James Dorr's Blog, page 65

The Reading: Lovecraftian Cheese Burger Acceptance First for New Decade

Genre and theme:  Horror and dark fiction involving greasy Lovecraftian influenced stories.  Think unconventional stories with Cthulhu such as Cthulhu pokemon, Cthulhu trying to get a date, stories like that.

Deadline:  OPEN  Close Jan 15th 2020

It seems Deadman’s Tome is at it again (cf. MONSTER PARTY, December 27, et al.).  The anthology to be called DEEP FRIED HORROR:  CTHULHU CHEESE BURGER.  And note, [image error]fellow writers, that “Mr. Deadman” is still reading for it.  But I, I bit early, sending a short piece about a poet and a reading gone wrong — horribly wrong! — on December 28.  This a reprint, to keep myself honest (and, well, the pay isn’t all that huge either, but, hey, this one’s fun!), originally published in UNIVERSE HORRIBILIS by Third Flatiron Publishing in 2013.  So, anyhow, came the answer today, short and sweet, the first story acceptance of 2020:  You got the theme down!  Off-beat Lovecraftian stories.  I’ll send a contract soon.

And there you have it.

Lovecraftian Cheese Burger Acceptance First for New Decade

Genre and theme:  Horror and dark fiction involving greasy Lovecraftian influenced stories.  Think unconventional stories with Cthulhu such as Cthulhu pokemon, Cthulhu trying to get a date, stories like that.

Deadline:  OPEN  Close Jan 15th 2020

It seems Deadman’s Tome is at it again (cf. MONSTER PARTY, December 27, et al.).  The anthology to be called DEEP FRIED HORROR:  CTHULHU CHEESE BURGER.  And note, [image error]fellow writers, that “Mr. Deadman” is still reading for it.  But I, I bit early, sending a short piece about a poet and a reading gone wrong — horribly wrong! — on December 28.  This a reprint, to keep myself honest (and, well, the pay isn’t all that huge either, but, hey, this one’s fun!), originally published in UNIVERSE HORRIBILIS by Third Flatiron Publishing in 2013.  So, anyhow, came the answer today, short and sweet, the first story acceptance of 2020:  You got the theme down!  Off-beat Lovecraftian stories.  I’ll send a contract soon.

And there you have it.

HOZ First Issue Makes New Year’s Day Debut

We are very excited to announce that we rang in this new decade with the launch of our very first release — The HOUSE OF ZOLO’S JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE LITERATURE, VOLUME 1.  We’ve been working for many months with twenty-eight talented writers and poets and are so proud to share this incredible volume of short stories and poetry with the world.

So I’m a day late, but The House of Zolo has made good its promise to publish the premiere issue of the HOZ JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE LITERATURE (see November 21, October 7, et al.) on the first [image error]day of 2020.  My story in this one is a reprint, “Golden Age,” going all the way back to MINDSPARKS for Spring 1994 (more recently republished in Smart Rhino Publications’s ZIPPERED FLESH 3, cf. February 3 2017, et al.).  But for the volume as a whole, let us let the publishers themselves tell us.

In this exciting new collection, writers and poets from around the world conjure fractured dimensions, cast dark nightmares, and offer alternatives to the apocalypse as they navigate to the very edges of time and back.  Delving into themes of post-humanity, future-shock, and the consequences of climate change, these short stories and poems fearlessly explore what it means to be human.  Alternately dark and hopeful, heartbreaking and humorous, this volume contains stories and poems to spark the imagination and inspire new perspectives on the future.

