William Cook's Blog, page 11

Latest Review for Blood Related

Written by William Cook
Reviewed by Char Hardin
May I introduce the Cunningham Family: father who is a suspected serial killer who dies by his own hand who is married to an insane alcoholic combined they beget two sons who follow in their father’s footsteps Caleb and Charlie inherited more than dysfunctional family traits they inherited a blood soaked heritage that caused the boys to rain down a legacy of terror and death.
The beginning of the story is a preface by the psychiatrist Dr. Mary Brunswick who tells how she worked with Charlie during his trial and then after he was sentenced how his brother Caleb approached her with his own tales of murder. The trust between doctor and patient was built on the confidentiality clause that she could not break. He was free with his accounts and then disappeared. Just reading the preface was a strong indication of the content of the pages to come. I consumed this story in one sitting. One word to describe what William Cook has accomplished…TERRIFYING.
Blood Related kept me up all night on the edge of my recliner, chewing on my fingernails and constantly looking to my front door to note that it was indeed locked. Each murderous account drew me deeper into the psyche of the killers to marinate as I tried to fathom what created these modern day monsters. Fans of American Psycho will eat this book up. Throughout the text, I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that I was being watched and at one point rose long enough to turn on the light battle back the encroaching darkness.  When at last I turned to the final page, I drew in a deep breath and noticed my fingers were white and tightly gripping my laptop as I read the story.
Upon further reflection and glancing back at my notes, I was relieved that I text was well edited. I do detest reading a story and feeling like I am deprived of the enjoyment as a reader, when the text is so riddled with errors and misspellings that I become an editor instead of a reader…not so with this book.
One thing I would have liked on some of the murders, it felt like I was being overly told of the circumstance instead of being allowed to feel and be shown the events as they played out. It is something even I as a writer suffer with telling more and showing less. It does not reflect badly on the author and in no way takes away from the flow of the story. It is just a “feeling” I got at times and could be only “felt” by me.
This is a male dominated story with women playing a less than glamorous role and more of an object to be to thrust pain and degradation upon. This did not bother me, but to those out there it does, then you may just pass on Blood Related or in any case be warned this is not boy meets girl and falls in love and lives happily ever after. No, more like boy meets girl and thinks of ways to take her apart and then does so piece by bloody piece. Personally…I loved every blood soaked page!
I would recommend this story to my horror readers, especially to the ones who love serial killers. Blood Related will not disappoint. I would like to add also while reading the story at times, I had to pause and whisper. “This is fiction. This is only fiction and is not real.” After I went to bed, I left the light on and slept fitfully as I just couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Awesome book 4 Out of 5!

Check out Char's cool blog here.

FREE short fiction promotion - Devil Inside (3 days only)

Hi all - FREE now for those of you who like scary stories :)

 


FREE KINDLE HORROR (05-07/9)

'Devil Inside' is a short horror story that will leave you wanting more. Graphic and descriptive, the tale winds itself around a young boy who discovers that when you make a wish, you better make sure you really want it.

Horror, Violence, Supernatural, M15+

Short Story + 4 x Poems + Excerpt from Blood Related (novel).

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FREE PROMO - 3 days only, get your copy of CREEP.

As a thank you to my readers and an invitation to new readers I have one of my more popular stories available for free for the next three days. As you're probably aware, a large part of being an 'indie' author is spent with marketing and self promotion. This is one of those times and the following details will hopefully provide you, my astute readers, with the tools you need to get your FREE copy of Creep.


Free Kindle Ebook (28/08-31/08):
CREEP, is the first story in an exciting and gritty new psychological thriller/horror series. Cassandra: Hunter of Darkness, is a hero to the victim and a merciless angel of death to the evil ones. A killer of killers, she strikes fear into the hearts of those who get their kicks off hurting others. Join Cassandra on her quest for justice and revenge as she begins her journey into the dark underbelly of serial murder and takes care of business as only she knows how.

FREE NOW - Please share. Any reviews welcomed

US Link: http://www.amazon.com/CREEP-Book-Cassandra-Darkness-ebook/dp/B00CSGOUAK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1377674914&sr=1-1&keywords=william+cook

UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/CREEP-Book-Cassandra-Darkness-ebook/dp/B00CSGOUAK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1377690515&sr=8-3&keywords=william+cook


"5.0 out of 5 stars A CREEPY THRILLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By dean s
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Where do i begin?
What a fantastic exciting action packed thriller from the start of the book. This is the story of cassandra a girl who is off back to university after having a holiday with her parents. She calls a taxi and gets into it and what she gets into is a big mistake and a pathway to a terrible time with the creep.
This story gripped me from the start and kept me wanting to turn the pages with excitement and the unknowing. I also had to read this in one sitting as it captures you in with the characters on every page wondering what is going to happen next.
The only bad thing to say is that it wasnt long enough because i could have read more and want more,so hopefully the sequel wont be too far off. 5 stars and well deserved." #freehorror #kindlehorror #thriller #FREE #FREEKINDLE

Favorite Books List

Here is a list of my favorite literary works. The list is not complete and is totally subjective in that the books listed are my personal favorites - the books that I go back to for whatever reason and read again and again. This is NOT a list of books I think have the most literary merit, this IS a list of books I have enjoyed reading the most for whatever reason. My friend and peer, Vincenzo Bilof has done a similar list you may find of interest here, in response to a challenge I made to him. This, of course, being my response to said challenge. 



My Favorite Books (to date)


Fiction (Novels)

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Big Sur – Jack Kerouac
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Infinite jest – David Foster Wallace
The Killer – Colin Wilson
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
The Stranger – Albert Camus
Redemption Falls – Joseph O’Connor
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Doystevsky
As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
Bliss – Peter Carey
Killer on the Road – James Ellroy
Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon – Thomas Harris
David Morrell – First Blood
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
The Walking Drum – Louis L’amour
Tortilla Flat – John Steinbeck
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
The Shipping News – Annie Proulx
In My Father’s Den – Maurice Gee
In the Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
The Novel – James Michener
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag – Robert A Heinlein
The Girls He Adored – Jonathan Nasaw
Ham on Rye – Charles Bukowski
Zombie – Joyce Carol Oates
Dandelion Wine, The October Country – Ray Bradbury
The End of the Night – John D Macdonald




Fiction (Horror)


Survivor – J.F. Gonzalez
The Backwoods – Edward Lee
The Face That Must Die – Ramsey Campbell
Exquisite Corpse – Poppy Z Brite
This Symbiotic Fascination – Charlee Jacob
Mystery Walk, Baal – Robert McCammon
The Shining, IT, The Dead Zone, The Stand – Stephen King
Ghost Story – Peter Straub
Psycho, American Gothic – Robert Bloch
Rats, Lair, Domain, The Fog – James Herbert
Slob – Rex Miller
Spawn – Shaun Hutson
Telekiller – John Warwick
The Lost – Jack Ketchum
Children of the Night, Carrion Comfort – Dan Simmons
Flesh and Blood, Family Portrait – Graham Masterton
Futile Efforts – Thomas Piccirilli
The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson
The Exorcist – William Peter Blatty




Short Story Collections


By Bizarre Hands – Joe R. Lansdale
The Complete Stories – Flannery O’Connor
Blue World – Robert McCammon
Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allan Poe
Night Shift – Stephen King
Books of Blood 1-3 – Clive Barker
A Peaceable Kingdom – Jack Ketchum
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town, Tales of Ordinary Madness – Charles Bukowski
Collected Stories, The Fat Man in History – Peter Carey
The Nightmare Chronicles – Douglas Clegg
Ray Bradbury Stories (Vol 1 and 2) – Ray Bradbury
Red Dreams – Dennis Etchison
Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader – Charles Bukowski
20th Century Ghosts – Joe Hill
The Collection – Bentley Little


Anthologies


Cutting Edge – Ed. Dennis Etchison
Prime Evil – Ed. Douglas E Winter
Psycho-paths – Ed. Robert Bloch
Psychos – Ed. John Skipp
999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense – Ed. Al Sarrantonio




Poetry


The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell – William Blake
Selected Poems – Carl Sandburg
Complete Works, Prufrock & Other Observations, Four Quartets – T.S. Eliot
The Cantos – Ezra Pound
Greed – Ai
The Monkey’s Mask – Dorothy Porter
Love is a Dog from Hell, Mockingbird Wish me Luck – Charles Bukowski
The Divine Comedy – Dante Aligheri
Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman
Ring of Bone – Lew Welch
The Theatre and its Double – Antonin Artaud
A Season in Hell – Arthur Rimbaud
The Flowers of  Evil – Charles Baudelaire
Cap and Bells – Francis Webb


And there you have it - my list, not by any means complete or chronological, just what it is. This will evolve. 

