Douglas Hackle's Blog, page 12
May 10, 2013
Bizarrocast Parsec Award Nomination
Episode 25 of Bizarrocast, which features my story "The Scream, My Dog," is in the running to be selected as a representative episode to be submitted to the judges for evaluation.
While it's not important if "my" episode gets sent in, I think editor Chris Boyle does a commendable job at Bizarrocast, so if you've listened to any of the Bizarrocast episodes and enjoyed at least one, consider clicking on the link below, which will take you to a little Facebook voting-thingamajig where you can cast a vote.
https://www.facebook.com/douglas.hack...
And while I'm at it, here's the link to Bizarrocast - Ep. 25 "The Scream, My Dog": http://bizarrocast.blogspot.com/2013/...
Thanks,
Douglas Hackle
May 1, 2013
“The Scream, My Dog” @ Bizarrocast
My short story “The Scream, My Dog” is the featured story in Episode 25 of Bizarrocast, which is now available.
The protag in this one is a creepy, douchebag slaughterhouse worker who gets high off the bottled tears of clowns and mimes. Every Friday night after shift, this dude somehow magically drives his clunker car into Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream in order to pick up his wingman—the Famous Screaming Guy—so that the two of ‘em can drive downtown and attempt to pick up “hoes” at the nightclubs. Yes, in this story, the Famous Screaming Guy is a bit of a douche too.
Bizarrocast is a podcast devoted to bizarro fiction. Check ‘em out at:
http://bizarrocast.blogspot.com/
Oh, and Happy Springtime!
My short story “The Scream, My Dog” is the featured story...
My short story “The Scream, My Dog” is the featured story in Episode 25 of Bizarrocast, which is now available.
The protag in this one is a creepy, douchebag slaughterhouse worker who gets high off the bottled tears of clowns and mimes. Every Friday night after shift, this dude somehow magically drives his clunker car into Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream in order to pick up his wingman—the Famous Screaming Guy—so that the two of ‘em can drive downtown and attempt to pick up “hoes” at the nightclubs. Yes, in this story, the Famous Screaming Guy is a bit of a douche too.
Bizarrocast is a podcast devoted to bizarro fiction. Check ‘em out at:
http://bizarrocast.blogspot.com/
Oh, and Happy Springtime!
April 2, 2013
Publishing News
Aliens, Sex & Sociopaths: The Best of Surreal Grotesque is now available on Amazon. This Kindle book includes my stories “In Our Hearts” and “Douglas and Bradley and (Terror Clown).”
“In Our Hearts,” which first appeared in Issue 6 of The Surreal Grotesque, is a bizarro-horror tale in which deceased loved ones live on in people’s hearts in more than just the figurative sense. Previously unpublished, “Douglas and Bradley and (Terror Clown)” is a story in which bizarro author Bradley Sands and I explore a house supposedly haunted by a demonic entity known as Terror Clown. Think Scooby-Doo on bath salts.
Aliens, Sex & Sociopaths also contains surreal and grotesque fiction and poetry from Adria West, Brittany Warren, Antoinette Rydyr, Grant Wamack, Danielle Brown, Joseph J. Patchen, Jeff Gardiner, Max Scratchman, A. Pulliam, Bryan Howie, Nathaniel Tower, Keith Fink, T.W. Grim, Richard Thomas, Danny Gonzales, Carolyn Charron, Joshua Ryan, Jeremy Maddux, Carter Rydyr, Cristna Jones, and Sean M. Thompson.
By the way, I also recently had two flash fiction stories published at The Strange Edge, the blog of Gary Arthur Brown, author of the new Eraserhead Press NBAS title Kitten. Here are the direct links to those stories: “Day 4 at HackleCon” and “I Won the MegaSuperLotto.” The Strange Edge also features flash fiction from G. Arthur Brown himself and other talented writers of weird shit.
February 25, 2013
Tall Tales with Short Cocks – Vol. 3
TALL TALES WITH SHORT COCKS - Vol. 3, the latest anthology of weird fiction from Rooster Republic Press (formerly Bizarro Press), is now available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. The book includes my bizarro story “The Fabulist, the Senior Engineer, and Da Paypaclip Hustla.” This was the tale I discussed as a work-in-progress in my last blog post, “The Next Big Thing.”
TALL TALES WITH SHORT COCKS – Vol. 3 also include stories from Tom Bordonaro, Lance Carbuncle, Ran Cartwright, Etienne DeForest, Patrick D’Orazio, Arthur Graham, Matt Hlinak, Alex S. Johnson, Kirk Jones, Jon Konrath, Adam Millard, D.F. Noble, Vincent Sakowski, Ben John Smith, Kevin Strange, Nathaniel Tower, and D. Harlan Wilson.
