Stephanie M. Wytovich's Blog, page 25

Cover Reveal: Embrace the Hideous Immaculate

Back of the Book:

Embrace the Hideous Immaculate is an excursion through nightmarish landscapes, vast alien terrains and shallow earthly trenches. Within these realms of darkness await outer space monstrosities, ancient undead goddesses, serial killer prophets, and revenants from the Deep South and South Pacific. Bram Stoker Award nominee, Chad Hensley, pushes the reader face first off a cliff and into the bottomless, abyssal plain where vast horrors lurk underground in cities made from infant bones.

In a collection that marries literary and contemporary horror, Hensley uses gothic subtext with a modern spin to send the living to the grave while the dead rise and walk the streets. The poetry contained in Embrace the Hideous Immaculate is unflinching and grotesque, mixing gore and depravity with verse that is both evocative and illuminating as noted by renowned Lovecraftian author and scholar Wilum H. Pugmire’s insightful introduction.



Meet the Author:

A crafted reporter on cultural extremes in music and art, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, Chad Hensley, saw several years of his writing on underground subjects as EsoTerra: The Journal of Extreme Culture, through Creation Books in 2011 and available at Amazon.com.

Hensley’s non-fiction has appeared in such praised publications as Apocalypse Culture 2, Terrorizer, Spin, Rue Morgue, Hustler, and Juxtapoz. He has sold short stories to the anthologies The Darker Side: Generations of Horror, The Dead Inn, Allen Koszowski’s Inhuman, and Chad’s short story collection with Wilum Pugmire, A Clicking in the Shadows, received an honorable mention in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. His poetry has also received honorable mentions in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as well as being nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling Award. His poetry appearances include the magazines Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Space and Time, Crypt of Cthulhu, Deathrealm, and the Chiaroscuro website.  Chad currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.

PREORDER HERE!

MADHOUSE INTRODUCTION: Meet Chad Hensley

Greetings my patients!

Today, I want to introduce you all to Chad Hensley. When I first read Chad's manuscript last year, I was immediately drawn to the Lovecraftian, gothic feel of his poetry. It's been a pleasure working with him as an editor--not to mention a lot of fun--and I'm so excited for the release of Embrace the Hideous Immaculate coming out next month from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

So let's give him all a warm, madhouse welcome as we sign him in, give him a room, and let the madness take him.

Stay Scared,
Stephanie M. Wytovich


When did you start writing? Why did you pick the genre you write in?
I started writing poetry in college around 1986. I went to school at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. It has some great literary and history courses. One was called Heritage. It is an intense curriculum of Western Civilization. Starting with the dawn of Mankind and ending with speculations about the future, the program combines history, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts in an integrated approach to the study of Western culture as part of a global cultural history. It was really intense with two lectures every day, massive reading assignments, plus small classroom participation every other day. It covers many religions, including their histories and not just their beliefs, as well as art movements and philosophical periods. I really enjoyed the course, as overwhelming as it was. Needless to say, this exposed me to many authors and poets throughout time.
In college, I also got involved in punk rock. I was already a fan of extreme heavy metal and punk was just an extension of extreme music. Punk rock exposed me to zine culture. Consequently, Millsaps College had a literary magazine called The Stylus. This periodical was filled with poetry, art, and some fiction. To me, it was just another zine but very accessible. In the 1980s, there was no internet yet. So if you wanted to submit to a publication, you had to do so through the mail. But since The Stylus was published on campus, all you had to do was drop your submission in a mail slot. You didn’t find out if you got accepted until The Stylus was published.
During this same time frame, a friend gave me a copy of the horror magazines Deathrealm and Revelations from Yuggoth. The person thought my poetry was similar to the poetry in these horror zines. These publications were very Lovecraftian in content. Now, I had read some H.P. Lovecraft in high school so I was already familiar with the author. But these zines really inspired me and I started reading them, as well as more of Lovecraft’s literature, voraciously. Through Deathrealm, I learned of another punk rocker who wrote fiction and poetry named Wilum Pugmire. I really enjoyed his horror fiction and he did a zine called Punk Lust. So I wrote to him and began corresponding.
Back at Millsaps, the literature students who controlled The Stylus weren’t always thrilled with my poetry submissions. They also usually did not like to publish more than one piece of writing from an individual, no matter how good the material was compared with the other submissions. This bothered me greatly. So to combat this, I submitted under a few pseudonyms in addition to my real byline. One of these pseudonyms was Orcen, which is the phrase “necro” backwards. This resulted in me getting several poems published in a single issue. Eventually, I joined the literary team that chose the contents of The Stylus, though I would never vote for my own work. However, some of the staff figured out my pseudonyms and the jig was up, though to their benefit, most of them did keep the revelation on the down low.
By this time, I was submitting to horror genre magazines regularly. I got my first poetry acceptance from Mark Rainey’s Deathrealm. Though my first published poem was in a magazine called New Blood (issue #5) though my byline was left off the poem, intentionally I think. My first poem in Deathrealm would appear in issue #9, just a short time later. Deathrealm was and still is my favorite horror magazine. I had eleven poems published in Deathrealm by the time it ceased publication. A few of my poems published here managed to receive honorable mentions in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, which helped to inspire me further.