Curated and edited by Nihls Andersen and Erika Steeves with guest poetry editor, Jon Parsons, HOZ’s Journal of Speculative Literature is an international collection of short stories and poems by some of today’s most compelling writers:  Jessica Barksdale, Joe Baumann, L. X. Beckett, Melanie Bell, Jenny Blackford, Robert Borski, Shenoa Carroll-Bradd, M. S. Chari, Deborah L. Davitt, Joe DiCicco, Steve Dillon, James Dorr, Kevin Freeman, Amelia Gorman, Vince Gotera, Russell Hemmel, Richard Leis, E. H. Lupton, JBMulligan, Jennifer Loring, Sally McBride, Stephen McQuiggan, Laurel Radzieski, Samannaz Rohanimanesh, George Salis, Lucy Stone, Ojo Taiye, Cohl Warren-Howles.

To see for yourself, in Kindle press here (with a print edition due as well January 7), or for EPUB the House of Zolo’s own site here.

Space Opera Libretti Released on Amazon New Year’s Eve

To end 2019 with a song, word came Tuesday afternoon that SPACE OPERA LIBRETTI:  MODERN COMEDIC SPACE OPERA WITH ARIAS (cf. November 12, et al.) is out in paperback, with a Kindle edition set for Saturday, January 4.  The problem with space opera is that there’s not enough opera in it, and certainly a dearth of coloratura diva sopranos in [image error]the third act.  This anthology sets out to fix that by placing the music front-and-center.  We’ve created a glittery disco-ball of fun.  20 stories designed to amuse.  Some actually take place in space.  There’s even an actual opera in here.  We didn’t hold back.  Time-traveling cats that quote opera. . .  Intergalactic singing competitions. . .  An endless song that becomes the soundtrack to countless generations of rebellions. . .  And, of course, invisible space bears made of black holes that may or may not be extinct.  My dump in the drama pops up in third place in the story contents, a swashbuckling symphony of stubbornness and song, “The Needle Heat Gun” which, accompanied by nineteen additional tune-tales, can become yours by pressing here.

TRIANA SAYS: HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR

[image error]

 

(But try not to overdo it)

Forbidden Paperback Version Now Up on Amazon

A quick note.  Hark us back to December 18 and the re-emergence, in Kindle form, of FORBIDDEN:  TALES OF REPRESSION, RESTRICTION, AND REBELLION from the mire of delayed p[image error]ublication.  My stories in this one (yes, plural — two):  “The Wind,” on one man’s loss of religious faith, and “Fetuscam,” of an anti-abortion effort gone bad.  Well, no one said that these were to be in the best of taste.

Anyhow, to the chase, FORBIDDEN, the paperback edition, is now available on Amazon, dated (as is the Kindle) December 18 and announced as “[a]vailable to ship in 1-2 days.”  For more, press here.

The Writing Life: Scary Halloween Royalty Received

Well small, if not scary.  The story in question was called “Silent Scream” and the book, SCARY SNIPPETS:  HALLOWEEN EDITION (cf. November 11, October 30, et al.).  This is a book of “micro fiction,” Halloween-appropriate tales of only 500 words or less, with at least a hundred between the covers.  So right off you know any royalty received will not be large, that is if it’s to be shared among 100 authors, with more shares for editors [image error]probably as well — so it’s rather like the “dancing bear” maxim, that what’s important is not whether the bear dances well, but rather that it dances at all.

And so, today, Saturday, Suicide House Publishing posted on PayPal . . . well, a sum more than half way to a dollar.  This was after a check on Friday to make sure my PayPal address was right, and less than two months since the book was published which, in the world of royalty payments, is FAST.  If interested in the book itself, one can press here, perhaps to buy one and make the next full quarter’s take larger.

Surprise! Elusive Monster Party Has Been Published All Along

Are you ready for a party you’ll never forget?  So starts the blurb.  When people think MONSTER PARTY, they tend to visualize a party with the big names like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf-Man just hanging around drinking, laughing, and scaring.  While that does sound like a good time, the lesser known names are often shoved off to the side as if they’re a bunch of basic bitches.  But why is that?  And so the idea was to present something different:  We at Deadman’s Tome thought that the big names have partied long enough, it’s time for the lesser known monsters like the Yeti, Mothsquio, and Leorilla to have some fun, and you’re invited.  And that was that.

