Patrick C. Greene's Blog: BEST BLOG EVER!, page 15

NEW RELEASE!

From the lurking shadows of the unknown to the shell of an empty soul, Patrick C. Greene spins seven dark tales to keep you awake at night. Dark Destinies contains: Into the Small Hours, Room 422, Bill's Becoming, Fate by Firelight, Shards, High Strangeness in South Haven, and Words That Start with the Letter D.On AMAZONOn SMASHWORDS

Alaspa meets Greene

BRYAN W ALASPA interviews Patrick C. Greene:

"You ever get the feeling, when you first meet someone, or talk with them, that maybe they are some sort of long lost relative or something? Well, I came pretty darn close to that feeling when author Patrick Greene agreed to interview me for his blog about my novel VICIOUS. Not only did we share the same passion for writing horror/thrillers, but our most recent works both have similar plot elements.

Patrick’s passion for writing is evident from just chatting with him. His talent is immense. His imagination seems limitless. His desire to help other authors is also strong, and you know that’s important for me, as well. In short, he is a major talent, and if you are not familiar with his name just yet…you will be.


Read the INTERVIEW HERE

SOME GOODBYES

Six-year-old Sandy Hook Elementary student Jack Pinto was laid to rest in a replica of the jersey worn by his hero, New York Jets wide receiver Victor Cruz. Cruz went on to inscribe Jack's name on his cleats before playing his next game. Jack's best friend John wrote him a goodbye letter that said in part "I will talk to you in my prayers. I love you." Nicely said, John. We all love Jack Pinto. And many thanks to Victor Cruz.


Charlotte Bacon, like many little girls, loved the color pink. According to her uncle it was more than just a passing affinity it was "A passion. And by a passion, I mean an addiction." She trained in Tae Kwon Do. Charlotte's favorite movie was "Brave". I hope she got to see it a bunch of times.


Daniel Barden wanted to be a firefighter, like his cousins in New York. Word is, he liked playing drums as well. Daniel was also an accomplished athlete, swimming and soccer being his favorite sports. An avid reader, Daniel was described as an old soul by friends of his family. I hope we all get a chance to meet that soul, in some way.


Olivia Engel actually loved going to school! She even had a good relationship with her three year old brother. She had a dog named Petey. She was into theater, dancing and singing and was preparing for her role as an angel in a local presentation of the Nativity. She was also in Daisy Scouts. All kids should have such active days.


Noah Pozner had high aspirations. He wanted to be a soldier, a doctor, and a taco factory manager. He loved rainbows. (Me too, li'l bro.) His twin sister Arielle drew a picture of her mother smiling and handed it to President Obama during his visit to the site of the tragedy. There's not a lot of comfort to be had here-but that picture's probably about the best any of us could do.


How'd you like to be a painter, living on Martha's Vineyard? That's what Grace Audrey McDonnell had in mind for her future. She enjoyed playing dress-up, especially in pink, just like her classmate Charlotte Bacon. Maybe her wings are pink.


6 year-old boy Jesse wrote "I love you" in the frost of his mother's car door before running inside the school in anticipation of that days' project of building gingerbread houses. Jesse is said to have been attempting to lead his classmates to safety during the attack, when he fell to the gunman's assault. There's something enlightened about that.


Catherine Hubbard was a freckly little redhead who loved animals passionately. Bet she petted and hugged a lot of little furballs in her time. Those pets are ripples of kindness that will spread forever.


Jessica Rekos was a cowgirl. Upon turning ten, she would have had her very own horse to groom and ride and love. In preparation, Jessica was to have received a hat and spiffy cowgirl boots for Christmas. She was a big sis too, with two little brothers who looked up to her. Good memories will be their guide.

Little Josephine Gay just turned 7 on December 11. Her favorite color was purple. She's described as having a "joyful and giving spirit", so Christmas is the perfect time to remember her in prayer and/or thought. She looked like the little girl from "Monsters Inc.", remember the one who thought Sully was a big teddy? This enterprising young lady often set up lemonade stands in her neighborhood during the summer.


James Mattioli was not quite 7 yet. His older sister, in whom he saw the sun rise and set, was helping him to be a better reader. Ham sandwiches from Subway were a favorite meal. "J", as he was called, wasn't afraid to hug his friends. James was pretty good at math too, an attribute which I admire.


Top level athletes can be spotted at an early age. Chase Kowalski was one such prodigy. The 7-year-old was already running road races and training for a mini-triathlon! Bicycles and baseball were also favorite pursuits. Something tells me he would've been a record breaker.


