Thomas R. Clark's Blog, page 11

What Scares That Care Means To Me

This week my wife and I get to take an annual pilgrimage from Syracuse, NY to Williamsburg, VA for the charity we support, Scares That Care. It almost didn’t happen because of the pandemic, and last year, the charity was forced to postpone the event because of the lockdown. We’re not out of the water with covid yet, by a long shot. Dawn and I are vaccinated, and we’re ready to help the charity raise money for those who desperately need it. Because even during a pandemic, people still suffer from burns and learn cancer is in their body.

This will be my fifth Charity Weekend, and I’ve evolved and grown quite a bit over the last 6 years. My first visit was to Scares that Care III as a journalist, with a handful of short stories under my belt in some anthologies. I took it upon myself to cover the event for Rue Morgue’s blog and my podcast, The Necrocasticon, on the then Project iRadio. While I was there, I learned I wanted to write fiction, after hearing encouraging words from Kelli Owen, Tom Monteleone, and Brian Keene – a trio of authors who are very influential on me. I got to interview Joe R. Lansdale, and shoot the shit with Sid Haig. And I met my first close buddy in the horror community, Mike Duke. 

Scares That Care IV saw a turning point in my writing. Though I went to cover the event as a journalist for my podcast and work with my new podcast network, Project Entertainment Network. The charity offered a Borderlands Bootcamp session featuring Tom and Olivia Monteleone,, which I took advantage of. The podcasting was fun. The bootcamp was educational. I learned quite a bit about self-editing and met some new friends, like Wile E. Young, Valerie Williams, and Skip Novak. Skip has become a close friend and confidant. I call him my chaperone in the creative community. But I also met John Skipp and Craig Spector, though not in the same room. This trip solidified my drive to become a voice in the horror fiction community.

Scares That Care V… was a two edged sword for me. My father died a few months before and I was in a deep depression. I did not have a good time and anxiety attacks are no fun, although I will say the reasons it wasn’t fun for me led to an eye opening learning experience.  I’d rather focus on the positive aspects of my experiences through the charity, and only bring it up because, well, I grew from it as a result. I again attended the event as a podcaster, and with Project Entertainment Network. I made 6 copies of Good Boy’s first draft and brought them with me. I came with the intent of selling the novella and landing a publisher. My thinking outside of the box was great. I took a copy of Good Boy to Lisa Vasquez, the CEO of Stitched Smile Publications. I showed her the book with all the art I bought for it and said: “Wouldn’t this look better with your imprint on it?” Lisa took the book, read through it, and eventually took me on as her personal student in Stitched Smile University. And how could I forget Alex from Iowa? Oh, and how about Lucas Milliron, who roomed with us for a night and is one of my favorite people?   

Scares That Care VI saw me again evolving. I moved away from a focus on journalism and podcasting, to selling books as an author. At this time, I had a half dozen anthologies with my stories in them to sell (none did), a stack of ‘zines I was publishing (THE NECROCASTIZINE), I had a self published short story collection released, a story in the Project Entertainment Network anthology, MY FAVORITE STORY, and a special limited edition of GOOD BOY. I sold all 50 copies of GOOD BOY I brought with me, something remarkable for an unknown author, and a good number of the other books. Mike Duke was kind enough to allow me to share his table with him, and I gained a few new fans that weekend. I met many of my peers and friends I previously only knew online, like Jarod Barbee and superfan Joan MacLeod. Being behind a table in the dealer’s room was surreal. I still have imposter syndrome thinking about it. Oh, and Lucas Milliron had a table, too. We all rise together, Joe Lansdale said. Ain’t that the truth. 

And now we have Scares That Care Charity Weekend VII on the horizon, finally, after a year’s hiatus. I’ll be sharing a table in the main dealer hall with Amy Baker. Amy writes urban fantasy and is currently working on her first full fledged horror novel. Her Tainted Moonlight trilogy is fantastic. And she has special journals printed to sell, with a portion of the proceeds going to the charity.

I have many more books to offer than before. I was a productive, publishing fool during the pandemic. My hard work has started to pay off…

A BOOK OF LIGHT AND SHADOW in paperback

GOOD BOY in paperback

The Splatterpunk Awards Nominated BELLA’S BOYS in paperback and hardcover

THE DEATH LIST in paperback and hardcover

And my latest and best selling book to date…THE GOD PROVIDES in paperback.

I’ll also have copies of STRANGER WITH FRICTION magazine, featuring my short story, GIANTS.