Very pleased to be in such esteemed company alongside wri...

Very pleased to be in such esteemed company alongside writers  John Paul Allen, William Meikle, Sandy DeLuca and Mark Allan Gunnell. The wonderful Horror Novel Reviews.Com website has just posted reviewer Drake Morgan's top 5 picks for the best recent Horror Novellas and graciously decided to include my ebook 'Devil Inside' on the list. Without further ado, here is the post in its entirety.  *********************************The Five Best (Recent) Horror Novellas Posted by Matt Molgaard on July 22, 2013 in Featured Articles  Written by: Drake Morgan
This list is by no means complete. There are so many fantastic novellas out there that one loses track fast. I don’t hold hard and fast to any literary rules on “novella.” Some of these pieces are short, but they’re published as independent releases. They count in my book. Rather than do a “best of” and try to search through decades of great work,  I’m passing along the five most outstanding that I’ve read lately.

1) Sandy DeLuca: Messages from the Dead
This is just a great read. Spooky, haunting, and disturbing, DeLuca’s tale travels through the corridors of time to bring past and present together. Ghosts haunt the shadows of both the mind and a former hospital and they come with dark secrets.

2) William Meikle: The Auld Mither
Based on an old Scottish legend, Meikle weaves a complex tale questioning that fine line between reality and those ancient tales still told late at night when the storms batter the windows. Disbelief in the modern world comes face to face with dark things from the ancient past.

3) Mark Allan Gunnells: October Roses
This is a great ghost story in the old-fashioned “around the campfire” vein. College students searching for the lost body of a long-dead serial killer get more than they bargained for when they find him. Spooky Halloween read.

4) William Cook: Devil Inside
William Cook is a man who knows his madmen. Here he explores the delicate balance between sanity and insanity, and the disturbing consequences when the walls between the two collapse.

5) John Paul Allen: House Guest
When does love become something dark and sinister? John Paul Allen explores this complex question through an incredibly bizarre narrative construct (no spoilers here). He examines that nebulous place between reality and the supernatural through the character of Chastity and her rather unique situation.

 Reposted from Horror Novel Reviews.Com

John Paul Allen, William Meikle, Sandy DeLuca, Matt Molgaard, Drake Morgan, Mark Allan Gunnells, William Cook, Horror Novella, Horror

Jack Ketchum Interview/s

As a self-confessed Jack Ketchum fan, I like reading interviews about what makes him tick as a writer and as a person. For those of you out there who like Jack Ketchum and his work, I figure you would probably enjoy them as well. Jack Bantry from the fabulous Splatterpunk zine, gave me permission to post this recent interview he did with Jack so without further ado here it is, plus all the available online links I could find to good text/audio/video interviews with the man himself. Enjoy.

Jack Ketchum interview by Jack Bantry from Splatterpunk Zine 
The following is an interview I did with Jack Ketchum for the first issue of SPLATTERPUNK.

How did you come about collaborating with Lucky McKee on THE WOMAN? Who approached who with the initial idea? Was it always going to be a film as well as a novel? Did the novel come before the script?

Andrew Van den Houten, who produced and directed my script for OFFSPRING, made an executive decision – instead of killing The Woman off as my screenplay did, he let her live. With a sequel firmly in mind. When I saw Pollyanna McIntosh’s work, I realized why and was glad he did. She clearly deserved a movie all her own. Andrew had always wanted to work with Lucky and knew that I already had, so we showed him OFFSPRING too, and he heartily agreed. Polly was ferociously good!

The idea to do both a film script and a book together was there from the start. I don’t recall who first suggested it – maybe it was just in the air. But we quickly agreed as to how to go about it. We instant-mailed. We’d do maybe an hour, hour-and-a half until we went brain-dead, discussing the characters first, then the themes, plot, dialogue, all kinds of things. We had a fine time together, almost always on the same page, absolutely always willing to bend to a good idea. We’d talk about how the book would differ from the movie, scenes of internal monologue in the prose version, point of view changes, etcetera. And we kept everything on file, even the goofiest ideas we knew would never made it into either version. So that by the time we were done we had “bibles” for both movie and novel. We agreed that Lucky would do the heavy lifting on the script and I’d do if for the novel. So Lucky would write ten, fifteen pages or so and e-mail them to me, and I’d revise and send them back, and we’d do this until we felt we’d nailed them and then go on to the next section. When it came to the book, I’d write maybe thirty pages and send him to him, and we’d go back and forth on that.

How did you collaborate with Ed Lee on the SLEEP DISORDER stories?

I’d only previously collaborated with Lee on the five stories collected in SLEEP DISORDER and one story, THE NET, with P.D. Cacek – Trish to her friends. Lee had this story called I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU that he wasn’t happy with. He didn’t like the tone. So he asked me if I’d like to doctor it up for him. The first thing I did was change the title to I’D GIVE ANYTHING FOR YOU – more to the point of the story. Then, because Lee tends to write longer than I do, I did a lot of trimming, swatted down some of the sex scenes, zapped some adjectives and lines here and there, and sent it back to him. He fine-tuned and that was that. A couple of year later he sent me LOVE LETTERS FROM THE RAIN FOREST. Basically tonal problems again. Same thing – I edited, tinkered. Then I had a story called MASKS for which I couldn’t find an ending, and another called EYES LEFT. Lee found the right endings for both of them. We passed them back and forth maybe twice. I did have an ending for SLEEP DISORDER but it struck me as flat. Lee came up with one a whole lot much better.

The story with Trish was my idea. We talked it over at NECON, our annual writers-behaving-badly summer bash. The notion was, an e-correspondence between an older man and an underage girl, neither one of them being quite truthful, with disastrous results. It was based on a true story I’d read about. We decided to actually write the thing by e-mailing back and forth, playing our parts online – me the older guy, she the teenage girl – and with all the bare bones in mind, making up the dialogue as we went along. Then I did the final polish and the epilogue. It was great fun!

When working on the script how did you deal with some of the graphic details in the novel? I read the book first and wondered how you’d deal with some of the explicit details – pliers on nipples, the eyeballs, killing of Brian, the dog child, etc. – Did you think to leave some of the details out of the book because they couldn’t be shown on screen?

We discussed them at length, sure. Lucky’s a bold, even fearless film-maker, but he’s also a softie at heart. Believe it or not, we’re alike that way. We’re also very aware of the fine line between exposing hideous activity and exploiting it. It’s a balancing act perhaps harder to perform in a movie than in a book, because you can explain more in a novel, you can go deeper into the motives, the whys. But you’re going to be surprised at how closely linked book and movie are.

Will there be another book in the series?

Can’t say for sure at this point one way or another. But we’ve discussed some options. We’ve resolved that if we do a sequel, it’s got to be a story that’s as important to tell as the story in THE WOMAN, and it’s got to explore theme and character. Neither of us are even remotely interested in a Jason/Freddy franchise.

You have written other novels, like RIGHT TO LIFE and THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, where someone has been held in a basement or cellar, any reason for this? Have you had a traumatic experience in a basement or enclosed space?

When I was a kid growing up in the fifties, everybody had a cellar, and nobody had the bucks to light, heat, and convert there’s into a playroom. So that what you had was this room that stayed cold and usually damp, even in summer, and not a lot of light coming in through ground-level windows. They tended to be spooky places, dark, with bare bulbs handing from the ceiling. We had coal bins. Stone wash-basins with wooden washboards. There was a chute that collected our ashes from the fireplace. I’d open it and hide stuff there. On one occasion I found a dead bird inside, and on many occasions, bits of charred bone. Freaked me the hell out. When I was about ten or so, we neighborhood kids used to have meetings of our Horror Club down there, and pasted our favorite photos from FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND or CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN up on the cinderblock walls.

So, no traumatic experience, but I do associate basements with mystery and horrors. And in all those true-crime stories you read, where do they tend to keep their victims? Not usually on the front porch, in a rocking chair. It’s down in the cold dark depths.

Where did you and Lucky get the idea for having THE WOMAN become the captive when she’s always been the hunter?

