Michael A. Arnzen's Blog: News from Gorelets.com, page 21

Bat Milk by Brandon Blommaert

Today’s bizarre and brilliant Saturday Morning Cartoon is BAT MILK by Brandon Blommaert, c/o Sundance Channel:

Falling by Cole & Stringer

Today’s strange Saturday Morning Cartoon is “Falling” by Brant J. Cole and Jason Stringer (who may be the same fellows in the cool LA metal band, The Blackout Trust):

Dexter Early Cuts: All in the Family

Kudos to Showtime for releasing animated tales from the Dexter universe between seasons. Here’s a link to the Dexter: Early Cuts cartoon series on youtube (with voiceover by Michael C. Hall himself). All the Dexter webisodes are also available on the Showtime website.

Here’s the first chapter of “All in the Family”:

I’ve become quite smitten with the Dexter series of late, and have been rewatching the entire series, sharing my thoughts on Twitter as #DexterNotes. Also available here at gorelets.com in The Nest.

Dexter Notes

I’ve been a longtime fan of the Dexter series on Showtime, and a new season (#7) is going to begin in about a month. I unfortunately don’t subscribe to Showtime, having caught it through Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand in the past. But last month I picked up the entire run of the whole series (when I spotted it as a blu ray deal of the week on Amazon) and have begun watching it all over again, deliberately, studying this serial killer series for whatever new observations I can make the second time around and to uncover any lessons I can glean.

I’ve begun sharing some snippets of these thoughts on twitter in a series with the hashtag #DexterNotes. If you don’t follow me on twitter, not to worry: these are all handily available in the permanent archive I keep here on gorelets.com, called The Nest; here’s a link to the archived #DexterNotes. I’m also posting links to related Dexterophilia on Delicious. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve only read one of the Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay that inspired the series so far, but I plan to make amends. I’m not just a fan; I think this study may lead to something very interesting and unique in the future.

To Write Well…

The following is an excerpt from the front page of my Fiction Writing syllabus at SHU, which I posted to scribd and soundcloud as part of the course. I was surprised to find out tonight that it was highlighted as a “Featured Document” by scribd.com! Neat.

To Write Well

Here’s the audio version, recorded for the students in the class to respond to.

Teaching does take time away from my writing, but it’s just as rewarding to me, and it’s fun to share in the students’ creative spirits. Our class is going to be doing a lot of experiments with social networks, ipad apps, and more. Readers who have an interest in fiction writing might want to follow my academic twitter feed, where I’ll likely share the results.

Book Signing Aug 25th in Morgantown B&N

I will be on hand to sign books at the WVW afternoon event at the Morgantown, WV Barnes and Noble on Saturday, AUG. 25, 1-4 p.m, with the following writers, several of which appear in the book, Many Genres, One Craft.

Writers include: Don Stansberry, Debra Benedetti, Mary Jane Romig, Kevin Murphy, Timons Esaias, Heidi Ruby Miller, Jason Jack Miller, Diane Turnshek, Dave Howard, Barbara Myers, Lily Hamilton.

Bizarro Reading in Morgantown

I drove out to Morgantown, WV to see the Raw Dog Screaming Press reading event — sponsored by the Morgantown Poets society — for stalwart “bizarro” writers and old friends John Edward Lawson and D. Harlan Wilson. This event marked officially the official print release of his new book, SuiPsalms, which he introduced by announcing the number for the Suicide Hotline and explained that his book fell in with a new genre he hadn’t been aware of until he started writing the book, Suicide Poetry (example here). D. Harlan Wilson read a hilarious excerpt from the tongue-in-cheek Hitler: The Terminal Biography. Their reading was followed by open mic, which included Daniel McTaggert, Rich Bottles (co-ed of “The Big Book of Bizarro”), Stephanie Wytovich, Scott Emerson and myself (I read a random sampler from my new book, The Gorelets Omnibus and some twitter poems from The Nest). It was a very transgressive, witty, dark night… as Scott posted on twitter:

@mikearnzen Thanks for joining tonight’s madness. I think the weirdos finally outnumbered the normies.

— Scott Emerson (@Tweet_Shrieks) August 17, 2012

Here are some apologetically unfocused but accurate photos I took from the wonderful “weirdo” experience:

Hazard Yet Forward — New Genre Fiction Charity Anthology

I’m proud of the alumni, students, and faculty in Seton Hill U’s Writing Popular Fiction graduate program for putting this new book together, with profits going to assist Donna Munro, a great writer and fellow member of our community who shocked us all by being diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year.

The kindle edition of the book was just released today on amazon for just $9.99. Totally worth it, given that it’s got over 700 pages of genre stories in it. I wrote one them (first appearance of my story “The Scraper”) as well as the introduction. There are a lot of folks you’ll recognize in the table of contents… in fact, a large number of them appeared in the textbook I co-edited last year, Many Genres, One Craft.

Please help us help Donna by picking up a copy for your Kindle reader. Here’s the official press release…

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Giant multi-author anthology on sale Tuesday, August 7 to benefit cancer fighter.