I might have the remaining copies of THE NECROCASTIZINE I have printed left to give to people. Plus plenty of other merchandising shwag.

In six years I’ve gone from being a guy with a handful of short stories, to having five books, and one was nominated for Splatterpunk Award for best novella. All because I went to Scares That Care. Aside from all the names I’ve already dropped here – I’ve met, gotten to know, and learned from the likes of Armand Rosamilia, Jay Wilburn, John Urbancik, Bob Ford, AJ Brown, Kenzie Jennings… all because of this charity. What does this charity mean to me? 

It means the world to me.

Why?

Because I know my presence there might help sell another ticket. I know the table space I paid for helps to secure horror entertainment talent for the convention and the hotel. I know much of the money I make at the convention will be put into silent auctions, and autographs from celebs who attend. I know the 12 hour drive Dawn and I take down to Virginia will be worth it because the money will help a trio of people who desperately need it. 

I’ve lost many friends to breast cancer. I lost my dad to cancer. I grew up with a neighbor going through childhood leukemia, and a fellow student in high school who died of cancer in my senior year. I’ve seen people who have suffered from burn injuries. I am friends with a woman who survived a house fire as a child and has lived her life with the scars. I have empathy for the people the charity helps because I’ve seen it time and time again. 

That’s why Scares That Care means so much.

St Rooster Books: Stranger With Friction 1 & 2

Look at this Fabulous review of Stranger Than Friction issues 1 & 2. My story GIANTS, a tie-in short to my most recent book THE GOD PROVIDES, is featured in issue 2.

Krystle Ratticus

Tim Murr walks the path of most resistance when it comes to DIY publishing. Having debuted his first collection Destroying Lives for Fun and Profit over 25 years ago before founding St Rooster Books. Managed with his wife Stephanie, St Rooster Books regularly releases anthologies and horror novellas. Uplifting writers with a unique flair for horror with e-readers or a print-on-demand service. Remaining loyal to the palpable connection with art, Murr also released the physical magazine, Stranger With Friction. A quarterly publication offering outsider literature for those inspired by horror, comics, and punk rock.

The first few issues offer a variety of regular columns and personal essays. Diving into horror franchises like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and various albums of Black Flag and Alice Cooper. Chris Cavoretto of Werewolves in Siberia, contributes a dissection of punksploitation soundtracks like Repo Man and Return of The Living Dead. SWF also examines…

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The God Provides by Thomas R. Clark

Another praising review for TGHE GOD PROVIDES. The god truly does provide!

The God Provides

Another amazing 5-Star review of THE GOD PROVIDES!

The God Provides by Thomas R. Clark

The reviews for The God Provides are coming in! WOW! My mind is blown!

THE GOD PROVIDES RELEASE

It started with an idea and one line:

“The bogeyman came early to the Tully Foothills the year they canceled Halloween.” 

The idea? To re-invent the werewolf trope through embracing my family’s Irish heritage. The end result is now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through me, here, on my site.

THE GOD PROVIDES.

Writing this book has been a cathartic experience. It’s the fastest I’ve written a book and seen it hit the streets, that’s for sure. The first words were put to page in October of 2020, in the darkness of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Now, less than a year later, you are seeing the end product.

The McEntires may as well be The Clarks. I named the family patriarch after my Dad and grandfather. The book is dedicated to my siblings, Shawn and Allison. I’m sure they’ll get a kick out of how I gender flipped us and included some of our family’s quirks to make the characters real. This is the most personal piece I’ve ever written. Some of the more disturbing events to occur, especially in the May Day portion of the book, are taken from my own experiences. Others are metaphorical. I wrote some of the darker parts during the mid winter, near the time of the anniversary of our father’s passing. My grief shows on the page. 

This book has opened a new door for me, it’s my hope that you all hop on for the ride. I want to thank the team behind it, too, because they can’t ever receive enough praise. James Matthew Byers for his poetry contributions, Stephanie Murr and Lynne Hansen for their art, both inside and on the cover, respectively. Lynne also encouraged me to change the title, and it was one of the best decisions I made with this. Tim Murr at St Rooster Books and my mentor Lisa Vasquez for suggesting I expand the story FIREFLIES AND APPLE PIES into something more. Garrett Cook, the magical Fedora Wizard, who has become the perfect storytelling instructor for me, and helped me with the mysterious folkinesss. Rose O’Keefe, who blindly suggested the cottagecore aspect of the narrative. But the one person who deserves the most thanks is my wife, Dawn, for putting up with Irish dirges and jigs as I wrote this. 