That came right away, and it was a natural — a reversal that would immediately avoid the same-old-same-old. It was also a way to get at her character in a lot more depth, to show many more sides of her. Remember that we always had Polly in mind, and we wanted to showcase her skills as an actress, as well as tell a good yarn.

We’ve mentioned OFFSPRING and THE WOMAN, but the novel that started it all was OFF SEASON. Would you like to see it made into a film / Are there any plans / Have you considered writing a script?

I sold film rights to OFF SEASON quite a few years ago but thus far the buyer hasn’t been able to finance the movie. There’s new interest just this year, though, from a very reputable director whose name I can’t mention yet, but who I’d love to see at the helm. Should that happen, I suspect he’d want to write his own script and knowing his work, that’d be fine with me.

That sounds interesting!! Yes, indeed…

I got a kindle for Christmas, but I still prefer reading books: being able to hold the book; having the cover in my hand; with older books the smell of the paper, etc. But a lot of horror novels are very limited and expensive (mass-market paperback seem to be disappearing), and the Kindle versions are much cheaper so your work becomes more widely available. You’ve been a writer for over 30 years and will have noticed the changes much sooner. What are your thoughts on this?

I think very few people were prepared for e-books and I was not one of them. In fact it’s only within the last year that my stuff has been available in that format. I can’t feel too bad about that, though, since most of the publishing industry were and still are in the same boat. If I were to make a prediction about all this, it would be that things will settle down as the world’s economies settle down and perhaps even before then. That e-books will co-exist with paper formats and each will support the other. And though I’m not sure mass-market paperbacks will ever make a comeback, it’s not out of the realm of possibility either. Look at vinyl. What worries me right now is e-piracy. There’s a lot of it. And we writers work too damn hard to have a bunch of spoiled, entitled, low-level sociopath assholes steal away our living.

What would you write on your epitaph? Jack Ketchum…

It would have to be either: JACK KETCHUM, LOVED BOOKS, WOMEN AND CATS, NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER or just JACK KETCHUM, LUCKY GUY

All questions by Jack Bantry
Photo by Steve Thornton
(Originally published in SPLATTERPUNK, Issue 1, April 2012)

 
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Available Online Interviews with Jack Ketchum (Text/Audio/Video):
http://www.outofthegutteronline.com/2012/07/jack-ketchum-interview.htmlhttp://theoriginalvangoghsearanthology.com/2013/01/24/an-interview-with-jack-ketchum/http://www.richardgodwin.net/author-interviews-extensive/chin-wag-at-the-slaughterhouse-interview-with-jack-ketchumhttp://chuckpalahniuk.net/interviews/authors/jack-ketchumhttp://www.feoamante.com/Stories/Inter_views/Ketchum/Jack_1.htmlhttp://revoltdaily.org/interviewing-the-scariest-guy-in-america-jack-ketchum/http://litreactor.com/interviews/5-questions-with-litreactors-master-of-horror-jack-ketchum-talking-scars-starts-may-7http://www.screenread.de/jack-ketchum-interview-the-woman/http://beforesunrisepress.com/post/53725179821/jack-ketchum-interview-with-jayme-khttp://www.killerreviews.com/dispinterview.php?intid=1780http://www.atrocitiescinema.com/interviews/jackketchumandphilnutman.htmlhttp://www.youvegotredonyou.com/#!jack-ketchum-interview/cg06http://thosedamnedhauntedinterviews.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/those-damned-haunted-interviews-jack.htmlhttp://www.leethompsonfiction.com/?p=755http://ofblog.blogspot.co.nz/2003/04/jack-ketchum-interview.htmlhttp://travisheermann.com/blog/?p=823http://killerconlv.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/killercon-4-interview-jack-ketchum.htmlhttp://katiagregori.com/JK-interview.htmlhttp://www.darkscribemagazine.com/feature-interviews/jack-ketchum-from-the-offspring-movie-set-part-1.htmlhttp://www.darkscribemagazine.com/feature-interviews/jack-ketchum-from-the-offspring-movie-set-part-2.htmlhttp://odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/interview-jack-ketchum-2/http://www.thrillandkill.com/exclusive-interview-with-jack-ketchum/http://readhorror.co.uk/interviews/jack-ketchum/http://rlk.stevegerlach.com/bp07.htmhttp://www.horrorgarage.com/horror/interview-moderncine-jack-ketchum.phphttp://beyondthemargins.com/2010/10/scariest-man-in-america-an-interview-with-jack-ketchum/http://www.evolver.at/reloaded/Jack_Ketchum_Interview

 
Videohttp://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjwccz_nifff-2011-interview-jack-ketchum_shortfilmshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTmPIkrSEf0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlGOk7RqzYghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEoGQqrGbs 
Audiohttp://www.books-booze.com/2012/10/18/bb-ep-13-jack-ketchum/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj-G-eZSKXUhttp://www.atrocitiescinema.com/interviews/audio/ketchumnutmaninterview_stream.html
Essay by Jack Ketchum: http://litreactor.com/essays/jack-ketchum/splat-goes-the-hero-visceral-horror




Recommended LINKS for further reading:

Jack Ketchum: Official Homepage Jack Ketchum: International Homepage Jack Ketchum @Twitter Jack Ketchum @Facebook Jack Ketchum @YouTube  

Jack Bantry, Splatterpunk, Splatterpunk Zine, Jack Ketchum, Interviews

Interview with Publisher/Author James Ward Kirk

I'd like to give a warm welcome to author, publisher, and personal friend of mine, James Ward Kirk. He is the publisher and editor of the annual anthologies, Indiana Horror, Indiana Science Fiction and Indiana Crime. He has a collection of published short stories titled 'Insane Brain' and is the author of the novel 'The Butterfly Killer'. He resides in Indianapolis and has a Master's Degree in English from Indiana University at Indianapolis. James also produces and publishes themed anthologies via his exciting new imprint, JWK Fiction.   Interview with JAMES WARD KIRKJames Ward Kirk You are currently publisher and editor of three anthologies. Let's start with the first of these anthologies; its origins and the first authors to be published within.
I’ve been publishing anthologies as far back as the 2011 edition of Indiana Horror. The 2012 edition of Indiana Horror was published recently. I also have a 2011 edition of Indiana Science Fiction and the recently published Indiana Science Fiction 2012. I also have a 2012 edition of Indiana Crime and Indiana Crime 2013 is in the submission process. My first endeavors involved providing a medium to publish and promote Indiana writers. This love and respect for Indiana writers continues. Contributors to Indiana Horror include James S. Dorr, A.J. French, Murphy Edwards and Lee Forsythe. Indiana Horror 2011 has some excellent content. As it was my very first venture in publishing, I had a lot to learn. I made mistakes. The best thing I learned is how important it is to connect with writers on a personal level. When I did Indiana Horror 2011, my only intention was to do one annual anthology. I discovered that I loved the process of putting together anthologies, from reading the stories to placing content in what would become the master document. But most of all, I enjoyed the contributors. I have made some excellent friends. I’ve watched them grow as writers, to publish their first novels. I am proud of my writer friends.  My three current anthologies, Hell, Grave Robbers and Serial Killers Iterum, started out with Static Movement.  They ran into some problems with their publisher.  I asked for and received permission to publish the three anthologies under my logo.  Their cover art didn’t migrate.  I had to come with covers for the anthologies.  I turned to William Cook, a fellow writer, and he created the most amazing covers I’ve seen to date.  I was building the interior file for the anthologies as work was accepted.  A fellow writer friend, Mike Jansen, added some final touches to the interior files with some special fonts he has access to.  At the end, I had three beautiful anthologies filled with excellent poetry, flash fiction and short stories.  But still I wasn’t satisfied.  I called for and received some excellent art to decorate the interior of the anthologies.  This art came from relationships I had built over the years with some wonderful people.  Facebook has been invaluable in developing these relationships.  I have four pages on Facebook other than my main account: James Ward Kirk Fiction, Indiana Horror, Indiana Science Fiction and Indiana Crime.  The number of followers of these pages has helped me build and maintain relationships with my artist and writer friends.
What was your earliest inspiration to start a publication series for Indiana based authors? How long had you been a fan of horror novels beforehand? Name the authors whose work you most often read and why you preferred their work.
The inspiration for Indiana Horror 2011 resulted from meeting some local horror writers. They were arrogant, smug and condescending toward writers that had not reached their level of perceived success. Not all of them, but a lot of them. I thought, “Who made these assholes the guardians at the gate?” So I created Indiana Horror 2011 as a medium for new writers to earn publication credit and have their visions appear in print. I wanted to create a home for these good people, a home for their poetry and prose that they could be proud of. There’s nothing like being published to keep writers working on their craft. So JWK Fiction evolved.  As time passed, I’ve added writers and artists from around the world.
The 2011 edition of Indiana Horror is your first published anthology. How well was it received by reviewers? What were the mistakes you learned from around the time this edition was compiled and published?
The contributors to Indiana Horror 2011 were quite pleased with the publication. At the time, that was enough for me. As time passed, I learned how better to promote the work of authors that are gracious enough to choose me as their editor and publisher.  Indiana Horror 2011 is in the process of receiving a make-over, with new cover art and a fancy interior file.  Mike Jansen is helping me with this.  As my knowledge regarding promotion has improved, I expect Indiana Horror to be more well-known and better received.  I’ll be able to promote the new version and attract a wider audience.

