William Cook's Blog, page 2

New Release - Psychological Horror Stories: A Collection of Psychological Horror Fiction for Adults

Greetings. This post marks the end of three months ofwriting, editing, and formatting a new collection that brings together old andnew stories. Psychological HorrorStories: A Collection of Psychological Horror Fiction for Adults is a 364 pagecollection of my best psychological horror stories. The collection is theomnibus edition of a 4-volume series and all covers are illustrated by artist

Seven reasons why you should buy this psychological serial killer thriller

If you're the type of reader who buys books based on instinct, then this post might not be for you. If, on the other hand, your book-buying decision-making process is based on logical reasoning, then this post is definitely for you! If you're a fan of good old fashioned thrillers or serial killer novels, here are seven reasons why you should give my novel, Blood Related, a read.Here are some

Blood Related - A psychological serial killer thriller

The Christmas season is nearly upon us - are you looking for gift ideas for someone who loves reading thrillers? Why not buy a copy of my novel Blood Related for your favorite person (or psychopath)?Here are some reasons why you should buy this book:It's a bit different than usual serial killer thrillers.It has over 50 5/4 star reviews on Amazon.It has a bunch of endorsements from best-selling

Gaze Into the Abyss: The Poetry of Jim Morrison. New edition released!

New release! Redux version for #kindle now available (UK & US links below). Print edition available also (please share this post ):  In Gaze Into the Abyss: The Poetry of Jim Morrison, William
Cook examines Morrison's written work in all its beauty and complexity,
providing rich insight into Morrison's influences, themes, and poetic
vision.Iconic Doors photographer Paul Ferrara, who was also

News and New Releases

Well, I hope you all had a fright-filled Halloween and Samhain
season this year. Halloween is a relatively new event in New Zealand cultural
history and so the scares don’t come out en masse as they do in the USA. When I
was a kid, my pals and I would make absurd effigies of ‘Guy Fawkes’ on November
the 5th. We’d stuff an old pair of overalls with rags and rolled-up
newspaper and then push it

Guest Post = Land of the Long Dark Cloud - Writing Dark Fiction Down Under by Dan Rabarts

Hi all - as you may or may not have noticed I have not been posting much lately. Largely due to the completion of my Masters thesis, my fiction writing and posts have been on hiatus. Now, I am back but this time I thought I'd try something a bit different by opening up my site to some fellow authors. The first guest post I present to you is from fellow countryman and all-around good guy, Dan

New review for Blood Related - check it out!

Recently I received this great review for my serial-killer novel, Blood Related. Check it out and grab a copy if you like. Happy reading

Special Holiday Season Promotion and 2016 recap

Hi all - well, what a year huh? I can't say that 2016 was a particularly good year on a global scale, as I'm sure most of you would agree. In fact the mounting evidence that the West is in a state of decline seems to be more evident now than ever before with world events taking some sad and bizarre twists. Despite all the doom and gloom and the changing face of international politics and global relationships, 2016 was, if not anything else, scarily interesting to say the least. The silver lining is that events certainly provided lots of fodder for potential stories. 
My own year has been very busy, with the re-release of a few titles and the inclusion of a few stories in various anthologies. As a result of expired contracts and rights reversion, I am nearly pure 'indie' with most of my books now finding a home under my publishing imprint, King Billy Publications. 
https://kingbillypublications.wordpress.com/Book sales have been steady and, all going well, I should be on track to be able make a full-time living as an author in 2018 - thanks largely to you, dear reader. Next year will see the arrival of lots of new titles including a range of children's books that I have been working on with my talented 8-year-old daughter, Sienna. I am very excited about entering this market as it has always been a goal of mine to write books that appeal to kids, much as the books I read when I was of a similar age appealed to me. Such a magical reading age.
Anyway, the silly season is upon us and I have priced ALL my kindle titles to a low price of $0.99. Hopefully there is something there that you haven't read. Maybe you'd like to consider buying a paperback copy of one of my titles for someone this Christmas? If so, my top pick would have to be Fresh Fear: An Anthology of Macabre Horror - with over 450 pages of solid horror from established masters and rising stars of the horror genre. All my paperback titles are also priced at the minimum over the holiday period. Just click on the book cover images below to go to the Amazon page to purchase.
  My poetry collection Corpus Delicti: Selected Poetry has just been re-released in a new edition for paperback and kindle and collects over twenty years of my best poetry in one volume. (See bottom of this post for a free ebook deal on this title for new subscribers) Know a poetry lover who might like a stocking stuffer? 


