 in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.

Thus “Casket Girls” is now in print in THE VAMPIRICON, for those who might not have seen it before. Editor/Publisher Frank Coffman does add that an electronic edition may become available at some future time, also through Lulu — while the hard copy version can be obtained now by pressing here.

Nightmare Abbey/Great Man Reprint First Sale for 2023

Two days before the end of January, late Sunday, the 29th, the logjam burst! The first acceptance of the New year, for reprint rights to a story first published in THE STRAND MAGAZINE, Spring-Summer 1999. The market: NIGHTMARE ABBEY (see December 2, et al.).

It started, actually, two days before with a Friday email from Editor/Publisher Tom English: Hope all’s well with you. And I’m also hoping you’ll send me something for the 3rd volume. New or reprint. (Your reprint in #2 was fabulous.) I bumped up the reprint payment rate, too, by the way. This was followed by a re-iteration of the guidelines: ghost stories, weird tales, dark fantasy (surprise or twist endings are always good), gothic, light horror . . . creepy tales that rely on atmosphere, suspense, and/or building a sense of dread; with minimal or no violence and gore . . . which, as I read through them, brought a particular story to mind. A reprint as already noted, “about a tale heard by a possibly somewhat pacifistic Englishman in France” (quoting my subsequent cover letter), which I sent back yesterday morning, Sunday.

The story’s title is “The Great Man,” and it takes place sometime after the French Revolution. Thus the reply came Sunday night:

Thanks for sending this old-fashioned macabre tale! I’d like to include “The Great Man” in NIGHTMARE ABBEY 3 (due for publication in June). . . . Let me know if agreeable and I’ll send a contract.

King Visits 1st Morgenstern’s Last Sunday Poetry

I don’t always — or even necessarily usually, being primarily a prose writer — get to the Writers Guild’s Last Sunday Poetry (cf. October 30, September 25 2022, et al.). But today was an exception, being its first in a new venue, Morgenstern Books, and at a new afternoon 3 p.m. time. Moderated by relatively new Hiromi Yoshida, it featured two younger poets, Bloomington artist and writer Misty Joy, a sometime comedy club performer and organizer for local monthly Hyatt Art Walk; and Bloomington/Louisville KY reading/open mic series host and local poet, Ian Uriel Girdley, with current books COLLECTING THE GIRL and THIS POEM DRANK THE WINE, and a third in the works.

Then after a fifteen-minute break, six walk-on readers took three-to-five minute turns before an audience of perhaps fifteen to twenty people, followed by Hiromi to make it seven. I came in at number two, reading three poems as a kind of homage to actress Fay Wray and the 1933 film KING KONG, “Godzilla vs. King Kong” (“the fight of all fights”), “On the Other Hand” (“King Kong would have made a lousy husband”), and “Monkey See.”

Hide the Children and Pets: LOLcraft Is Here!

In the mailbox. Yes. In a plain brown slightly-crinkled wrapper, wedged between a poetry book and an advertisement for TV GUIDE, LOLCRAFT (see December 29, et al.) lay, lurking, late Thursday afternoon. Rescued, lifted out, opened that evening, a hefty 392 pages of Eldritch Humor (not “Eldritch Horror” as an earlier, erroneous cover picture has it [e.g., right below], although of course it is horror too!), Dragon Roost Press’s promised anthology at last had come!

My story in this, number six in a lineup of three dozen, is titled “The Reading,” one of six reprints originally published in UNIVERSE HORRIBLIS by Third Flatiron Publishing in 2013. While, edited by Michael Cieslak, the volume, in toto, attempts the question (as per the back cover):

Horror and Humor.

Mythos and Mirth.

Lovecraft and Laughter.

Each creates tension, then releases it with explosive results.

Still, Cthulhu and Comedy? Is that even possible?

For information, or ordering, press here.

New 3rd Sunday for “Cats”; Casket Girls Proof 2

So it’s a little late, but when not? This month I was intrigued by the fourth prompt for January’s Bloomington Writers Guild Third Sunday Write (cf. December 19, et al.), to “for the New year” respond to a poem, “Have Knowledge,” by Paisley Rekdal (on immigration questions and the Lunar New Year). From the poem, I chose this line:

How many water buffalo/ does your uncle own?

My uncle never owned any, to my knowledge. He may have seen them aplenty, however, when he flew a PBY* in World War II, in the Pacific Theater. Maybe even bombed one. I think he owned cats later, in California, or maybe those were his wife’s. And I think it was from him I got a Chinese-English dictionary — for just a few useful phrases, however, that came with the life raft if you had to ditch, along with to-the-point information no matter what island one might end up on: “Don’t mess with the native women.” (I was too young then to know exactly what that one meant. It was not about counting water buffalo.)

For me, however, I’m now the family “eccentric uncle.” My nieces know I have cats — serially, that is, just one at a time. As for water buffalo, though, I have no idea what they would guess.

Then on another subject, another short note Wednesday brought a followup to Sunday/Monday’s VAMPIRICON proof (see January 23): Here is the link to the PDF download of proofing copy #2 (and the last that will be sent). As before, search by your name or the title for your work — I’m still working on the TOC.

The book will publish on January 31st.

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*re. the “Cats” in the headline, the Consolidated PBY flying boat used by the Navy was also called the “Catalina.”