Explain how James S. Dorr, A.J. French, Murphy Edwards and Lee Forsythe heard you were seeking submissions for your Indiana Horror anthologies. Name the fictional pieces they submitted and describe the potential you saw in them?
I advertised on Ralan and Duotrope and Facebook. James S. Dorr’s “Ballet Of The Dolls” amazed me. He required no editing. At the time, I did not realize he was an established writer. Same for “The Dead Girls” by A.J. French. And Murphy Edwards. I think they may have been drawn to the idea of an “Indiana” anthology”. I was lucky to get them.  A.J. French later put together a very well received anthology called Shadow of the Unknown.  He included one of my short stories, and this led to an invitation to join the HWA.
How many working relationships have you gained since entering the publishing field? In what ways has connecting with authors on a personal basis helped your anthologies along?
I have developed dozens of excellent relationships through my publishing work. These people are excellent.  I care about them.  I do everything I can to promote them and their work. And not just in Indiana; I’ve made friends from Holland to New Zealand. The authors also help promote the anthologies. JWK Fiction really is a family. Developing friendships with such great writers as William Cook and Mike Jansen have led to more friendships with great people and writers.  William lives in New Zealand and Mike lives in Holland.  That makes for an interesting work day.

Free Short Fiction from James Ward Kirk: 'The Rose Garden'

Adam Glacies sat in his green plastic chair under the fading sun staring at his dead wife’s dead rose garden. Even though this Indiana May, already too hot, promised a healthy garden for Angela’s flowers, they weren’t taking. The remnants left over from the hellish winter stood crookedly, faded yellows and reds and her prize whites. Scratching at his graying whiskers with his left hand, Adam picked up the .38 resting on his lap, his ex-service revolver, and pointed the muzzle at his temple.
But he couldn’t do it. He knew he should pull the trigger, even things out, reconfirm his loyalty to Angela, but he also understood cowardice and disloyalty. Standing, he stuffed his piece into the belt holding his jeans up and walked to his house. The grass needs cutting. The goddamn dandelions are taking over. In the kitchen, Adam set the table. He loaded his plate with three pork chops, a heaping mound of mashed potatoes, and golden corn. Across the table from him stood a large framed photograph of Angela wearing a white dress with matching sunbonnet, long blond hair framing a perfect face. Her blue eyes and bright smile projected the most pain for Adam. She was still innocent. Tearing into his meal, barely bothering to chew, never taking his eyes from Angela’s, he finished, then hurried to the sink and vomited everything back up. His pants fell to the floor. Suffering serious weight loss. Pulling them back up, he turned on the tap water and rinsed the sink, then turned on the garbage disposal. He listened hungrily to his guilt being chewed up. After turning off the tap and the garbage disposal, he walked to the living room, sat down in his recliner, laid his pistol on the table beside his chair, then pulled the drawer open next to him. Removing the half empty bottle of bourbon, he finished the nut-brown liquid in three long pulls, falling asleep in his black leather recliner.
***
Adam awoke to a low buzzing sound. The room was dark, as was his mood. Becoming a bit more alert, he picked up his gun and walked shakily to the front porch. Forcing himself to focus, he saw small furry creatures with big eyes—Adam was reminded of chipmunks and apple-head Chihuahuas with antennae—eating the dandelions in his yard. A whippoorwill sounded in the distance.  Adam pointed his .38 at one of them. No! We come in peace and love. Whatever. Lowering his gun, he walked back into the house, to his bedroom, and fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of blue eyes and the lost chirping of crickets in a moonlit night.
***
Eve: the exact opposite of Angela, raven-haired, eyes so dark and large like a starless midnight sky, tall and long-legged; and corrupt. Eve: meth-thin, opposite of Angela’s full-bodied figure, small breasted but a plump ass: Angela’s golem. A courier, Eve drove a new black Caddy and lived in Gwynneville. Adam drove an unmarked blue Impala and lived in Shelbyville. He waited outside her supplier’s house in Rushville and followed her along State Road 52 with the windows down, enjoying the scent of fresh cut hay, until they reached her home. Eve never saw him coming.  But she was ready. Waiting until she almost reached the green front door of her white house, her large silver Cathy purse hanging from her shoulder, wearing a short blue-jean skirt and a pearl high-cut t-shirt, he made his move. Just as Eve pushed the door open, Adam hit her with his left shoulder. She went tumbling, dropping her purse, and two kilos of bagged crystal meth spilled onto the floor. Eve, cuffed in a matter of seconds, rolled over unto her back. Adam looked down at her.  She spread her legs just enough to show her promise of an ebony happy trail. “Don’t do this. I’ll suck you dry. I’ll fuck you dry. I know things.” Her voice, melodic, her mouth filled with promise, seemed a reward to Adam. He worked hard and played hard, more so than anyone he knew. He couldn’t deny his erection and didn’t want to anyway. This beautiful woman, impossible to resist, sang a siren’s song. Adam dropped his jeans and straddled her. “Wait,” she sang, “bring it up here first.” She opened her wonderful mouth. Eve was not a gift; rather, an addiction.
***
Adam crawled out of bed, making it to the toilet just in time to empty his stomach. Not bothering to brush his teeth, he walked to the kitchen and started some coffee, standing in front of the machine, motionless, breathing shallowly, watching the coffee brew. After finishing, he poured some into a cup and walked to the front porch. On his third sip he noticed the absence of dandelions. Remembering a vague dream about small furry creatures eating them, and speaking to him, he shrugged his shoulders. I need to cut the grass. He noticed his neighbors’ yards still overrun by dandelions. He finished his coffee and walked around the side of his house toward the garage where his green lawnmower awaited him. Filling the gas tank, he checked the oil and then pulled it behind him to the smallish backyard. I should probably cut those roses down. But his stomach heaved at the thought. Hesitantly, he glanced at the rose garden. What? The roses, standing tall, leered back at him in perfect health. Angela’s rose garden could easily grace any glossy magazine cover. They’re unspoiled. As he approached, their perfume overwhelmed him and he fell to his knees. I’m going insane. Finally. Standing, he finished his journey to the rose garden, allowing his eyes to adjust to the bright hues. Their scent and color made his eyes water. And the morning sun, burning mercilessly, was unable to affect the tears streaming down his face, as now he cried—no, sobbed.  Birds chirped; a dove cooed. In the distance a woodpecker worked mightily. I don’t deserve this. Adam stood and walked to the edge of the garden. He longed to experience joy over the miracle before him, but he suffered only emptiness. Angela should be here. Reaching out to touch one of the white roses, he hesitated. The bed of the garden glowed violet, the deep color a king might wear. I smell... I’m reminded of... manure... but not like any I know... there’s no chemical smell... Adam took three steps backward and tripped over the lawnmower, falling to the ground. Shit! Regaining his footing, he looked all around, and decided to cut the grass. Starting the mower, he began his routine of cutting: familiar squares, rectangles, circles around the two maples. He withdrew into his thoughts. Nine in the morning on a beautiful Saturday, the breeze perfectly warm, Angela so lovely in her jeans and white t-shirt, hair pulled back, a smile dancing on the edges of her mouth.  “I’m proud of you for donating your time at the Seniors Village.” “Thank you, Adam. Those people are so fun. I love listening to their stories.” “I’ll pick you up at four.” “I love you.” “I love you, too.” Watching Angela walking, wondering why Eve’s hold on him is so powerful when Angela is so beautiful. Sex is wonderful with her, and the love I feel when I’m inside her is real.  Driving away, growing hard, not for the moment, but for the moments to come. Naked Eve meeting him at her back door, gone Brazilian, holding coffee laced with bourbon; screwing, drinking, screwing, napping, drinking, screwing... “Adam! Wake up! You’re late!” Adam trembled. Waking up with my face buried deep in her lap, unable to finish what I started, drunk, feeling Eve’s hands push me and I fall to the floor naked and the bottle of bourbon falls and empties onto my head, rushing to dress, leaving Eve still drunk and already back to sleep... Angela sitting on the steps, smiling at me even though I’m late, God bless her. Angela getting in and I pull away still drunk, so drunk. I pick up speed and she leans over to kiss me and oh my God she smells Eve on my mouth and my Angela shrinks. Leaving Rushville on SR52, cornfields, tree lines to fight erosion, and I hear her start to cry and this angers me so I smack her. Picking up speed, turning on my lights, passing slowing cars, and Angela plants a right fist directly onto my right temple and I briefly lose it... Waking up... my cop friends telling me my car rolled six times and I’m okay but Angela... no seatbelt, thrown from the car. I find her in three pieces: a crimson mess, one leg bled out hanging pale from a tree branch, her trunk all yellow in the flashing lights. Adam shuddered. His BAC never checked. Buried in three days... her white sunbonnet... Angela gone forever to a blue place where roses grew as big as oaks, a haven he knew he’d never reach. His first Saturday without Eve... The second Saturday, nighttime, peeping through her window, Eve strung out on meth and whiskey, already another naked man by her side, he slunk away; murder thrumming in-between beats of his heart, never to be. Adam quivered, released from memory, the tank of the mower empty, the expected spring breeze still, twilight beginning to twinkle in the sky. How long have I been standing here? He looked around the neighborhood, lights flashing on in homes, cars parked neatly in driveways, dandelions everywhere. He walked into his home, tugged long and hard on a fresh bottle of bourbon, and fell asleep, feeling death like a kiss on his cheek, and he vibrated. Awakened by a buzzing in his head, now a familiar sound, a loved one calling out, and he walked out to his front porch. All of the dandelions gone; no freshly cut grass in his neighbors’ yards, just the absence of dandelions and the loss of night sounds. No chirping of birds, no crickets, no buzzing of flying insects—only the silence of the night exploding in his mind.  Adam left the porch and walked around the side of the house to the backyard. Gazing upon Angela’s rose garden, understanding now the completed artistry; his memory of this morning’s rose garden incomplete, experienced like the morning before the final brush strokes on the Sistine Chapel, which Angela once told him about. She should know. Angela’s roses towered above him, at least 15 feet tall, and colored like the most beautiful works of art in the world. Adam fell to his knees. A stirring among the roses... Them. Watching without fear or anxiety as the beings spread out from the garden, their circle completed. Do not fear, they sang. We offer you Angela. “How?” Adam felt the dew soaking through his pants at the knees. Honeysuckle scented the breeze. Come. Stand among us. We will take you to Angela. Adam stood, entered the circle, and blinked. And saw the earth below him, as blue as Angela’s eyes. I’m inside a bubble.  Yes, a bubble. “You ate the crickets, too.” Like you, we are omnivores. Omnivores? I think that means they eat anything. Like an old spider spinning a new web, fear spread through him. I don’t understand. Adam blinked again. He saw blackness. We are in galaxy M87, the home of the largest black hole in your known universe. “Why?” We are taking you to Angela. “Why?” Because this is what you want, no, need. Adam experienced the reflection of the bubble in a blue star being sucked into the black hole. Other stars—red, yellow, white—moved with him, transforming into shapes of monarch butterflies and seahorses and fireflies; and other images he had no words to describe.  A tap on Adam’s shoulder surprised him. He turned. “Hello. My name is Hieronymus Bosch.” Adam nodded to the man, but before he could introduce himself the man was no more. What a creepy little shit. Adam blinked. We are near. He blinked again and was momentarily blinded. An O-star, and why it is blue; rare indeed, but quite beautiful, don’t you think? “Yes.” Why do I deserve such beauty? He blinked. I don’t.“Where is Angela?” Near, very near; please be patient. He closed his eyes, then heard Angela’s voice: Adam? He opened them. There! You see, Adam? A planet: one half, the side facing the star, shimmered yellow/red, molten; the side facing away from the star white, icy, stark; and a blue ring around the middle of the planet promised innocence, purity, and a concept for which Adam couldn’t find the word he desired. This planet does not rotate.The middle part represents where life exists. Angela is there, in the blue ring. “When do I get to see her?” I have so much to say; especially, I’m sorry. We are sorry. When did we say you may see her? “Then what?” Adam, happy for Angela and her blue place, understood now it didn’t matter anymore. Choose. “Choose?” Choose your home; white or lemon-crimson.Free will, Adam, is a promise. One of many. I should have known. “I always favored her white roses.” Adam fell. As he sunk into the planet’s atmosphere, he broke into a million pieces of eternally screaming ice.  Contact James and JWK Fiction:
Twitter: @jameswardkirkFacebook: Friend MeGoodReads: Become a FanMake sure to check out the vast range of James Ward Kirk publications here on Amazon. James S. Dorr, A.J. French, Murphy Edwards, Lee Forsythe, James Ward Kirk, James Ward Kirk Fiction, Indiana Horror, Indiana Science Fiction, Indiana Crime, HWA, Ralan, Duotrope, Facebook, GoodReads, Twitter, Hell, Grave Robbers, Serial Killers Iterum, Amazon