 After college graduation, I moved to Los Angeles at the end of 1989. It wasn’t until this period, that I started writing horror fiction and non-fiction. My first fiction sale was a pro sale to the publication Bizarre Bazaar in 1992.
In Los Angeles, I managed to move two blocks from Melrose Avenue which, at that time, was sort of a haven of underground culture. Stores like Vinyl Fetish record shop, the La Luz De Jesus art gallery and the Soap Plant book store beneath it, and Golden Apple Comics. Though it was further away, I could also drive to the Amok book store. All of these places as well as live music exposed me to a wider range of subculture that was simply not prevalent in the Deep South. My zine network expanded to include publications that focused on industrial music, apocalypse culture, and the occult.
As strange as it may sound, this combination of horror literature, underground music, and youth subculture mixed together really well for me…and had a definite influence on the creation of EsoTerra the journal of extreme culture, which is a zine I started in 1991. I wanted the magazine to be occult pop culture mixing in-depth interviews with musicians, artists, and writers alongside articles on the occult and fortean topics. The only criteria for the individuals featured in the magazine was that their ideology had to be expressed through their music, art, or writing. This really helped me to develop my non-fiction.
In the mid-90s, I began writing for various culture magazines like Seconds and Terrorizer in England as well as Warp Japan in Tokyo. These editors pushed my writing which in turn pushed the articles in EsoTerra magazine to be better with each issue as well as my fiction. Consequently, I’ve had articles published in the books Apocalypse Culture 2 by Feral House and volumes two, three, and four of Antibothis (an occult anthology from Portugal), as well as the magazine Hustler (yes, that one) and Slayer fanzine from Norway based on subject matter that originally appeared in EsoTerra magazine. In the cases of Antibothis and Slayer fanzine, articles from the magazine were reprinted in their entirety. In fact, Jon Kristiansen’s massive hard back tome The Slayer Mag Diaries that collects material from his Slayer fanzine, contains my Marilyn Manson interview, though no credit to me is given.
In 2011, Creation Books in England published EsoTerra the journal of extreme culture as a book which collected the best material from the magazine. The book is still in print and available from Amazon.com worldwide. 
Getting back to poetry, I had a chapbook called What the Cacodaemon Whispered published in 2001 which also ended up being a Bram Stoker finalist. Then in 2007, I had another chapbook of poetry published called Shades of Darkness. It contains What the Cacodaemon Whispered plus the chapbook Deep South Drifter. At this time, I was still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina which severely impacted my parents who were living along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and, though my home in New Orleans was untouched by the hurricane, life in the city was very problematic for me. Long story short, there was little publicity for Shades of Darkness on my part and not very many people were aware of it, I think. 
What’s a normal writing day like for you?
I don’t know if I have normal writing days. Ha! I go back and forth between poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Sometimes, I have focused on what pays the best financially and maybe that’s not always the best idea.
 Who are some of your favorite authors? Who are you currently reading?
Some of my favorite authors are H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Michael Moorcock, Wilum Pugmire, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Ligotti, Joe Lansdale, J.R.R. Tolkien, Clark Ashton Smith, and Brian Hodge.