Those of you who ordered the special bundle packages, we are at the mercy of Barnes & Noble’s printing department for the books.  Once they are approved and ship to me, I’ll be sending them out. You’ll be getting more goodies, too, for having patience.

My summer book signing appearances will be in full swing in a couple weeks, starting with Vettes At The Beach in Sylvan Beach, NY, on Sunday, 7/25/21. The weekend after, I will be at the Scares That Care Charity Weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), and the following weekend on August 8th I’ll be in Binghamton, NY at Conklin Con II.

Oh, and one more thing…

Soláthraíonn an dia

RIP Jeff Kimpland

It’s been a weird week for me.  I’ve gotten some positive feedback on my writing, and after going through what I’m starting to call my May-June depression (from around the middle of May to around Father’s Day), it was welcome. I did some spontaneous things with some buddies, and it seems like I’m on the path to have my most successful release of a book yet.

But it’s all bittersweet.

As I get older, there’s one thing I can’t shake.

Death.

Last year, Death took my best friend. Death has ravaged my close friends, taking some of their loved ones with pharmaceuticals or worse. Shit, I recently learned my sister’s high school & college boyfriend was eaten alive by Satanic cannibals a few years back. Most often when we learn of these things we are caught off guard, unprepared for the revelation. We are shocked, we weep, and we mourn. Sometimes, though,the death of an associate isn’t a surprise at all.

I lost a long time friend last week. We put him to rest today. And I didn’t cry. Which shocked me. Until I realized… This person’s death was expected, and I had prepared myself for this years ago.

Jeff Kimpland passed away last week. He produced my old garage band’s demo, and was the karaoke DJ my core group of friends rallied around for a number of years. He was an enigmatic person. The women who went to karaoke with us wanted to fuck Jeff, and the guys wanted to be Jeff. He had a perfect tenor, with a 4 octave range. He put Geoff Tate to shame. We had Jeff sing Geoff’s Silent Lucidity at every show. So we could hear the song sung correctly.

Jeff came into the metal scene at the wrong time, as grunge started to take over. His band, Saharra, was set to become the next big metal act, blending aspects of hair metal with the progressive sound of Queensryche. While I learned my announcer-craft at WGFR in Glens Falls, the A&R rep for Columbia records gave me their demo to play in Spring of 1992. They opened up for Dream Theater and Queensryche. But Saharra went nowhere really quickly when spandex, guitar solos, and epic vocalists were kicked to the curb. 

So Jeff moved back home to Syracuse. He started up his karaoke business, and prepared to launch his metal comeback.  As he did so, he recorded demo albums for many of the karaoke singers in town in his private studio. My band, Zed’s Dead, was the first band he recorded. It wasn’t without flaws, the drums are over-condensed, but the guitars and vocals shine. Jeff was a real pro and gave many people in the karaoke community the confidence to go on and do more with their lives. Jeff was someone I called a friend. He even DJ’d my wedding.     

And now, Jeff is dead.

And I know it sounds cold, but I’m not surprised one bit. 

Shortly after our heyday of hanging out, from roughly 1997-2002, Jeff experienced a tragic accident at his employer, a national home goods chain. He fell off the loading truck, and broke his back. It changed everything. But the worst change of it all? Jeff became addicted to opiates and painkillers.

Staying in contact with the man became a chore. He’d be so fucked up on pills he wouldn’t even know what we were talking about.  You can’t reason with a pill popper, I learned. He started asking people for money, and that was a clear warning. So I distanced myself from him.

Then Jeff went to rehab and met Charlie Thomas from the Drifters. Jeff cleaned up, with Charlie as his sponsor. Jeff found a new life singing with cover bands on Cruise ships, singing non-metal songs. He started DJing in town again, and we started to go to his shows. He was healthy, and happy.

Then he fell off the wagon.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Opiates are evil. They consume a person. And prescription painkillers are the worst.

But Jeff never gave up. With Charlie’s help he cleaned up again, and found a new love and gave birth to a son.

But once again, those fucking Opiate demons reared their ugly head. It cost him his employment, it led to him separating from his son’s mother, and I won’t be surprised if we learn he died as a result of his addiction. His body might have just given up, or maybe he found some really good drugs on his trip to Canada the week before, who knows. All I know is a great talent passed away, and the world is a lesser place because of it.  