Born in San Diego, Avielle Richman carried on a noble tradition-she was a storyteller. She also loved music, archery and of course, kung fu. Would love to have seen her face if she ever saw a Michelle Yeoh flick. I'll watch one for you, Avi.


Also musically inclined was Benjamin Wheeler. He already had perfect pitch. The energetic young pianist once sprinted onstage to complete a recital then sprinted back. He and his family had just moved to Newtown last April. Ben wanted to be either an architect or a paleontologist. Cool professions, cool kid.


Emilie Parker carried her pens and markers and paper wherever she went, for moments of spontaneous creativity. Her artworks are priceless treasures, far as I'm concerned.


Ana Marquez-Greene was the daughter of jazz musicians. Like Benjamin Wheeler, Ana had only recently moved to Newtown, coming from Winnipeg. Ana always gave her artwork to others as gifts. If you're a parent or an uncle or aunt or cousin or grandparent, you probably have a few gifts like that, and you probably have never seen anything more masterfully rendered in your life.


Dylan Hockley was originally from England. When he learned he would be moving to the U.S, he could not wait to get here. A special needs student, Dylan was learning to read. Being a model student, he was making good progress. He shared with his older brother Jake and his father a passion for martial arts. Rei.


Not much is known about 6-year-old Madeleine Hsu, except that she was upbeat and kind and that her family had only lived in the area for a few years. I hope they were joyous years.


Caroline Previdi loved to draw and dance. She was training in jazz and ballet. She was such a hardcore New York Yankees fan, she once refused to go into Fenway Park in Boston. A good fan to have, that one.


Allison Wyatt, another young artist, patiently taught her younger sister Lauren how to ride the school bus. She always wore ribbons and berets in her hair. If Allison had a snack, it wasn't unusual for her to offer some of it to complete strangers.


Teacher Victoria Soto put her students in a closet and stood as a barrier between them and the gunman during the attack. So many mourners attended Victoria's funeral that many had to sit outside and listen to the service on loudspeakers. Her college roommate said this: "“When she hugged you, she put her whole heart and soul into every hug she gave.” Maybe we should all do that.


Rachel D'Avino, 29, was a behavioral therapist -a vocation which requires immense, selfless loving kindness- and teacher's aide. Like Victoria Soto, Rachel heroically shielded a student during the attack. It's amazing how peaceful teachers can take on the role of great warriors in merely doing their jobs.


Principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung had been Sandy Hook's principal for almost two years. She was still pursuing her Ph.D, and was a grandmother. Hochsprung was in the process of implementing a security system at the school. With the children she fiercely thought of ashers in mind, she fearlessly stood strong when facing the attacker.


School psychologist Mary Sherlach was the mother of two adult daughters. She was a classic rock fan who loved to sing and dance to Eagles tunes, often persuading friends and family members to join her in impromptu singalong and dance.


Lauren Rousseau was substituting for a teacher who was on maternity leave. She loved cats. She had baked Hobbit cupcakes in anticipation of seeing the film. That's how you live life to the fullest.


Please join me in celebrating their lives and saying goodbye.


Sources:
registercitizen.com
Conneticut Post
NY Daily News
Denver Post
Perez Hilton
ABC News
Daily Mail (UK)
CNN
The Jewish Press
legacy.com
CBS
dailybulletin.com
NY Post
telegraph.co.uk
Stamford Advocate
New Hampshire Register
irishcentral.com
patch.com
New Haven Register

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Author of the Week!

Thank you to The eReader Cafe for granting me Author of the Week Status!
From the interview:

Good Sunday morning, everyone! Allow me to introduce you to Horror author, Patrick C. Greene.Let's begin this Sunday's author interview with The eReader Cafe's signature first question:

Coffee or Tea?

Coffee while writing, tea any other time.

Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and when did you start writing?

I'm from just outside of Asheville, North Carolina; a rural town called Fairview. I've been writing since before I knew how, in some form or other.


You’ve written a suspenseful Horror novel, Progeny, and quite a few short stories. Tell us about your writing and what inspires you to write in your chosen genre.

I try to write in the style I personally find most appealing--because if I'm not entertained by mywriting who will be? I like suspense and emotional extremes and the idea of a situation that teststhe characters--whether they ultimately survive or not. It's hard to comprehend what made meprefer horror, but I do have an extremely vivid and active imagination and with the horror genre, I have plenty of opportunity to give it a workout. You can just go in so many directions, in fact,you're expected to! What's cooler than that? Only a frozen corpse.