Vive la short cock!
February 1, 2013
The Next Big Thing
Danger Slater—the late, great, talented author of the highly entertaining novel Love Me—tagged me to participate in The Next Big Thing blog chain, in which authors answer a set of questions about their works-in-progress.
Oh and by “late,” I did not mean to suggest that Danger is dead. I simply meant that at some point in the man’s life, he was late to class or to a party or to a dentist appointment, etc. Haven’t we all been late at one time or another? For example, take this double entendre “late” joke I just made. No doubt others made the same joke long before I ever thought to do it, but yet I made the joke here as if it were fresh, as if it were indeed my own.
In other words: I’m late.
Anyway, without further rambling, I’ll answer the questions. And at the end of this post I’ll tag a couple writers to keep the chain going.
What is the working title of your book or story?
I’m working on a short story (6,000+ words) titled “The Fabulist, the Senior Engineer, and Da Paypaclip Hustla.”
Where did the idea for the story come from?
This story was born through the mash up of three separate ideas:
1) I keep a file on my computer in which I enter miscellaneous tidbits—words, phrases, sentences, and whole paragraphs—gleaned from the books I read. If I type something into the file, that means I found it interesting for some reason. These items include fairly ordinary words that I might want to assimilate into my own active speaking and/or writing vocabulary, certain 50-cent words of which I always seem to forget the specific meaning or meanings, syntactical structures that I like and want to try using in my own writing, particularly excellent descriptive passages, compelling pieces of dialogue, etc.
Anyhow, sometimes I scan through this file for inspiration. While doing this about a month ago, I noticed I had written the phrase “senior engineer.” I couldn’t remember why I’d typed “senior engineer” into the file or what book/story I’d seen it in, but that didn’t matter, because the second my eyes saw those two words sitting on the screen, the ol’ writing gears started turning.
2) One of my favorite books from my childhood is Harold and the Purple Crayon. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of drawing things in the air and having them come to life (which, it just occurred to me now, is essentially what we do as writers), and for some reason I got to thinking about Harold after the “senior engineer” seed germinated in my brain.
3) For quite a while prior to beginning this story, I wanted to write a tale featuring a tyrannical villain who insisted that everyone around him address him as “sensei” à la The Karate Kid even though said villain possessed no martial arts skills.
So yeah, 1, 2, and 3 sort of got tossed into the blender, and then I began to write the story.
What genre does your story fall under?
retardo-bizarro.
*Note: I do NOT use the term “retardo” to imply “retardation” in the insensitive, hurtful, and unfortunately culturally dominant sense of that word as it relates historically to people with impaired cognitive functioning due to congenital genetic disorders, improper fetal development, iodine deficiency, etc. On the contrary, I use the term simply to indicate that . . . that I’m fucking retarded. I don’t know how else to explain it.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
The Fabulist – This character has a brawny/bodyguard/bouncer sort of presence. Let’s say Steve Austin.
The Senior Engineer – He’s essentially a taller, paler version of Gollum, so let’s say Andy Serkis (the dude who plays Gollum in the LOR movies).
Da Paypaclip Hustla – Would require at least low-budget CGI or stop animation. But the character’s arms would be modeled after Wesley Snipes’ arms (think Wesley Snipes circa Blade II).
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your story?
A wandering fabulist takes a job as a “housebitch” for the mayor of the town of Dapperboy, Montana, only to find out that his principal duty as housebitch is to babysit the mayor’s 87-year-old, spoiled-rotten, drunken, atavistic, homicidal, cannibalistic, all-around-asshole son—known only as The Senior Engineer—who, on a whim, decides to flood Dapperboy to make the town more like Venice, Italy.
Will your story be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m writing it for a small press anthology. If it doesn’t get accepted there, I’ll send it around to a few other places. The markets for bizarro short stories—particularly longer stories like this one (I expect the final draft to be about 6,500 words)—are pretty scarce relative to other fiction markets out there, e.g. horror, sci-fi, fantasy, “literary” fiction, etc. If I can’t find a home for the story, at the very least my Mommy will read it and tell me it’s great regardless of how egregiously bad it might be.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
A little over two weeks.
What other stories would you compare this story to within your genre?
Hm, I don’t know really.
Who or what inspired you to write this story?