Finally, either Blood Related (a psychological thriller/horror novel about twin serial killers) my most popular title, or Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales , are both available in paperback (and kindle) and would appeal to purveyors of dark fiction.



Finally, click on the image below (or cut 'n' paste this link into your browser address bar - http://tinyurl.com/WilliamCookXmasSpecial) for your direct link to my Amazon author page where you will find all these discounted treats in one place.


Please share this post with your pals and remember to subscribe via the image below if you haven't done so already (all new subscribers get a free digital copy of my collection Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales). Cheers.


Best wishes for the holiday season (and beyond) to you and your family. I hope you have a safe and happy time over Christmas and a fantastic start to the new year.

Best regards

William  

Christmas Ebook Promotion, #xmasgiftideas, #amreading, #bookpromo, Discounted Horror Books, William Cook Books, Merry Christmas, Seasons Greetings 

Free Fiction! Dead Memories - a short story

This story recently won 'Runner-Up' in the Parlor of Horror's 2016 short fiction awards and is also part of my collection 'Dreams of Thanatos' - now available to all new subscribers for free - click on the image at the end of this post to download your copy.

Dead Memories 1.

I had a dream on the anniversary of her death. In the dream, I heard her unmistakable voice calling me, then I saw her and she was so real, I could almost touch her again. Everything about her hit me deep in the chest, I sat bolt upright in our big empty bed. My breath gasped, sweat beaded itself on my cold skin. I could still hear her voice in the dark. I rationalized there were only two possible reasons why I could hear such a thing. I was either hallucinating, or what I heard was her ghost whispering in my ear. Then she was gone again.

I lay down and listened, my breath held in my chest, afraid to break the silence. The dawn light bled through the cracks in the blind as I strained my ears, listening. Listening for her sweet voice, playing her words over repeatedly in my weary mind –

‘There’s no turning back.
There’s no turning back now.’

I longed for her touch, the feel of her soft cold skin, her beautiful words carried on her sweet breath. The memories came flooding back – projections of my need. As I began to drift back into sleep, I thought of the way she played me with her brown eyes, teasing me, imparting so much desire . . .

The radio-alarm went off, waking me violently. I checked the time and acknowledged the precious two hours of sleep I just had, turned the screeching alarm off and got out of bed. I passed her photo in the hall on the way to the bathroom. It was the only photo I had of her on display: an enlarged black and white shot of her sitting on a beach in a lotus position, gazing mystically into the sun, long black hair out behind her in the breeze, framed by a silver expanse of ocean in the background. All the other photographs had been secreted in an old suitcase in the attic; some memories were just too painful to look at in such quantity.

I went to work, exhausted. Throughout the day, I thought about the morning’s events. Waking up with her pristine voice whispering in my ear from behind, thinking she was beside me in bed – it was so real. Must be stress, I reasoned with myself. Loneliness does strange things to a man’s mind.
 
Ghosts don’t exist. Do they?

The day finished quickly and I gladly closed the office door and loosened my tie with a yawn. Outside, the day had turned to night. On the way home I heard a song she used to love on the car radio. I passed the streetlight down the side road where we kissed beneath for the first time, then the church where we married. I stopped at the bottle store before turning into my street and our empty house.

2.

The voice came again. The same words, her voice seemed closer than before, I could almost feel the skin of her soft lips against my ear. I woke with expectation – she wasn’t there, just the dim light cast across the sheets and a hangover from hell, twisting its evil blade between my tired eyes. As the days fell into each other, her disembodied voice seemed to talk louder. The same words – 
‘There’s no turning back now.’ ‘There’s no turning back . . .’ adding emphasis that began to take on an ominous air – 

‘There’s no turning back . . . now. There’s no turning back, for YOU’ and so on.

My nerves were stretched to capacity. My mind was tumbling over itself, trying to bridge the gap between reason and a slow-turning madness.

The voice was unmistakably hers, the intonation painfully real. Her name was, is, Alicia. We had been together for seven years before she left. We had a passionate relationship to say the least. A veritable love and hate fest, with more making up and breaking up than we both needed. We had met at the office and soon fell for each other. A drunken bout of knee-trembling sex against a photocopier in the stationary room after a work party, heralded the official beginning of our tumultuous relationship.

