James Dorr's Blog, page 8

Good Taste Makes It to 2024 Alien Buddha Best

Yesterday’s email’s subject stood out: The Alien Buddha’s Best of 2024 Preview.  Hmmmm.

So, biting, I opened it.  The message: Here is a first preview of our Best of 2024 anthology.

I understand that there being no TOC yet might make it hard to find your respective chapter. Everything is in order on how your names are listed on the back cover. But if you cannot find your section using that, I will be posting an updated draft with a table of contents sometime soon.

If you have any pictures that you want added similar to what is in there already, send it over. In the best ofs I like to avoid just doing the plain image of the cover like i do in the zines. But if you have a selfie with it, or something from an event, or signing, or even a pic of your book on the bookshelf or near a pet or something that is all good.

So I found my “chapter” easily enough. This appears to be a volume of stories, poems, etc. excerpted from various Alien Buddha Press publications (cf., e.g., October 21), indicating the highlights of the previous year with a note on which publications they’re from — a sort of “sampler” anthology, if one will — and I’d made the cut! The honoree: “Good Taste,” one of two original stories in my January 2024 collection, AVOID SEEING A MOUSE. Or to give its full title, AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL.

The story: the tale of a ghoul — an eater of corpses — who, struck by lightning, has had his brain scrambled. While previously content to dig up graves, or better yet find graves already washed out by flooding in a future natural disaster-filled world, he would lunch willy-nilly, not caring much which corpse he might be biting into. Food is food, yes? But now he finds he has become a gourmet, able to detect the nuances of flavor between, say, a deceased Italian, or Spaniard, or Frenchman (this last with overtones, maybe, of Bordeaux from multiple dinners enjoyed in life; the first perhaps more with tomato sauce mixed with Chianti), as well as the textures of freshness, vs. ageing, etc., the other subtleties noted by one who now has, yes, good taste.

But is this, then, surreal?

Well, perhaps or perhaps not, it’s really up to the taste (ah, now) of the reader, but I might note that AVOID SEEING A MOUSE is available on Amazon. While as for THE ALIEN BUDDHA’S BEST OF 2024, more may be here as it becomes known.

Busy Weekend Brings Book Sales, 1st Sun. Prose

Busy, Busy.  Yes — and due a lot to the organizing efforts of the Bloomington Writers Guild’s Molly Gleeson.  Saturday was the first edition of a hopefully annual “Local Author Book Fair,” an assemblage of writers with published books in Bloomington’s Monroe County History Center (a.k.a. “The Old Library” and, conveniently, just a block from the present County Library building) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. where local residents could buy our books while we, the authors, could meet one another and, hopefully, make some money too.  Or at least meet our public — although in my case I did sell a few  copies of the three titles I had on display:  THE TEARS OF ISIS (one of these assisted through the endorsement of another local writer, poet Hiromi Yoshida), TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, and AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL.

And not only that, with free coffee and cake, bottled water to drink, pens for autographing, and other accouterments paid for in part by, considering all that went into the event, a modest registration fee.  Though tiring too, possibly somewhat surprisingly so in that it involved mostly sitting on the writers’ parts, but something I think most of us will look forward to in future years.

And — if that weren’t enough — Sunday, yesterday, brought November’s regular Molly Gleeson moderated First Sunday Prose at the Juniper Gallery just west of downtown.  Featured readers were professional non-fiction writer Susan Brackney, with work in BLOOM MAGAZINE and IU ALUMNI MAGAZINE, among others,  as well as four books, with an essay on (among other things) life in a Airstream trailer, along with a rare for her piece of short fiction, a fable titled “Green Frog, Brave Frog”; she followed by a multi-talented (writing, drawing and painting, cooking, musician) Bruce Kell with the first chapter of a new novel, HYBRIDS IN LOVE, and a shorter passage from his THE PROPHET AND THE GODDESS.

These were followed by two walk-on readers, me (ahem!) with a seasonal micro-story, “Smashing Pumpkins,” complete with an admonition not to forget to vote Tuesday, plus the Writers Guild’s Tonia Matthew with observations on Halloween trick-or-treaters — at least those who made it to her house last Thursday — and, also, Election Day.

Brood of Vamps, Casket Girls Oct. 31 Release

Yesterday’s post was reserved for the Goth Cat Triana’s holiday greeting, but Halloween brought other news as well.  As anticipated, the United Kingdom’s West Avenue Publishing released A BROOD OF VAMPIRES, “twenty haunting tales from deep within the vault” to quote from their blurb, on Halloween too (cf. September 12, July 12).