A Message from my Publisher: Black Bed Sheet Books, Nicholas Grabowsky.

BLACK BED SHEET BOOKS IS NOW STAFFING & GROWING LIKE THE BLOB!

http://www.downwarden.com/blackbedsheet/
ATTN: We are growing rapidly and now currently seeking manuscript editors, proofreaders, marketing professionals, and able eyes to go through slush piles and submissions.  Cover designers and artists are encouraged to query with links to samples of their work.  If you have other related services to offer, we're all ears.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER:

Nicholas GrabowskyMy name is Nicholas Grabowsky. I began my professional writing career as a mass market paperback horror author for Critic's Choice Paperbacks/Lorevan Publishing/Carol Publishing in the mid-1980's with the novels Pray, Serpent's Prey, The Rag Man, Tale of the Makeshift Faire, June Park, Sweet Dreams, Lady Moon, a few romance novels, self-help books, A Nancy Reagan bio, and the novel for Halloween IV, all under the names of Nicholas Randers, Marsena Shane, and my own real name.  I started as a professional editor for Orange County, CA's The Word Factory in 1989 for area colleges, became a teacher and lecturer and, try as I did, screenwriter with many close calls (the Wes Craven-sanctioned Shocker II, Sanctuary, The Three Introverts), and by the end of 2014 I'd have an entire local indie horror convention (Days of Terror) and feature film director's credit under my belt (Cutting Edges), if all goes well, plus a brand new novel (The Downwardens).  My three decades of work is acclaimed by Stephen King, Clive Barker, Wes Craven, Joe Dante, Dean Koontz, Jonathan Maberry, Brian Keene, E! Entertainment Television, Gorezone, Fangoria, won the 2004 American Author's Association Award for Novel of the Year (The Everborn), and I've been spreading myself around the industry for three decades.  My works have, to date, never had a single negative review.  Like many of my contemporaries, my books have been in grocery stores across the nation and worldwide in checkout lines alongside the Kings and Koontz titles, I've been a paid guest at many a genre cons  I've found myself in situations unlike any other in the industry I know, like mediating between Brian Keene and Nikolaus Pacione, and John Skipp and Craig Spector.  I got Peter Straub and Koji Suzuki (author of The Ring) drunk.  I've never subscribed to any writer's organization, I am adamantly independent, though I enthusiastically support anyone trying to successfully pull off this whole horror writing gig.