Read MORE from the Interview HERE

Patrick visits The Book Addict

INTERVIEW with Book Addict 24-7

"I say, get the crazy shit out of the way, then whittle it down. Write stream-of-consciousness if you have to, but get your story down and off of your brain, so you can see it in a different light. You may find that it’s even more vital and powerful than you originally thought!" PCG

INDIE BOOKSPOT Interview

Why do you write? Is it something you’ve always done, or always wanted to do? Or is it something that you started fairly recently?

Sitting down with a pen or pencil or crayon and expressing myself goes back way farther than I can remember. As a tyke, I got in trouble for drawing on the wall, like most kids–but seems like it took me a longer time than normal to learn my lesson. I made pages after pages of drawings, burning through those cheap paper pads faster than my parents could re-stock. Fortunately, my dad was in the newspaper business and had access to lots of paper. I vividly remember seeing a box turtle crawling around in our yard and thinking those little markings on his shell were the alphabet- and I couldn’t wait to learn my ABC’s so I could read turtle shells!

Read more of the INTERVIEW

THE GRALIEN REPORT: Podcast Interview

I want to say THANK YOU  to Micah Hanks over at The Gralien Report for giving me the opportunity to come on his radio show this evening to talk about PROGENY.





Micah wrote the Foreword for PROGENY and here you can read from one of his blog posts about Bigfoot.

Bigfoot is an Archetype
From time to time there are reports that fall under the “Bigfoot” category that are, to put it simply, present a lot of disturbing problems for eyewitnesses. While these “high strangeness” reports (an expression that had become innate to the study of odd occurrences tucked within the realms of Forteana) are in the seldom minority, they are often overlooked by the greater cryptozoology community for a number of reasons.  READ MORE HERE


The Gralien Report on facebook

CHOOSING THE PERFECT TITLE PART DEUX: THE RE-REDEMPTION

   I've never seen the movie "Pontiac Moon", but the title has always stuck with me for some reason. Something about an enigmatic, somewhat mystical-sounding title always catches my attention. Let's take a couple of films from the golden age of the action film: "Good Guys Wear Black", a reasonably entertaining early Chuck Norris vehicle, and "Out For Justice", one of Steven Seagal's movies. In the case of "Justice", it takes me a minute to sort out just which of the many similarly-named Seagal potboilers this one is, despite a rather intense -if brief- obsession I once had with the towering Aikido master. "Good Guys" on the other hand, despite being an arguably lesser film, rouses instant visual images. The title refers to a military unit in the film called The Black Tigers, and the fact that I know that will show you just how intrigued I was with this film's great-sounding appellation.
   I get the feeling many writers just slap their work with a vaguely applicable title to distinguish it from their other works. And I have to admit, I've been guilty of choosing perhaps a less meaningful title in favor of a catchier, more marketable one. After all, if a reader's interest is not caught by the work's "package" -its title, artwork, even the name of the author, in the case of my better known brethren- the chance of them ever becoming interested is low at best. In my notebook of ideas and story concepts, I sometimes scribble a potential title that may have occurred to me, often little more than a conglomeration of genre-related words- in hopes of having an idea form around it, or even of forcing the idea to form, sort of like Roger Corman and a handful of other filmmakers have been known to do.
   One of these disembodied titles that I scribbled many years ago still pops into my head from time to time. These days it's more likely to make me LOL, as the kids say, than to inspire any particular story line, but then again...
   That title was "Splatter Quest." Just think what could occur on a splatter quest...a young Peter Jackson or Sam Raimi would make it a journey to remember, certainly.
   Earlier today, while commenting on a facebook post about some fur-loving fashion designer duo, the term "sonnets of suffering" popped into my fevered mind. Very Barker-esque, I must say, and certainly classier than "splatter quest." 
   My current work-in-progress, a sweeping vampire tale, remains untitled, despite months of (sporadic) work. I'm hoping the perfect title will come to me, and that it will not actually contain the word "vampire", and maybe not even "blood." I'd like it to stand out, you see, yet be attractive to bloodsucker fans immediately, given the vast spate of works in the same sub-genre that will surely flood the market for years to come.
   So while I let that ruminate, there's this movie I've been wanting to see for years. Maybe it'll plant some magical title-growing seed. I believe the film is called "Pontiac Moon."
STILL MORE TITLE MADNESS TO COME!

SHOP GREENE'S FIENDS

SHOP GREENE'S FIENDS