I didn’t want to think about the inevitable disintegration of our passionate affair, but it eventually happened and that was that. As Alicia said, there was no turning back now. We were young and had aged well together, into our fifth year, we even started talking about marriage and children and then she got a new office manager. I heard the talk among my colleagues. At first, I thought it was mere gossip, as office talk usually is. Then I saw his eyes undress her as he sauntered past her desk across the way. A coy look as she pretended to shuffle papers, her eyes caught in his swagger.

She started working late. I asked around discreetly and no one else knew of any overtime available. Then she ‘transferred’ to another floor, promoted as she put it. The evenings became a waiting game. I tried to impress with the usual chattels of love – the flowers, gourmet meals, expensive perfume. In short, I tried to purchase her affection as I had exhausted all other means of reconciliation. When she did arrive home, she was always freshly showered and well mannered, courteous almost. A peck on the cheek that made Grandmother’s kisses seem like incestuous advances. Her back turned toward me perpetually. A ‘not tonight’ was the standard response to my romantic overtures, every night.

Good old Mr Forgiving tried to get on with things, forget her indiscretion and lies and pretend that she still loved me. I knew she didn’t love me at all – not even a fraction of desire was left in her cold heart. I started to think things – what could I do, how could I get her back? The migraines kicked in and I started to drink heavily. It seemed to block reality out, for a while, and then she didn’t come home one night. But that was over a year ago; that was then, this is now.

3.

Things started slipping. I called in sick three times in one week. When she spoke in my ear, no longer whispered now, in those frenetic waking hours – I started ‘feeling’ the words. After two goddamn weeks of visual and auditory apparitions I started feeling her. I felt her tucked against me at night, relishing each second, stuck between the ecstasy of the moment and agony of the inevitable realization that she wasn’t actually there. Her full tanned breasts against my back, soft lips brushing my shoulder, hands soft so soft like silk caressing. Supplicating my disbelief. and her photo – I can’t explain it, but she seemed to move within, animated, changing pose each morning – one day staring at the sun, black and white – next, a different tilt of the head, her hand rested on her leg just so, next . . . and then she was there. Not quite, but I could see her. Some copper coils of her hair on the pillow next to me, a fleeting glimpse of a smooth-brown shoulder. Then she’d fade away again.

The anticipation drove me delirious – I lost my mind, my heart pumped desire and love to every cell. Whatever she was, ghost or hallucination, I hungered for each second – a panacea for the sad soul. If her memory was just an indentation in the bed where she slept, I could’ve lived with her this way if it weren’t for the words – ‘There is no turning back for her NOW’ screaming in my brain, like a loudspeaker next to my ear, almost painful.

I tried to shut it out to no avail. The migraines increased, nausea, bursts of white spots before my black ringed eyes. I couldn’t shave, the sound of the razor sent blasts of pain ripping through my spine to brain. I took a month’s leave from the office – they gladly gave it to me – “You need a break Harry. You’ve been working too hard lately. Rest up. Take a break. Come back when you’re better, ok?”

Sometimes I’d like to kill those patronizing bastards, just walk in one day in Gucci suit and tie, axe in hand. Walk into the office – “Good morning Miss Secretary, Mr Boss . . . I’ve come to kill you!” Chop chop chop chop chop . . .
 
Then she was there one morning – “My love, my love. There’s no turning back for us now” she said, completely naked. Her burning eyes glowing hypnotically. Her hair coiling like twisting black snakes, framing her beautiful deathly countenance. I tried to touch her. She reached into me, cupping my pulsing heart in her taloned hand. I could feel it. She withdrew and walked into the bedroom. I followed. She wasn’t there . . .

I couldn’t eat. I looked in the mirror, my gaunt pale unshaven face stared back at me forlornly – eyes blackened, pupils dilated, trembling . . . my heart quivered delicately under my rib-cage, then missed . . . a beat. It felt like it, my heart, was encased in ice. I felt sick to my stomach. Where was she? I decided that it was the sleeping that did it – maybe I was reciting a spell I had lodged deep in my subconscious mind – dreams or something that kept conjuring her up every morning. Invoking the muse at every breath, so to speak.

4.

It had taken exactly one year and twenty-one days after our break-up, or should I say her ‘disappearance,’ before I realized I could not go on without her any longer. I mean she was with me all the time, all day and night now – naked, following me around the house, hovering above me on the ceiling – whispering to me indescribable things, obscenities of the vilest nature. She had started to taunt me, yet my love grew stronger as if with a will of its own – then she started to slap me – ferocious backhanders that rattled my teeth and left droplets of nose blood on the white walls.