ABOUT BLACK BED SHEET BOOKS:


We made book industry history as the first publisher to introduce a fully virtual online book signing.  We've been introducing in-store book signings paper-free, where with a laptop and a few essentials a fan can walk up to the author and get a signed ebook exactly the same way you would a print one, except on a disk or flash drive or emailed ebook, with the store taking a cut.  We are sanctioned by the estate of Vincent Price.  We were the last publisher of Forrest J Ackerman.  We were voted as a top five publisher in the 2009 Preditors & Editors reader's poll.  Our partners are Hacker's Source Magazine who have made a big impact in the last decade in indie magazines, and A Shot in the Dark Comics, who not only have been releasing great comics from my own writings but other BBS authors as well as a long list of Marvel caliber titles.  We sponsor the 250,000-listener blog talk radio show Francy & Friends, who's featured many of today's top horror writers as well as soul singer Solomon Burke (Francy did a speech at his wake in L.A. with the owner of the Grammys because of her show), Five For Fighting, David Lee Roth, G. Tom Mac, John Skipp, Craig Spector, Jonathan MaBerry, Rick Hautala, Elvira, Marla Gibbs, Lloyd Kaufman, Courtney Gains, Bill Moseley, Brad Loree, Vikki Lizzi and Jeff Conaway, Young Rebel Goombas, god.....a plethora of many industry names over the years.  We are also partnering with Troma Pictures, and we have movies in production from our titles (like Alexander Beresford's CHARLA and Jason Gehlert's QUIVER).  We've had sell-out tables, have sponsored great convention parties and events at major conventions over the years (like Horrorfind including a meet-and-greet coordinated by Brian Keene, and many World Horror cons and events across the US).  We have overseas rights agents actively seeking deals.  We have a web television channel called BLACK HAMSTER on www.veetle.com which features indie horror shorts and has to date over 100,000 views.

We began as Diverse Media in 2002 not long after the advent of Print On Demand made me realize that, after gaining the rights back to all my previous publications, I could be more in charge of my titles.  I made a deal with Trancas international Films to put out a new special edition of my Halloween IV novelization with unlimited liberties, and then I began publishing local talent in Sacramento when I saw how easy it was.  In 2008, I started Black Bed Sheet after yet another publisher of mine went the way of so many others and owed a lot of people money, and I went into it thinking I could do this the right way, and I'm a fervent believer that once you realize your lot in life, you best get familiar with every aspect of that lot, in this case taking a book from the ground up and doing something with it, particularly when it comes to first-time writers nobody's ever heard of before, to try and make them be somebody if their writing and ambition really hits me.
"Inspiration and Horror, Baby!!!"
Since Black Bed Sheet Books was officially launched in 2008, I, for the first time in my career, started realizing that as a publisher I placed my career in certain peril.  A few authors I'd been friends with for years, not long after I'd publish them, now won't have anything to do with me because I didn't sell enough for them, didn't place them strategically in book stores where they had vendettas with book store managers where I was supposed to...I don't know, force those managers into having those book signings.  I've had authors I've worked my ass off for months with their books and they wouldn't lift a finger to help sell them, do signings, nothing, and then hold the whole thing against me.  I've had authors who've said that my accepting them was the greatest thing that's ever happened in their entire lives.  It's been a wild ride.  But the thing that separates me from the rest, one of the things, is that indie presses come and go, and unless I die sometime soon, Black Bed Sheet Books will be here long long after most have far gone.  This is my work, and from ten a.m. to about five the next morning, I am at my five computer screens trying to work magic for other writers I very much believe in.  I get over 350 submissions a year....at least one if not two a day, from the US and as far as Africa and India and Brazil and the whole world.  This is my life, for better or worse, and my priority (and specialty) is taking talent from nowhere and making them go somewhere with it, if only I am but a launching point or a step up, I don't promise big publishing house success, even though I believe I have in the palm of my hands elements that can change the entire book industry as we know it.  That's a mouthful, but get back with me in about five years about that.


OUR FAULTS/SHORTCOMINGS AND THE CHANGES WE'RE MAKING AS A RESULT:

I constantly lie to myself and believe it.  I'm a professional writer, editor, web master, cover designer, marketer, manager, promoter, and for what seems like forever I've been running BBS all by myself, with the exception of authors who bring their own editors and artists etc to the table at their own insistence and my approval.  Those things have helped.  And for lack of funding, despite reaching out for interns and so forth, and because for some reason I punish myself being a workaholic with a dream of making it so I won't have to be anymore (I have no other job or source of income, I rely entirely on BBS) and inherently being independent I like doing things myself, I've been stumbling over my own feet in increasingly embarrassing ways.  Here I am trying to impress, and despite my efforts I've come up with a handful of titles with poor editing.  Readers that don't know any better, who haven't read all the exemplary titles we produce with perfection, with or without my personal editing, can and have read the few titles we've put out that for various reasons have serious editing problems and that really makes us look bad, like all our titles are like that, and that's far from the truth.  So, now that we're selling more than we ever had, we are able to employ outside help.  This, hands-down, is our most important change.  Thus, we've already acquired a few and are looking for more.

Submissions are overwhelming.  Thus, now that we're able, we're getting people to address each one.

I am also looking for foot soldiers, so to speak, that can market and help spread our good word.

One thing I haven't decided upon yet, as far as change is concerned, entails this:  this is a business.  It is a business where I invest in authors, based on what I feel is their merit, their talent, their ambition to promote themselves, and their conviction in signing with BBS to support BBS and exploit it and their book in every way possible, with great positivity and pride.  My waking days are consumed with my authors, the money and time and effort and profound sacrifice in my personal life I daily give for them.  One author who's published two books with me hit me up one day with "I'm getting ready to do a bunch of interviews for my books and I can't mention you in those interviews unless you tell me what you've done for me so I can tell them."  If they don't already know how without me they wouldn't be doing those interviews, they'll never know.  Another one, I helped an author that went through many publishers with the same book and I took a month of my time putting that book together and they bowed out three weeks before release not because the editing wasn't good enough but because my editing background wasn't good enough, and two weeks after parting ways they put their book up on Kickstarter.com to raise $2,000 for an editor and found a publisher a month later who put out my own edited version anyway.  Another bought 500 authors copies from me and parted ways because he couldn't sell them all and his efforts selling his 500 copies couldn't compete with my trying to sell copies on my own.  I also went through a great deal of working night and day for a long time developing a couple of books for authors who I had accepted and a few months after their book was published, they dropped the ball and left me to do all the work, and when the work wasn't good enough they gave me a multitude of reasons why.

So.....like any other business, I have to weigh whether my very valuable time is worth the bullshit I have to go through for those who disrespect and treat me like they're doing me a favor.

Because of these things and more, I lied again.  I am not just a publisher.  I put my daily life in service to authors, and in my accepting you, I in effect become a sort of employer.  I am always up front and tell it like it is.  If any author from this point forth has a problem with that, or makes it difficult for me to do my job, accuses me of playing favorites, doesn't happily and freely promote the man who took you on and first believed in you and gave you a step up in your career, you have absolutely no business being with me and I can and will let you go.  It's not worth it to me, and I or anyone else can't possibly do any more than I already have, and I've done a huge, I say again, huge, credibility leap for you by just accepting you in the first place not to mention all the incredibly hard and laborious work in simply putting your book out.

Okay, so that's out of the way.
 
I suppose I said enough.  For those of you who aren't editors, etc., and have works to submit, Black Bed Sheet Books is always open to hear you, and if we accept you, in a world where the industry is constantly changing, we are at work re-defining the industry itself.


  We hope everyone who reads this gets what I'm saying, that good, credible people respond, and to all horror writers in particular.  I speak with the confidence of a thousand of all the seasoned authorities in the genre that have done way beyond what I've ever done, and till my last dying breath my legacy is this, what I'm writing about.  I used to be a preacher to thousands of people in my late teens in many fundamentalist churches, was labeled as a Jesus freak who laid hands on many people who fell down backwards before me and oohed and awed that I was so young doing that; in junior high I condemned the friends of mine who were into Michael Myers. Who'd ever believe I'd write the Halloween IV novel, all the other horror books, anything.  It's a crazy life.  But I know who I am, what I've become, and I like it.  I'm passionate about it the likes of which few in this industry have ever seen.

My little hamster needs me.  Gotta go.  Time for lettuce.

---Nicholas Grabowsky
Black Bed Sheet Books
Arguably, the world's #1 publisher of independent horror fiction.
   