Antonio Salieri, the semi-obscure Italian composer/conductor and popularly perceived rival of Mozart as played by actor F. Murray Abraham in the movie Amadeus; the nerdy, bespectacled “white boy” briefly seen in the music video for Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 hit “Baby Got Back”; and a zombified, gorgon version of little Suri Cruise.
What else about your story might pique the reader’s interest?
The story features a uniquely three-headed monster. (To find out the monster’s three heads, simply look at my answer to the previous question.)
* * *
So there ya go. Now here are the three writers I tagged to keep the chain going:
Joe Jablonski is a writer, editor, and musician. His collection of dark sci-fi stories, Vessels, was published last year.
Dustin Reade is a writer, editor, musician, and a sergeant at the Bizarro Brigade. He edits the fabulous webzine The Mustache Factor.
Bradley Sands, bizarro writer extraordinaire, published his latest novel this past October; TV Snorted My Brain is all the rage.
January 30, 2013
Arnzstigation Days
From the Facebook event page for Arnzstigation Days, a creative effort to support the kickstarter for Michael A. Arnzen’s FRIDGE OF THE DAMNED magnetic word kit:
“Now through the end of January post a short story, poem, piece of art, excerpt from a longer work instigated by Arnzen or even a blog reflection on his influence. Then post a link here, on the RDSP FB page or send it directly to books@rawdogscreaming.com. I will share it through our page, our twitter account and collect the links in a permanent blog entry on the RDSP blog. This will support the cause and also showcase your project.
“The catch—you’ve got to include a link to the kickstarter: http://tinyurl.com/b4zkr5m. Invisible slimy bonus points to those who include some explanatory text such as: Be an instigator, support the Fridge of the Damned poetry magnet kickstarter.”
I confess my knowledge of Michael Arnzen is somewhat limited. But over the years I’ve encountered a few of his stories in horror anthologies, read his insightful essay “Degrees of Dread: Horror in Higher Education” included in On Writing Horror: A Handbook by the Horror Writers Association, and, just recently, acquired a copy of The Gorelets Ominibus, which I have been enjoying like a box of cookies—a little at a time. I would’ve loved to have contributed something more directly “arnzstigated” to the cause, something based on one of Arnzen’s wonderful prompts perhaps, but alas: I’m terrible at writing prompts! Plus, I just sort of ran out of time. So instead I’ll post the link to my most recent flash fiction effort, “Sugarplum,” which, appropriately enough, Nathan Rosen was kind enough to publish over at MicroHorror just last week. The story is only about 425 words long. Anytime I attempt to mash horror and dark comedy in such a brief span of words, I like to think I’m channeling the influence of those writers like Michael Arnzen who do brevity masterfully.
Here are the first three lines of “Sugarplum”:
“Mama?” little Timmy said as his mother tucked him into bed.
“What, pumpkin?”
“Is Terror Clown going to be my new daddy?”
To read the rest, click here.
January 24, 2013
“Sugarplum” at MicroHorror
Hey, ya’ll. My new flash fiction piece “Sugarplum” is up at MicroHorror today. It’s just a trifle, really. Here are the first three lines:
“Mama?” little Timmy said as his mother tucked him into bed.
“What, pumpkin?”
“Is Terror Clown going to be my new daddy?”
To read the remaining 403 words of the story, click here.
MicroHorror is a webzine dedicated to the publication of horror microfiction, specifically flash fiction pieces no longer than 666 words. Published and edited by Nathan Rosen, MicroFiction has been around since May 2006.
January 23, 2013
My story “The Scream, My Dog” will be featured on Bizarrocast
My short story “The Scream, My Dog” was accepted at Bizarrocast, where it will be published as a podcast probably in April. That’s a five-dollar sale. I estimate the story’s worth to be approximatley $4, so that’s a profit of one dollar—CHA-CHING!
The protag in this tale is a weird, creepy, douchebag old man who works at a slaughterhouse and gets high off the bottled tears of clowns and mimes. Every Friday night after shift, he magically drives his car into Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream in order to pick up his wingman, the Famous Screaming Guy, and the two of them drive downtown and attempt to pick up “hoes” at the nightclubs. Yes, in this story, the Famous Screaming Guy is kind of a douche too.
Bizarrocast is a podcast devoted to bizarro fiction. Check ‘em out at:
http://bizarrocast.blogspot.com/
December 27, 2012
Tall Tales with Short Cocks - 2 Reviewed in The Surreal Grotesque
Here's the link:
The Surreal Grotesque
Surreal Grotesque is edited by Danny Gonzales.