Half of me wanted to leave, just run as far away as I could. Pack the car and put a match to the godforsaken house as I escaped, but the other half – the stronger half, wanted to stay – couldn’t leave. Besides I knew if I tried to escape, I’d look into that rear-view mirror and those black cold eyes would be boring into my soul, her white forearm draped around my neck, her blue lips mouthing the words – “There’s no turning back now . . .”

That day I ordered in a couple of one-liter bottles of gin – I’d discovered booze could block her out for a while. I began to drink sitting with my back against the bedroom wall, watching as she undulated like a snake on the yellow duvet on the bed. Her once tanned now white body arched, her full breasts swelling with her movements, her hand pressed deep between her thighs – pink tongue darting across her full lips. Moaning. I gulped the gin quickly – ten mouthfuls, my jaw clenched and then it was easy. Half a bottle, she began to fade out like bad TV reception. Each drink twitched, erased another part of her lithe form – I couldn’t take any more. I knew I had to be rid of her once and for all. Rid of everything.

5.

I stumbled to my drunken feet, pulling drawers out, cupboards open, photographs letters clothes newspaper clippings onto the floor. I looked over my shoulder, her head and torso moved on the bed. Her arms, legs, pelvis – gone. I stared at what was left of her, tears spilling down my face. She mouthed her silent words again – “There’s no turning back.” Her eyes glazed, hair disintegrating, writhing crumbling like black maggots, her skin peeling into nothing. My head was spinning. I threw everything in the bathtub, all the photographs, letters, clothes, newspaper clippings – fire – I opened the window. Smoke blew out.

I shuffled down the hallway past her photo now completely metamorphosed from the original. She was facing me, arms outstretched like Christ. Her blank eyes pleading. The sun behind her a ball of blazing fire. Wild hair dancing blackly around her gaunt white face. I took the photo and threw it through the bathroom door into the fire with the other memories. I’m sure I heard her scream, but it wasn’t a scream of pain – rather, a triumphantly defiant roar. 

I sat down on the toilet next to the burning bathtub and put my head in my hands. Flames ran up the plastic shower curtain dropping molten lumps of fire like napalm on the linoleum. Flames licked the walls and the black smoke billowed from the bath – I saw her again, I couldn’t hear anything except the roar and burn of the blazing fire – the smoke melded together, transformed into her unmistakable snake-like coils of hair twisting and swirling, reaching for my gasping throat. Long black fingers of smoke in my eyes, in my ears – forcing my mouth open in wrenching breaths, reaching deep into my burning lungs. My heart felt like cracking ice trapped between my rib-bones. The flames burned red and blue but no heat – just intense cold – so cold. I shivered, inhaling my last breath of her love – her fading words hissing in the black smoke, echoing in my dying ears – “There’s no turning back now. There’s no turning back . . .” 






2016 (C) William Cook
*******************************

Guest Author Interview: Mort Castle

Mort Castle is a veteran of American genre-fiction. Mr Castle is a respected horror author, editor and writing teacher, a prolific short fiction author and a novelist. Among other awards that he has won he is a three-time winner of (and nominated eleven times for) the Bram Stoker Award. Today I present to you a great interview with Mr Castle and it is truly an honour as a fan – my favorite works of his are the collection ‘Moon on the Water’ and his novel ‘The Strangers.’ As his bibliography testifies I have a lot of reading of Mr Castle’s work still in front of me (rubs hands with glee). Please make sure to check out his books and grab some copies off Amazon - you won't be disappointed if you are new to Mr Castle's work (just click on the book cover images below). Here is he, the horror maestro himself, Mr Mort Castle:

Q: How have you managed to maintain your literary career for as long as you have? Do you have any tips for other writers starting off on their careers in terms of long-term strategies to maintain a career as an author?

A: Oh, man, it's perseverance. You don't give up, period. There were some very bleak times, times of serious "career reversals," when I wished I could just pack it in. Was supposed to be editor of Horror, The Illustrated Book of Fears, which would be the country's largest circulation B&W comics horror magazine; that fell through at the last minute when the distributor reneged, saying he had had a moral revelation and was convinced the magazine would encourage mental illness and criminal behavior. Had movies come close and never happen. Book contracts blow up at last minute. Markets disappearing (go take a look at today's convenience stores for the behind the counter men's magazines that used to pay my mortgage!)