Here’s some examples of his work, for your listening pleasure.

RIP, Jeff, your pain is gone, finally.

Enjoy some Jeff…

THE GOD PROVIDES PRE-ORDER BUNDLE

Well would you get a load of this… and would you believe it’s only $45? And that includes the shipping!

FROM THOMAS R CLARK & ST. ROOSTER BOOKS – THE GOD PROVIDES PRE-ORDER BUNDLE! 

GO TO http://www.thomasrclark.com TO ORDER!

INCLUDES:

THE GOD PROVIDES (HARDCOVER – SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR)

ISSUE 2 OF “STRANGER WITH FRICTION” MAGAZINE FEATURING THE CLAN MAC TIRE STORY “GIANTS” (SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, AND COVER ARTIST) 

“MY JOURNAL” 200 PAGE JOURNAL FEATURING THE ALTERNATE COVER ART DESIGNED BY THOMAS R CLARK

A 5X8 FRAMED PRINT OF THE ALTERNATE COVER ART DESIGNED BY THOMAS R CLARK

A SET OF 4 STICKERS

A REFRIGERATOR MAGNET FEATURING LYNNE HANSEN’S COVER 

AND…

A UATH MOUND RITUAL WEREWOLF MASK

(INC. SHIPPING & HANDLING) 

THESE LIMITED COLLECTOR’S PACKAGES WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE BY PRE-ORDER UNTIL JULY 8TH, OR UNTIL THE LIMITED NUMBER IS SOLD OUT!

WHAT IF BRUCE THE SHARK WORKED?

We just passed the anniversary of the venerated, original  summer blockbuster; JAWS. Steven Speilberg’s adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best selling summer read of 1974, became the movie to see the following year. And JAWS has since gone on to be the movie to beat going forward. It enabled 20th Century Fox to fund George Lucas’s Star Wars, and this trend has continued over the decades. You could say JAWS blazed the path leading to the biggest blockbuster of all time, Avenger’s Endgame.

But it wasn’t as easy to pull off as you would think. 

The book was roasted by critics, in much the same manner as a number of popular novels to follow in years to come. They called it bad. Like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code is bad (in spite of selling a bazillion copies). Or Steve Alten’s MEG is bad (it is). And by that I mean, critics ripped it to shreds. They accused the plot of being overly melodramatic. JAWS is so bloated, the reader’s digest abridged is preferred by many readers. It’s better and closer to the movie.

But this melodrama enthralled Middle America, who bought copies by the boatload. The suspense, the scares, and the sex drove sales. The American consumer ate it up. And it became a bestseller.  

The shark is fucking off

The film production, too, was plagued with trouble. The most notorious being the mechanical shark, Bruce. The infamous quote “THE SHARK IS WORKING” has gone on to epitomize Spinal Tap moments in movie productions.  With the shark not operating, Spielberg was forced to improvise, and the end result became POV shots of the Great White on the hunt. This, the art of not showing the monster, is what led to much of the film’s success.

Benchley has been cited as saying the book and film wouldn’t work today. We know Great Whites aren’t intentional man eaters now, and I can understand why he would think this. But I beg to differ with him. I think a JAWS property written and filmed today would be relevant. It would be great commentary on overfishing and destruction of the shark’s natural prey. And considering this film helped lead to the mass extermination of millions of sharks in the late 1970s and 80s, it would be more than appropriate. 

But what would you say if I told you they made an eco-horror version of JAWS some four years after it came out? And that this movie is a lost classic of the KILLER ANIMAL trope JAWS invented?

Nope, it’s not ORCA, the Dino De Laurentis produced Killer Whale revenge flick, but that is a great one I love dearly. No, it’s not GRIZZLY, or the SWARM, or any BUGS, ALLIGATORs or WOLFEN. Nope. This movie, much like JAWS, has an ambiguous single word title, and it answers the question, “What if Bruce the shark worked?”

Never use a yellow sleeping bag. Ever.

That film is John Frankenheimer’s production of David Seltzer’s PROPHECY. 

There are plenty of parallels between the two properties, the obvious being both feature a man eating predator. It’s more than that. The book for PROPHECY was a bestseller, albeit not as successful as JAWS.  

Whereas Peter Benchly’s JAWS is a mixed bag of intense suspense and horrible melodrama; David Seltzer’s PROPHECY is a terror filled page turner. It’s a book, and movie, with a message, and one that hit close to home for me. As a result, both the book and film scare the living shit out of me.