Right now, I need to finish Lansdale’s Drive-In series…
From 1997 until 2003, I lived in Seattle, Washington. Wilum Pugmire lived down the street from me. So it was easy to meet up, critic each other’s fiction, as well as collaborate. We’ve written one poem and three short stories together, one of which wound up in the mass market paperback anthology The Darker Side: Generations of Horror. Wilum and I also collaborated on a chapbook of short stories titled A Clicking in the Shadows and Other Tales published in 2002. The lead story received an honorable mention in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. I’m really pleased and proud to have collaborated with Wilum and hope to do so again one day.
Do you write in silence or with noise (TV, movies, music)?
All of the above… Sometimes, I write in silence. Or with the television turned on but the volume turned down. Other times, I write to music.
Do you type or write longhand?
These days, I mostly use the computer keyboard. Though, I have taken notes on paper, written in long hand, and kept a journal. When I go on trips (I have been to Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, and both the British and American Virgin Islands), I try to keep a journal.
Would you consider yourself a Plotter or a Pantser?
With fiction, I am definitely a plotter. While with poetry, I am much more fly by the seat of your pants. I have often dreamt stories or gotten ideas for poems from dreams. Sometimes, a specific occurrence, event, or situation will inspire my poetry.

How do you balance being an editor and being a writer?
Finding flaws in another author’s work is easier for me than finding flaws in my own. I do not know if other writers have this same problem or not.
Advice for aspiring writers?
My advice would be to network more. I have ignored this in the past or simply not accepted that writing is a business. Especially, if you want to get paid and/or recognized for your work.
Current or upcoming publications?
In May, Raw Dog Screaming Press will publish my first book of poetry titled Embrace the Hideous Immaculate. I’ve had poetry in the last several issues of Star*Line, the publication of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. I tend to not submit to online publications unless they pay well but I did have a poem in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change volume 24, number 4 at http://mobiusmagazine.com/ and I have a poem in an upcoming issue of Space and Time.
I will have fiction in issue #6 of Allen Koszowski's Inhuman.
This summer, Camion Noir will release the French language version of my book EsoTerra the journal of extreme culture. I also have an article in the Slovakian language version of Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music coming sometime this year. Next year, I will have non-fiction in the hardback anthology The Fenris Wolf volume #8 coming from Edda Publishing in Stockholm, Sweden.
  Author Bio: A crafted reporter on cultural extremes in music and art, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Chad Hensley saw several years of his writing on underground subjects as EsoTerra: The Journal of Extreme Culture, through Creation Books in 2011 and available at Amazon.com. Hensley's non-fiction has appeared in such praised publications as Apocalypse Culture 2, Terrorizer, Spin, Rue Morgue, Hustler, and Juxtapoz. He has sold short stories to the anthologies The Darker Side: Generations of Horror, Allen Koszowski's Inhuman, and Chad's short story collection with Wilum Pugmire, A Clicking in the Shadows, received an honorable mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. His poetry has also received honorable mentions in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as well as being nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling Award and the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award. Last but not least, his poetry appearances include the magazines Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Space and Time, Crypt of Cthulhu, Deathrealm, and the Chiaroscuro website.  Chad currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana

Being an Artist: 25 Lessons for 25 Years

Next week is my birthday and I'm turning 25. As a result, I thought it would be a fun idea to see if I could come up with 25 lessons that I've learned over the years in regards to writing. Some I learned young, some I learned yesterday and each was as important as the last.