But let me rephrase that: I didn't give up. I don't say that's a game plan for everyone. There are people who have given up after little or no success at publication who were probably right to do so. Certainly they are better off than the self-deludeds who slap their borderline literate twaddle onto an epub platform and call themselves "independent author."

Hell, I gave up on my violin playing when I realized that with intense effort, I could someday be mediocre. (Stuck with guitar and I'm not bad!)

Q: After nearly fifty years as a professional writer do you still have ‘eureka moments’ when you think of something fresh and new to write about?


A: If you make that "something that grabs me," then yes, indeed. I don't know that I'd be writing at all if I didn't find / create those concepts that make me say, "I ought to write this." If I weren't doing that, if I were just grinding it out and saw it as "more of the same of the same of the same," I'd have no business writing, using up my remaining hours doing assembly line work and trying to inflict the result on readers who, I hope, have come to expect more of me.

Q: Your writing usually deals with dark themes – is there anything that really scares you and are there things you won’t write about?

A: Yes, and I'll leave it go at that. But I will add ... There are scares and horrors and worse that I had as a younger person that I came to write about—later. Later being when I had acquired the technique to tackle the concepts and had enough distance from them so that going deep inside the bad places didn't leave me a weeping, quivering puddle of nerve endings on the floor in ye olde foetal position.

Q: You also script stories for comic book adaptation – how different is it writing comic books stories as opposed to straight fiction and do you have any tips for aspiring authors who want to break into this market?

A: Comics, man, I love comics. Leaned to read because of Batman and Little Lulu. Comics scripting calls for writing that is totally visual. Without word one on the comics page, someone looking at a good comics story will get a sense of what happens ... what happens next ... what happens now ...

Comics scripting forces me to be a visual writer and that has made me a better writer. Indeed, if I get hung up in a story or a scene from a longer work, I can usually get un-hung by scripting it.

To break into the comics "market," such as it is ... There is no stigma attached to self-publishing in comics. That's because self-publishing has a solid history launching major critical and / or / both commercial successes. So ... do a good "self-" publication and then become part of the comics community. Yes, you really do need to go to conventions.



Q: ‘Writing Horror’ has proved to be invaluable resource for my own work, is there a book or resource that you’d recommend that has helped make you a better writer?

A: The book, and we all know it: Strunk and White, The Elements of Style. A wonderful old and out of print book that took published works and showed the writers' drafts to get it right: On Writing by Writers, edited by William West, with fine models provided by Ray Bradbury, Phyllis McGinley, John Updike, John Ciardi, Paul Gallico, Kay Boyle, Robert Penn Warren, Lucien Stryk, Hayden Carruth, Stuart Chase, W. Earl Britton, and Paddy Chayefsky. Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Finally, I re-read Hemingway's complete short stories every so often and still learn economy and precision from the Master.

Q: As a teacher, what is the most important piece of advice you could give to the new generation of horror/fantasy authors trying to get a foot on the rung of a career as a writer?

A: I’m going to repeat myself here; I’ve said this a lot in the past few years. (Hey, I don’t know all that much so I get maximum usage out of whatever knowledge I do have!)
So, the advice that has earned me the title of curmudgeon … This is simple: Learn to write. The so-called indie movement, the “free rein” authors (most of them call themselves “free reign” or even “free range”) are boasting of their self-publications. Never has it been so easy for so many to be so self-deluded—and to aid others in becoming no less deluded.

Worry less about “platforms” and “social media” and “emerging technology”. You’ve got to have a product before you can sell it. I cannot believe there’s so much bad stuff out there, but that’s because now we get to see the bad, proudly displayed on websites, in bad electronic magazines edited by editors who can’t edit, featuring stories by people who can’t write, aimed at aspiring bad writers who want to write for bad electronic magazines, and get self-published on Kindle, Swindle, Shnook, Hobo, Yoyo, and Hoohah …

Writing is a craft and a craft can be learned and a craft can be taught. There are good schools with good writers as teachers. There are great workshops like Clarion and Borderlands. There are good editors. There are good publishers. And when you find someone who says, “Yeah, you’ve got the possibility,” then you can learn from that individual or institution.

Of course, you could learn on your own, with extensive reading, plenty of writing, etc. But a mentoring program of some sort makes it easier and quicker. You bet such mentors as the poet Lucien Stryk and that lovely gentleman J. N. Williamson knocked years off this guy’s learning curve.