But hark us back now to the misty time of October 14 and “Another Internet Mystery Unveiled:  MONSTER PARTY ‘Late’ Contract Received from Deadman’s Tome,” to quote my post back then.  This had to do with a contract re-sent, [image error]the original having never arrived, for a story for that book, “The Stalker.”  It seems it had been accepted, though that news had not gotten to me either.  But not to worry, “new” contract downloaded, perused, and signed, all that was left was to await the book’s publication.

So these things take time, yes?  And life went on.  A funny story about “The Stalker” too, while we wait, it’s a not-quite reprint, a “clothed” version having appeared before in THE GREAT TOME OF CRYPTIDS AND LEGENDARY CREATURES by Bards and Sages Publishing (see June 23 2016).  But this would be the original (quoting from 2016) “in which the horror trope of the defenseless woman lost in the woods being stalked by a monster would be ratcheted up, the victim becoming a college student in a ‘survival geology’ course with nothing but a rock hammer, a thong, and a silver dollar.”  Ah, college!  The monster in question, a wendigo . . . but for more, well, you’d just have to read the story.

But here’s the punch line:  It turns out MONSTER PARTY’s been published all along, just eleven days after that contract signing on October 25 (so I only got the first hint today — it’s been a busy two months)!  To see for yourself, or to purchase, press here.

Crow and Rat: New Humanagerie Notice in UK Shoreline of Infinity

Those horrid vagabonds, Crow and Rat, have been at it again!  Or at least the book they appeared in, HUMANAGERIE (cf. September 8, July 24, et al.), published in the UK in October last year is still getting reviews.  Thus the latest, by Megan Turney in the British science fiction magazine SHORELINE OF INFINITY:  One of the joys of reading this collection was not knowing what to expect from one poem or short story to the next.  The style of these texts dabble in magic realism and fantasy to the almost academic; each style as engaging as the last.  Even though I could easily recommend every contribution, there are a select few that I [image error] find myself returning to. The key element that that drew me to these specific texts was their focus on the often unusual, but always compelling, question of what it means to exist.  So, in no particular order, my personal favourites included:  ‘The Orbits of Gods’ by Holly Heisey; ‘Crow and Rat’ by James Dorr; ‘Aquarium Dreams’ by Gary Budgen; ‘Polymorphous/Stages of Growth’ by Oliva Edwards; ‘And Then I Was a Sheep’ by Jonathan Edwards; ‘Hibernation’ by Sandra Unerman; ‘Wojtek’ by Mary Livingstone; ‘Notes for the “Chronicles of the Land that has no Shape”’ by Frank Roger; and ‘Her Audience Shall Stand in Ovation’ by Jason Gould.
.
Well, despite the inclusion of Ms. Rat and Mr. Crow with their habit of finding themselves in places where they’ve not been invited, Turney’s review is extremely thoughtful, even scholarly, and well worth reading — as is the anthology itself with hats off to Editors Allen Ashley (with special thanks for bringing the review to my attention) and Sarah Doyle.  For example, to quote from the final paragraph:  To paraphrase literary critic Karl Kroeber, this kind of literature can serve as a powerful lesson in ‘how our world [is becoming] so exclusively humanised as to be self-diseased.’  To agree with the writers of Humanagerie, it is considerably ironic that we continue with such detrimental practices.  Whilst nature has the power to persevere without us, we certainly wouldn’t be able to survive without it.  So, finally, it surely seems like the right time to recommend such an outstanding contribution to this increasingly essential genre, especially one that emphasises our need to be more aware of humanity’s destructive behaviour.
.
To see all for yourself, press here.

Season’s Greetings 2019, and A Hopeful New Year

[image error]

With a tip of the hat to gone but remembered Cave Cat Wednesday, and from the Goth Cat Triana as well  (courtesy Gary O. Clark, et al., via HORRORHOMEWORK.COM)