My part in this one might guess, with another tip of the hat to New Orleans and urban legends:  the original “Casket Girls,” as published in DAILY SCIENCE FICTION just ten years ago (well, and a few months too), on April 10 2014.  This, one might recall, is the origin tale of les filles à les caissettes, so named for the sea chests they brought with them with their possessions — and not filled with vampires as the tour guides say.  No, one vampire was enough, in this case Aimée who tagged on to their voyage, they sailing at the behest of the king to marry the colony’s wealthiest men, she to escape persecution from those who preferred keeping their blood to fulfilling her dietary needs.

As if, she would have been quick to say, it was her fault that she happened to be higher on the food chain!  But in any event, if interested in the Casket Girls and their own transformations, you can see for yourself by pressing here for more information and possible purchase.

The Mostly Black Halloween Cat Triana Wishes For All A Happy Holiday

Oct. Last Sunday Poetry, Hysteria, Vampires, & Me

It was pre-Halloween in a way for yesterday’s Bloomington Writers Guild’s Last Sunday Poetry at Morgenstern Books (see September 30, et al.), though a not-too-large crowd. However, those there seemed to like what they heard.

No costumes either, really, although I did wear a Bauhaus “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” record cover T-shirt. But as for the readings, creepy galore with lead-off honors upheld by poet and performance artist Hysteria, from Evansville, reading largely from her September 2024 chapbook, NATURE AND THE AMYGDALA, punctuated by “nature” sounds — birdcalls and growlings — and even a short dance, this last, however, silent. With me then (ahem! yes again, cf. October 26) in second position with poetry from my VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE) collection, both vampiric and vampire adjacent, along with a commercial of sorts to announce its reprinting, due for release on December 3 (cf. also, October 24).

This was followed by an again a bit smaller than usual Open Mic session, with only six readers in all, but allowing some to read second poems too, and all readings quite good.

Downtown Trick/Treat Day Includes Writers Guild Readings, Movie

The venue was familiar enough, downtown’s Backspace Gallery, but surrounded by children milling the streets for candy on Bloomington’s official pre-Halloween “Trick or Treat” evening, Friday. The event itself: a sort of Bloomington Writers Guild special, combining readings by two featured members and a genuine 1917 classic, somewhat Halloween-themed movie, RAPSODIA SATANICA — that is, for us non-Italian speakers, SATAN’S RHAPSODY. All this accompanied by background music from local group Drekka and Mike Emmett.

And again, children, swarming the front of the business itself for free candy galore (I, wearing my Miskatonic University t-shirt was even handed two Snickers bars) along with a chance to be photographed with their also costumed parents, while in the back room Writers Guild secretary Hiromi Yoshida led off with a half hour of poetry including her own “Lady Bluebeard,” this specially displayed on a scroll, and other appropriate material from such sources as Shakespeare’s MACBETH’s Three Witches and Edgar Allan Poe. Then I (ahem!) followed with a quintet of flash stories starring New Orleans’s “Casket Girls,” those ladies of the vampiric persuasion who arrived in that city in the year 1728 — where now they exist as an urban legend — sent by none other than King Louis XV, to marry the colony’s most prosperous man, but bringing with them the already established hemophage, Aimée.

The magic then of the coming season dictated a break of about an hour (which Hiromi and I celebrated in part as an occasion for a pizza-obtaining expedition), after which came the movie, a female version of the Faust legend, with several interesting extra features including an experimental use of color, originally hand-inked on a frame by frame basis.

VAMPS Set for Dec. 3 Release, Cover Revealed

It won’t have the wonderful illustrations by Marge Simon, and will have an entirely different cover, but this was to be a quick, “low-frills” republication of my long out-of-print poetry book, VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE), cf. just below, October 21. But the poems themselves will all be there, even if not all listed on a formal table of contents.

Say what?

Well, we did say low frills, which means quick and dirty. The poems themselves are the things that are important — and in lieu of a listing of contents, there will be acknowledgements in the order the poems are presented. It’s again just the “frills,” in this case the titles of the poems new to the collection (at the time that is, August 2011, when it was first published), that readers will need to leaf through the book to find for themselves. Most of these clustered as it happens, in two large chunks, at nearly the book’s end.