Q: Alongside your work as a novelist, you are also a prolific exponent of the short story form, can you recommend any specific markets that are essential publishers of this type?
A: I strongly recommend anthologies edited by someone about whom you can say, "Yeah, he knows what he's doing." That cuts down on your marketing decisions right there.

The well known so-called "little magazines" (not an oxymoron) are also a good bet. If you can score with Tin House or Bombay Gin you are in the best TOC company there is.

And you are better off with one story appearing in Ploughshares than three dozen stories in North Jerkly Journal or Beautiful Buds and Bad Begonias, the readership of either not being the length of the table of contents.
And contests. Beginning writers, there are many worthwhile contests. The Writer's Digest annual contests are the real thing—and can lead to all sorts of notice and publication.



Q: Do you have a favorite author or authors of short fiction and if so, why do you consider their work noteworthy?

A: Hemingway remains the master, for reasons noted above. There are so many fine short fiction writers that I could name dozens who are on my must read list. Dan Chaon, because he has Bradbury's sensitivity to life without being at all imitative. Bonnie Jo Campbell, who richly understands the suchness of things. Alice Hoffman, who is a magician with words. John McNally—and I'm waiting for the moment when he becomes the "Everybody look!" writer he is meant to be. Lee Martin, for his Midwestern heart and common sense. Ron Hansen ... for proving that you don't have to preach to write moral fiction and that "thoughtful Christian" does not mean secular humanism disguised with a cross (and please, Ron, you have to write more short stories). Julia Keller—maybe this era's Shirley Jackson, if she weren't so busy writing great mystery novels and winning Pulitzers for non-fiction.

And I'm just getting started.

Q: As a horror author how do you view the state of contemporary horror fiction and do you think that the genre still has room for new writers and original ideas/stories?

A: The good is great: Newer writers like Sarah Langan and Livia LLewellyn, the old(er) masters like Dan Simmons, Straub, and of course, King. Not a one of 'em content to turn out potboilers. More than a few others.

The middle—pretty bad, most of them not able to meet even the minimum competency tests for midlist paperback originals of the 70s and 80s. A few notable exceptions who will rise.

The bad—too bad to be true. Swamping Kindle, Shnook, Createacrap, etc. Possibly reading each other, but that's about it.


Q: Many of the your stories place characters in deep existential crises, does any one philosophy inform your work and do you think that horror offers a cathartic experience to the reader?

A: My philosophy? Expressed by the poet William Wantling in the one novel he wrote, a book called Young and Tender: "Let them know we were here and here hard, without believing in the Lie or adding to it."

Cathartic? Nah. Illuminating, maybe. Reassuring, maybe, in that it reminds you we're all gonna have to do some hard time. But cathartic? If that were so, I'd have been thoroughly cathed and never would have kept on writing horror. I could have written about lemonade and happy bunnies.

Q: As a writer how important is physical fitness to you and do you have a regime that keeps you fit? I.e. Do you write standing up or sitting down and do you do exercise before/after writing to prevent health issues common to a lot of writers (e.g. weight issues, heart problems, stress etc)?

A: Ah, quit smoking years ago. Hardest "health achievement" ever. Physical fitness? Just getting back to it after months of severe tendonitis made walking dreadful. Way overweight, but I like my stuffed pizza and pasta and ice cream.


Q: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, it is truly an honor. Do you have any parting words you’d like to share about upcoming projects or events?

A: Yeah, I was just recently a winner in the annual Leapfrog Press fiction contest with my story collection Knowing When to Die. This makes me literary as hell and I'm sure I will now be awarded countless zillions in government grants like so many others who have done most of the creative work in writing grant proposals.

Projects? Working on a long comics script for "The Golem," based on the 1920s film, for Graphic Classics, one of the absolute best lines of comics today, published and edited by Tom Pomplun. Lots of most enjoyable research.

Just licensed Argosy magazine for development with my sometimes literary tag team partner Sam Weller. Got big plans, but veddy, veddy hush and hush for now.

And then, with my partners in 4 Maples Productions, working on an anthology television series. We've got an Emmy winner attached and we've partnered with a well known production firm ... More news as I (hope to) have it.

Parting words? From the best rock n roll band ever: Creedence Clearwater Revival: Keep on Chooglin'!

Mort Castle's Links 
Amazon Page
Facebook Page

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*Author photo credit: Michelle Pretorious.