Stephen King, Clive Barker, Wes Craven, Joe Dante, Dean Koontz, Jonathan Maberry, Brian Keene, E! Entertainment Television, Gorezone, Fangoria, Nicholas Grabowsky, Black Bed Sheet Books, Halloween IV, Kickstarter.com, Trancas international Films, Brian Keene, John Skipp, Craig Spector, Peter Straub, Koji Suzuki, Vincent Price, Forrest J Ackerman.  Preditors & Editors, Hacker's Source Magazine, A Shot in the Dark Comics, Downwarden.com, Five For Fighting, David Lee Roth, G. Tom Mac, John Skipp, Craig Spector, Jonathan MaBerry, Rick Hautala, Elvira, Marla Gibbs, Lloyd Kaufman, Courtney Gains, Bill Moseley, Brad Loree, Vikki Lizzi, Jeff Conaway, Young Rebel Goombas, Black Hamster, Alexander Beresford, Jason Gehlert,

James Joyce - The Search for Meaning in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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While there may seem to be no definable authorial presence on the surface, the narrator is a creation of the author’s and speaks the language of modernism. Our understanding of Stephen’s character is more explicit and yet more complicated, because of the style of narration, which uses a vivid stream-of-consciousness dialogue. The apparent lack of “narrative cues” is what distinguishes Joyce’s novel as different, to the standard format and narration style of conventional fiction, and characteristically difficult, a common trait of modernist literature.  </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">The difficulty of such a novel is that we (the reader & critic) have to read meaning by our own comprehension of the interior (and exterior) world of Stephen, with our own intellectual perceptions, beliefs, preconceptions, and experience. The problem with this is explicitly emphasized by Wayne Booth in his essay on <i>The Problem of Distance</i> between author, character, and reader in <i>Portrait</i>:</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">Whatever intelligence Joyce postulates in his reader – let us assume the unlikely case of its being comparable to his own – will not be sufficient for precise inference of a pattern of judgements which is, after all, private to Joyce . . . many of the refinements he intended in his finished <i>Portrait</i> are, for most of us, permanently lost.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></a></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jQ4bKyLNzSQ..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jQ4bKyLNzSQ..." width="435" /></a></b></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>(C) William Cook</b></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">The language and words Joyce uses are not foreign to most literate English readers, yet the style and the complexity of the meaning of the prose, is what makes it difficult. Moreover, because we are effectively in the mind of the narrator, we also presume that meaning will come from within the language of his speech and thought. This sense of anticipation preludes the reader’s understanding of what the meaning signifies to and within Stephen’s world. In other words, we expect to find meaning through the narrator, yet until we find our way through the labyrinth of allusion and metaphor that is Stephen’s narration, we can not begin to comprehend the state of Stephen’s consciousness.  </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">Making reading difficult, as it does, <i>Portrait </i>lends itself to many forms of criticism. Its difficulty has extended its critique beyond the realms of modernism into contemporary post-modern analysis and debate. The structural coherence of the narrative depends on the type of reading practiced. For instance, a psychoanalytical (or Freudian) reading would envisage <i>Portrait</i> as a densely coherent structural novel, due to the narrator’s ‘stream-of-consciousness dialogue and psychological elements that dominate the text. Whereas a feminist critique, would assume it was incoherent or misogynist due to the negative or apparently disempowered portrayals of women in the novel. This reading is difficult because it is hard to prove whether Stephen is a factually autobiographical portrait of Joyce.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;"> The ‘problem of distance’ makes it hard for critics to determine the author’s involvement/responsibility in his character’s beliefs and actions. It is also hard to determine whether his depictions of women are stereotypically patriarchal, and therefore negatively depicted according to general feminist critique, in character  (are beautiful girls that are transformed into birds, being oppressed by the male visionary oppressor?). </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">By writing a complex and evocative work that seems to defy definition, Joyce effectively works the text so that the reader seeks meaning, and distances himself from criticism that lacks definitive judgements due to the difficulty of the text. While this elusiveness works well for Joyce, and promotes criticism and ‘art for art’s sake’, it also generates a negative reaction to the difficulty of<i> Portrait. </i> This negative (pessimistic may be a better term) interpretation is essentially a reaction to the exclusiveness of modernism and its practitioners, Joyce being the head of the house. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">What most readers (and critics) of fiction enjoy is a work capable of appreciation and intellectual stimulation, for having a story with a coherent message, meaning, or ‘portrait’. What <i>Portrait </i>proposes, is a scholarly interpretation requiring more than mere involvement and more like devotion, in order to salvage meaning from the depths of Stephen’s mind and the text. There is a danger of the work being too abstract and mutually exclusive, almost a work of inoperative fiction, or mere curiosity, to the general reader. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">While this may seem a presumptuous view of <i>A Portrait </i>(depending on the reader response), it must be remembered that because of the demands it places on the reader, we are forced to make these critical assumptions regarding authorial intent, in order to understand the text more completely. In my view, this is the intention behind Joyce’s style and the reason why his work is so amenable to different critique and debate, yet considered difficult and obscure by the average reader.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oa7KC-xYg0E..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oa7KC-xYg0E..." width="520" /></a></b></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>(C) William Cook</b></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">Like anything that challenges the intellectual faculties, <i>Portrait</i>provokes an element of frustration and satisfaction with its many levels of difficulty. The apparent simplicity of the first chapter drags us into Stephen’s labyrinth of memory and experience. The increasingly complex narration and imagery disorientate the reader; just as Stephen seems to have a deep ambivalence toward all things, so too do we (those of us still reading). Whether it is ambivalence toward Stephen, Joyce, or that which is related (the content of the narration), a certain amount of mistrust and caution guides us through the dichotomous corridors of narrative.  As ambiguous as it may seem, because of its perceived difficulties and lack of authorial direction, there is still a story within the structure that seeks the eye (and ear) of the astute reader. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">There is a strong relationship between the aesthetic and the character. The novel is after all a <i>Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</i>, and as such, he displays characteristics of the aggressive ideology of youth and artistic temperament. Stephen Dedalus’s life advances from childhood to adulthood, in a continual odyssey for meaning and vocation that differs from convention, tradition, and expectation of his peers and guardians. We see the world through Stephen’s perceptions, rebelling against reality and looking for a deeper truth that seems to prove as elusive for him as it does for the reader. A sense of isolation and subjective relativism envelops his character and his sense of pilgrimage. He searches for camaraderie in other like minds, envisioning other young artists on the same spiritual/artistic journey, he hears their voices calling him “making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible youth” (p.253). </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">He sees himself as “their kinsman”, the embodiment of all artists, yet with an egotistical difference that still sets him apart from all the others. Stephen’s project is the height of allusion: he wants to create what he feels has never been created. With an abundance of self-generated inspiration and confidence he states, “I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race” (p.253).      </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">It is not a self-less personal identity that is to be created from Stephen’s experience, but the “uncreated conscience” of his “race”, a universal paragon that will set him up as the mythological figurehead of his people. Stephen’s ‘soul’ is exposed and opened to the reader, his soul being essentially the novel itself. Stephen has been creating (epiphanies, aesthetic objects, and artistic theories) throughout the novel; his ultimate objective is to create a work of art and experience that is of a genius previously unheard of. The genius being in the creation of an aesthetic object that represents more than itself, that embodies a moral sense of responsibility, as a production of an artistic breed that has historically pursued art for its own sake. He believes that he is the artist to accomplish this unconventional task, seeing his ‘art’ as something striving toward genius. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">Two main questions need to be asked of this proposal: is “the reality of experience” such that it is unique or essentially different from that which has been experienced and recorded before, enough so to create a new “uncreated conscience”?  In addition: what “race” is Stephen referring to? Is it the human race, the Irish race, the race of time and space<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></a>, the idealized race of artistic ‘kinsmen’, or the ‘race’ of family that he now hopes to give some moral fortitude and imagination to?  </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">        The first question is answered with a single word: no! No individual mortal being, or subjective experience, could hope to create an entirely new moral being (conscience that has not been ‘created’ before) free from the influence of that which has come before, within themselves, let alone in a whole ’race’. The aesthetic object (or work of art) can not create and impart a wholly original sense of being, or moral sensibility, by itself, that is capable of embodying the collective “conscience”, of whatever race it is that Stephen claims as his own.  Stephen’s success depends on his understanding and involvement, in a totally anthropological (not self-justified, or assuming, about the universal nature of humankind) manner, with humanity and reality as a consequence. Leaving a reality behind that is dealt with by the imagination, rather than the heart, does not suggest that Stephen's project will be successful. Yet, it does imply that his naivete will be confronted by similar archetypes of experience that will force him to confront reality, which defines the human condition, with his heart. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">The second question of ‘race’ can only be answered definitively by Joyce himself. I personally feel that Stephen’s race is that of the artist and that he is looking to blow apart artistic convention and tradition by ‘forging’ a new style that will act as a paragon to the rest of the art-world. Stephen may not do this himself, with his attempts at poetry and vision, yet Joyce <i>does </i>create this uniquely influential work of art and style (apparently original & incomparable in style, except maybe to Blake’s visionary works), in <i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.</i></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">There seems an element of hope about Stephen’s intended voyage: an elation that exudes life and dreams. However, the final sentence reeks of impending doom and mythological regression (rather than looking to the future and a new “conscience”): “Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead”(p.253). Stephen is looking to a role model; it is not his biological father, but the mythological “artificer” – Daedalus. Will he stand Stephen in good stead? Not if Stephen is Icarus (son of Daedalus), rebelling against his father’s requests and flying too close to the burning sun of freedom, melting his wings and drowning. Nor will he, if Stephen is the son of Daedalus’s sister, whom Daedalus killed by throwing him off Minerva’s sacred citadel. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">So, why use an analogy that ends in tragedy to represent Stephen. Myth and biology are as much “nets” of the soul as is convention, tradition, and expectation. Because his character is doomed to failure from the beginning, he can not escape the past and be the great creator. His own philosophy on acquiring knowledge neutralizes his aspirations with its contradictions: “he was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world”(p.167). How can you learn wisdom from others if you are “apart” from others, and amongst all the negative things (‘snares’) that you are trying to differentiate from?           </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">       There remain, no firm answers to our questions. Conjecture and uncertainty, is as much a part of our reading, as it is of Stephen’s idealistic and seemingly unrealizable aspirations. He yearns for fulfillment and completion in destructive ideals that he still takes seriously. His name denotes the path he takes, it is all pre-planned, vocation and all, and not by Stephen or Daedalus, but by the “artificer” who is Joyce. The spelling of Stephen’s last name is significant; the changing from Daedalus to Dedalus distances his surname enough from the myth to imply alternative meaning. As we find out, Stephen’s journey is a bit of a ‘dead-loss’, his aspirations to an immortal (‘dead-less’) state of created conscience proving unfounded and invalid in its reliance on myth and guidance from influential guidance. Like other critics such as Caroline Gordon<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span></a>and Marguerite Harkness<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span></a>, I feel that Stephen is set up to fail. The difficulty of the novel works to meet this end with much invention and intellectually challenging alternatives. My opinion is that it is Joyce’s intention to do this with Stephen’s character, so that once we have reached our conclusion we can concentrate on the text. Stephen’s character acts as a foil to the testimony of artifice and creation, of the text as a work of art, a novel of artistic dexterity, genius, and vision, and a masterpiece of words. In this respect, the difficulty of Joyce’s text does what it sets out to do.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UbfnR5jD75w..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UbfnR5jD75w..." width="482" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(C) William Cook</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br clear="all" /></span></span></b> <br /><hr size="1" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;" width="33%" /><div id="ftn"><br /><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">[1]</span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"> <span style="font-weight: normal;">“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all”(Ecclesiastes 9:11). A biblical reminder that human events do not always turn out in the way men expect them to, which is poignant in the light of Stephen’s impending flight from the isle, paralleled with Icarus who burnt his wings and drowned in the seas of his unnatural aspirations (mortals cannot aspire to the height of the God’s).</span></span></span></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br clear="all" /></span></span></b> <br /><hr size="1" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;" width="33%" /><div id="edn"><br /><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">[i]</span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"> See <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Text, Criticism, & Notes</i>, ed. by Chester G. Anderson, <i>The Problem of Distance in A Portrait of The Artist</i>, by Wayne Booth (New York: The Viking Press, 1968) pp. 466-467.</span></span></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><br /></div></div><br /><div id="edn"><br /><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog..." name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">[ii]</span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"> See <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Joyce’s Portrait, Criticisms & Critiques</i>, ed. by Thomas E. Connolly, <i>Some Readings and Misreadings</i>, by Caroline Gordon (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962) p. 144.</span></span></span></span></div></div><br /><div id="edn"><br /><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">[iii]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> See <i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Voices of the Text</i>, by Marguerite Harkness (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.) p.110. </span></span></span></span></b></div></div></div></div>