That is, as a “retrospective,” most of the poems are presented in order of their first publications — with occasional exceptions, mind you, when some poems might be sub-grouped as to similar subject matter. Or other such considerations. But poetry should be an adventure, should it not, even if one thing constant remains: the poems are all there!

And that’s the point — the poems are all there, waiting to be read, edited Tuesday the 22nd, and set today (or yesterday if you’re reading the blog), the 23rd, for a Tuesday December 3 launch. With more details here as they become known.

Alien Buddha Press to Republish VAMPS Poetry

A change will be coming to the book cover pictures in the middle column of my jamesdorrwriter blog.  Under the heading of POETRY, the lone entry, VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE), is up for enjoying a new makeover.

Long the orphan of my out-of-print books, VAMPS had been originally published by Sam’s Dot Publishing in 2011, but without an ISBN number, that funny thing usually found in a box at the lower right of a book’s back cover.  But then Sam’s Dot went out of business — or maybe it didn’t — but, not to worry, its backlog had been sold to a all new publisher.  Which, not long after, went out of business too.

But, not to worry (2), the original Sam’s Dot was back in again under an all new name . . . except its new catalogue denied all knowledge of ever having even heard of a book named VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE).  Especially not a book of poetry!  While as for used copies, well, that ISBN thingie is how homeless books can be found and identified . . . including by sites like EBAY and Amazon.  Or that is to say — except for a few copies in my possession — VAMPS had by now completely disappeared.

Poor VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE)!

But now the good news:  It seemed, at least locally, some interest in the collection had been being rekindled, if only by my citing it sometimes at readings myself (cf. one to come for the Bloomington Writers Guild’s pre-Halloween “Last Sunday Poetry,” in about a week).  So I’d been doing some shopping around, including to January’s AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL publisher Alien Buddha Press, concerning a possible new edition of VAMPS (A RETROSPECTIVE).

Sunday came the Alien Buddha’s answer:

I am enjoying your collection, and would be happy to work with you.

Attached is our standard publishing contract. If the terms are agreeable with you, give it your digital signature, then send it back, and we can get the ball rolling.

And so today, Monday, I’ve signed and sent the contract back, with more to be reported here as it becomes known!

Pre-Halloween Poems for 2nd Thursday Spoken Word?

Halloween wasn’t really a theme although it was sort of in the air at October’s “Bloomington Writers Guild Second Thursday Spoken Word” (cf. July 11, et al.).  At Bloomington’s downtown Backspace Gallery, with music supplied by Boy Dirt Car, both featured presenters offered poetry starting with Kentucky writer and musician A.S. Coomer, with books including BIRTH OF A MONSTER, THE FLOCK UNSEEN, and others, with as he described it “a bundle of pseudo-religious poems.”

He was followed by local Writers Guild’s chair April Ridge, with first chapbook MONSTROUS recently out from Pure Sleeze Press, who began with a lyric from Tom Waits as sort of a warm-up.  Then, from her own pen, she continued with poems on (mostly) secular themes including Houdini and the Bride of Frankenstein, but also one titled “Jesus Takes Driving Lessons.”

Then after more music and a short break, six walk-ons came up for “Open Mic,” of which I was fifth with a poem about hurricanes (hats off for Florida) published in STORMWASH among other places, “The Drowned City,” along with a short — and somewhat cheerier — rondolet, “California Vamp.”

October First Sunday Prose Pre-Halloween Special

October’s Bloomington Writers Guild “First Sunday Prose and Open Mic” (see September 3, et al.) at Bloomington’s Juniper Gallery was billed as an earlyish Halloween-themed session. Or at least a bit spooky. It is, after all, the start of October, albeit a warm sunny Sunday afternoon still.

Along these lines the second featured reader, Poetry Detectives co-creater and long-time member of Bloomington’s Women Writing for (a) Change Rebekah Spivey offered an excerpt from her just-published novel, MARIGOLDS IN BOXES, but as she explained a “spooky” excerpt.  While I as first featured reader led off with a short short, “The Junkie” on zombieism as an addiction, followed with as the main course “River Red” from my 2013 collection THE TEARS OF ISIS.

These in turn were followed by a disappointingly brief “open mic” with only two takers, both of high quality, Writers Guild members Joan Hawkins and Tonia Matthew.  But none the less a session, as a whole, visibly enjoyed by all who attended.