The plot is simple, a Paper Mill has been poisoning the watershed in northern Maine with mercury. As a result, the local Native Americans are going crazy, as they eat the polluted fish and game in the area. A brown bear, born deformed and mutated by  mercury, is on a rampage. The local Native Americans believe she is an incarnation of a nature spirit, the Katahdin, a chemeric being that is the embodiment of all living things in the forest. They believe the monster is making them pay for their sins against nature. Unbeknownst to the people, she’s actually defending her mutated cubs.  

Now, I live in a region with a mercury poisoned lake. One of the most poisonous lakes in North America, truth be told. Lake Onondaga, poisoned with mercury by Allied Chemical.  We’ll say this: PROPHECY made me afraid to camp regionally, as much as JAWS made me afraid to swim in the ocean.

The book PROPHECY is a lost masterpiece of horror.  Seltzer adapted his own screenplay, as he did with his previous script for The Omen. Brisk and well paced, it has a bloody body count they didn’t dare put on the screen.  

The ad campaign for the movie was on par with JAWS. The trailer showed a sleeping bag exploding into feathers, and a mutant bear fetus on the movie poster declaring PROPHECY was THE Monster Movie, with the tagline: SHE LIVES. DON’T MOVE. DON’T BREATHE. THERE’S NOWHERE TO RUN. SHE WILL FIND YOU.

The movie starts out good enough, a chapter removed from the book. And it remains a great movie. Right up until the third act. 

Only YOU can prevent bad special effects (that’s Kevin Peter Hall, the Predator and dozens of other horror monsters, in the suit!)

The film is already the victim of so many goddamned bits of Hollywood bullshit, you want to shake your fist at the screen. Yet, somehow, none of these indiscretions have a negative effect on the movie. Talia Shire is wonderful. And if you wondered what happened to Don Henley’s afro in that Hotel California video, you’ll be happy knowing Robert Foxworth stole it for his role. And Richard Dysart, a few years out of playing Doc Copper in John Carpenter’s THE THING, gets to chew the screen as the movie’s human antagonist. It’s 1979, so we still have white men being cast as Native Americans, and Armand Assante gets to do the dirty in this one. Unlike George C. Scott’s Rainbird in FIRESTARTER, Assante actually pulls it off. The supporting cast of Native Americans are pretty much all OP’s (Original People) as they are called in the book and movie.

But it’s not any of these that make the movie, dare I say, campy? Is that a pun? Not really. 

The problem with the movie is the shark, or in this case the bear, worked on set. Yes, the special creature effects in PROPHECY are the drizzling Hershey squirts. As cute as the mutant bear cubs might be, they still look plastic. Nothing in the movie looks like that goddamn movie poster with the mutant bear fetus. Nothing. It all looks… FAKE! And the mama bear? The killing machine of the book? She resembles a fucking Smokey the Bear hand puppet with half its fucking face melted.

MAN-BEAR-PIG!

If any classic movie needs a special effects CGI re-do, ala the Star Wars Special Editions, it’s PROPHECY. Bob Dawson and The Burman’s Studios, who did the make up and effects for the film, seriously dropped the ball. The shitty mutant mama bear, forever immortalized in an episode of Southpark as the “MAN-BEAR-PIG monster. The zombie bear from ANNIHILATION is a clear example of how this creature could look. This movie shows us what might have happened if they used the original design of The Predator. The bear-thing we got in Prophecy looks like a drunk put it together, a little tidbit that might be a reflection of the production itself. The stories of director Frankenheimer being blasted on set may have contributed to bad decisions, one of them being to make the monster more bear like.

Despite the sub-par special effects, and the director’s bottle tipping, Prophecy is still an effective eco-horror thriller. It’s aged as well as a forty-two year old film can. JAWS is timeless, and so is PROPHECY. We still have inner city starvation and housing problems in America, we still have Native American rights issues (can you say Dakota Access Pipeline?), and we still have big companies poisoning landfills and watersheds. 

Do yourself a favor and rediscover this lost classic. Find a dog eared copy of the book, and settle down with it for an experience that will make you think twice about camping, and look at Smokey the Bear in a new, albeit distorted, light. 

And make sure you zip that sleeping bag up nice and tight.

TRAILER FOR THE GOD PROVIDES

Here’s the audio and trailers for THE GOD PROVIDES, coming in July from St. Rooster Books!