True Crime Serial Killers Anthology

The True Crime Serial Killers Anthology (Author Roster)   
The True Crime Serial Killers Anthology roster of ten authors is finalized. This is going to be an exciting project where each author will write a couple of short case files on lesser-known serial killers from around the world. It is also going to be an annual book, this being the first year. Publication will be November or early December in eBook, Paperback and Audiobook.

The authors are:


PETER VRONSKY
Peter is an author, filmmaker and investigative historian. He holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice history and espionage in international relations from the University of Toronto. He has written a couple of serial killer books:

Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters
Serial Killer Chronicles (Coming 2013)
RJ PARKER
RJ is an author most well known for his books, TOP CASES of The FBI (Winner of the World Book Awards 2012), Unsolved Serial Killings and Women Who Kill. He has two professional designations in Management and Finance. His true crime books include:
Top Cases of The FBITop Cases of The FBI Volume II (Coming 2013)
Case Closed: Serial Killers CapturedDoctors Who KilledRampage Spree KillersWomen Who Kill - The Bitches from HellUnsolved Serial Killings
LEE MELLOR
Lee is a published author, musician and enrolled in the PhD program at Concordia University. Besides writing music, he has written two true crime books.Cold North KillersRampage - Canadian Mass Murder and Spree Killing
MICHAEL NEWTON
Michael has published 260 books under his own name and various pseudonyms since 1977. He began writing professionally as a "ghost" for author Don Pendleton on the best-selling Executioner series and continues his work on that series today. He has written numerous true crime books, including:

The FBI Most Wanted
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes
The Encyclopedia of Gangsters
The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
Armed and Dangerous


CATHY SCOTT
Cathy is a graduate of the University of Redlands, is an author and award-winning journalist who's received more than a dozen awards from news organizations in California and Nevada. She is also the author of several true crime books, including:
The Millionaire's Wife: The True Story of a Real Estate Tycoon, his Beautiful Young Mistress, and a Marriage that Ended in Murder
Death in the Desert: The Ted Binion Homicide Case
The Killing of Tupac Shakur
The Murder of Biggie Smalls
Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman


SYLVIA PERRINI
Sylvia studied history and law at Manchester University and developed a particular interest in women who live outside the common boundaries of society. She has written numerous books on female serial killers from different centuries, including:
Women Serial Killers of the 17th Century
Baby Farmers of the 19th Century
Damsel for Sale - The Tragic Tale Of Aileen Wuornus
Angels of Death - Nurses Who Kill
Women Serial Killers of Britain
Women Serial Killers of Austria and Germany


DANE LADWIG
Dane holds an ABS in Biblical Studies degree in Theology, and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Philosophy and English Creative Writing. He has a wealth of knowledge of Herman Webster Mudgett a.k.a Dr. H. H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper, as he's been studying the Ripper case for more than forty years and will be publishing a book later this year on Holmes/Ripper. His work include:
Dr. H.H. Holmes and The WhiteChapel Ripper (Coming 2013)
Piercing the Veils of Death


KIM CRESSWELL
Kim has been a story-teller all her life but took many detours including; working for a private investigator, running a graphic design business, and teaching computer classes at a local business school. She has one fictional book published with its sequel coming out this year. This is Kim's introduction to true crime writing. Reflection

Lethal Journey (Coming 2013)

KAREN SCIOSCIA
Karen is a is a Journalist, author, SAG-AFTRA member, and corporate executive speech writer. She recently published her novel "Kidnapped by the Cartel" which is a fictional tale based on a true story. This will be Karen's breakthrough into non-fiction.Kidnapped by the Cartel

WILLIAM COOK
William is a writer of the macabre from New Zealand who also designs book covers, including all of RJ's. He has several Horror books published as well as a few dark poetry books. He spent many years researching serial killers for his book "Blood Related" which has a family of ruthless male serial killers. This Anthology will also be a breakthrough into true crime for William. Some of his work include:
Blood Related
Blood Trail (Coming 2013) 
Fresh Fear (Coming 2013)
Serial Killers Iterum
Songs for The Raven
Devil Inside
Temper of the Tide 
Moment of Freedom

Another quality True Crime book from RJ Parker Publishing