Date August 2, 2012 Contact: Natalie Duvall hazardyetforwardanthology@gmail.com

Seventy-six writers connected to the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction program have created a multi-genre charity anthology entitled Hazard Yet Forward. All proceeds from this project will benefit Donna Munro, a 2004 graduate of the program. Munro, a teacher living in St. Louis, Missouri, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. An active member of the SHU WPF alumni committee, Munro helps organize the school’s annual writing conference, the In Your Write Mind Workshop.

To aid Munro and her family, faculty members, alumni, students and friends of the Writing Popular Fiction program quickly responded to compile this massive anthology. The book features flash fiction, short stories and even a full-length novella. In total, there are 75 works from various genres, which makes this anthology one that features something for everyone.

Genres represented in the book range from horror to romance to mystery – and everything in between. Some of the notable writers in the anthology are World Fantasy Award winner Nalo Hopkinson, Bram Stoker winners Michael A. Arnzen and Michael Knost, Bram Stoker nominee Lawrence C. Connolly, ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults winner Jessica Warman, Rita finalist Dana Marton, Spur winner Meg Mims, Asimov’s Readers’ Award winner Timons Esaias and WV Arts and Humanities literary fellowships winner Geoffrey Cameron Fuller.

About Hazard Yet Forward, co-compiler Matt Duvall says, “It’s an unprecedented collection of stories from every genre imaginable.” This large volume is an electronic book for the popular Kindle platform and is available for purchase through Amazon starting August 7. It’s also reasonably priced. The book will be on sale for $9.99.

More information about the anthology can be found at http://hazardyetforward.wordpress.com. To learn about the unique and exciting Writing Popular Fiction program, please visit http://www.setonhill.edu/academics/fiction/.

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If you want to contribute more than just the $9.99, then visit this page from Michael Knost.

See the related post on our Many Genres, One Craft weblog.

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Postscript…  The book is doing well.  Right now, it’s #3 in the amazon bestseller list for short story anthos, right under the works of Poe and the Norton Anthology!

Impressive sales on launch day!

Gorelets.com Returns to its Mobile-Friendly Roots

While “responsive” is a word I usually associate with “Things Doctors Say In Intensive Care Units,” it’s also a word that now applies to this website. “Responsive” means that the site automatically recognizes if you’re reading it with a touchscreen device and it changes to make it more mobile-friendly. [The same is true of the Arnzen Social Network page at http://michaelarnzen.com/ and most of the other main pages linked in my menu.] While I doubt it’s perfect, you can now far more easily read the text and browse pages while on the road, riding in the back of your hearse or whatever. I’ve only tested it on an iphone and ipad, but it seems to work well. In fact, in iOS, you can not only bookmark it, you can choose “Add to Home Screen” and it will place an icon on your main screen that you can click for instance access to these pages, just like clicking on an “app.” Try it out, Apple-heads!

It’s funny to me to reflect on how far things have changed — yet remained virtually the same — over the decade+ that I’ve been running this website. I bet most people don’t realize that “gorelets” is neologism short for “gory applets” (aka “apps”) — which was how the original poetry series was created and delivered using some of the first handheld devices (PDAs). Here’s a funny before-and-after comparison of gorelets now and then, to show the evolution of this website.

gorelets.com was originally a mobile-oriented site for distributing horror poems.

This is all very trivial, but you can read more about the history behind the gorelets project in The Gorelets Omnibus. An excerpt, answering the question “What are Gorelets?” is available on the book page for the original chapbook, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems, where more photos and history is provided.

To all my longtime readers and goreletter subscribers over the past decade who have been there with me since the beginning and are smiling right alongside me…THANK YOU.

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Related fiction: “Introducing MyBlade”– a parody of those infamous Steve Jobs-styled ipod/iphone product announcement speeches, published in The Goreletter back in 2007. (And here’s a funny youtube video I found of some kids goofing around with an uncannily similar concept).

New Audiovile Review + Twitter Contest Winners Announced

Weird John C. — union leader of Gravediggers Local 16 — just posted a fantastic review of my spoken word cd, Audiovile. Jump to the Gravediggers website to take a look. It’s rather in-depth, reviewing each track deeply.

“Rather than coming of as simple readings, many of the tracks seem closer to songs or poetry….Michael Arnzen has a voice that’s well-suited for telling offbeat stories, both in terms of tone and his ability to adopt different styles of delivery depending on the track….and the flash fiction that makes up this release always kept me guessing.” — Gravediggers Local 16

To order Audiovile visit Raw Dog Screaming Press or pick it up digitally on iTunes!

The Gravediggers also run an excellent horror audio-related web radio show. Tune in to Six Foot Plus to give your ears a (trick or) treat.

You can also follow @GdL16 on twitter. In related news, I just picked two random winners in a spontaneous contest I ran on my twitter page. Here are the results!

Winner #1 of the Audiovile cd (info: gorelets.com/books/audiovil…) is: @hidingout2Congrats, Lu! Pls message or e-mail me your postal address.

— Michael Arnzen (@MikeArnzen) August 1, 2012

Winner #2 of the Audiovile cd (info: gorelets.com/books/audiovil…) is: @corey_smith Congrats, Corey! Pls message or e-mail me your postal address.

— Michael Arnzen (@MikeArnzen) August 1, 2012

Be sure to follow or friend me on your favorite social network to find out about these sort of surprises in the future.