1.       Read.
·         Read every day and read everything that you can get your hands on. Don’t just read in your genre. Read fiction, non-fiction, poetry, the writing on the bathroom stall at your favorite bar. Just read.
2.       Write every day.
·         This creates discipline and helps you to strengthen your time management skills, not to mention find your voice as an author.
3.       Stay true to yourself.
·         Don’t not do something because you think people will think or feel differently about you. Write the story you want to write, when you want to write it, and be confident. It’s your art and it should be strictly yours and something that you’re proud to sign your name to.
4.       Stay physically fit as well as mentally fit.
·         Exercise the body and the brain. Know when to take breaks, make sure you’re sleeping and don’t kill yourself from a caffeine overdose. Learn your body and its rhythms and then listen to them. Sometimes getting too far into your story isn’t a good thing, and sometimes staring at a computer for six hours will only accomplish a script for a new pair of glasses.
5.       Network as much and as often as you can.
·         Get out and meet people. Yes, I know we’re all introverts to some degree but you can’t write about life and all its ups and downs if you’re not living it yourself. Building a network of other writers and artists will help you to stay on top of the industry and everything it includes from submission openings to friendships.
6.       Attend conventions.
·         Go, travel, observe! Take a break from writing without actually taking a break. Conventions are my favorite way to recharge and get inspired. I love spending time with all my friends and doing nothing but catching up and talking shop for a couple of days. I attend World Horror every year and each time I leave counting down the days until I can come back.
7.       Be professional.
·         Don’t be a dick. Seriously. In fact, I probably should have made this number 1.
8.       Never feel comfortable.
·         If you start to feel comfortable in your writing, then you need to start pushing the envelope a bit. People want new, exciting! Yes, they want the traditional elements of the genre you’re working in, but how many times can we read Draculaover and over again before we want to stake ourselves?
9.       Be prepared for rejection.
·         Rejection is part of the art. Some people will hate you, others will dislike you, some for good reasons, others for no reason at all. Your work won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and you will be rejected…probably more times than you’ll be accepted. Never give up and learn from what doesn’t work.
10.   Be prepared for acceptance.
·         Acceptance is also part of the game, and you have to be ready when it happens. Know how to promote your work and how to be thankful. Also, have a media kit ready to go at all times: bio, author photo, synopsis, etc.
11.   Know what you’ve published and who you published it with.
·         When someone asks you who you’ve worked with, the last thing you want to do is draw a blank. Be familiar with your publications, and if you haven’t been published, know enough about the markets that you’re interested in so you can intelligently talk about them.
12.   Find a critique partner.
·         Find someone who you trust and who you know has your best interest at heart. This relationship will become vital to your writing process because you’ll have someone to give you support and cheer you on, but also someone who won’t let you slide or take the easy way out.
13.   Know your limits with sleep and caffeine.
·         This basically means know how to survive and not become a sleep-deprived caffeine monkey. And no, I haven’t figured out the secret to doing this one yet.
14.   Develop a routine.
·         See what works with your schedule and stick to it. Create habits.
15.   Get on social media.
·         Use Facebook, Twitter, whatever you want, but have a marketing and social media presence. This allows you further opportunities to network, to stay in touch with colleagues, fans, and other professionals in the field, and it will serve as a platform to start promoting your work.
16.   Set up a blog and keep up with it.
·         I created the MADHOUSE when I was a freshman in college and it’s been one of the best marketing tools that I’ve discovered. It’s nice to have a place where you can write and be yourself. This place will let your fans and/or audience get to know you, the person, alongside you, the author.
17.   Discover your author brand and build on it throughout your career.
·         Who are you and how do you want to be viewed? Do you have a gimmick? What makes you different? How do you stand out?
·         For me? I chose insanity as my platform and ran straight to the asylum with it!
18.   Don’t write what you know.
·         Writing is about discovery. Go places where you haven’t gone before.
19.   Ask questions.
·         If you ask questions about the industry or how something should be formatted, people will give you answers. It’s as easy as that. Just ask.
20.   Tell those who you admire, that you admire them.
·         Just trust me on this one.
21.   Know the rules before you break them.
·         Buy a dictionary, buy a thesaurus and memorize The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
22.   Understand that there will always be someone better than you.
·         And there will be. Learn from them and shove the envy aside. That sin doesn’t wear well on anyone.
23.   Review books.
·         I won’t review a book unless I like it. I personally don’t believe in giving negative reviews of something in print because I wouldn’t want someone doing that to me. If you asked me if I enjoyed something and I didn’t, I would state my opinion, but I wouldn’t run someone into the ground just because their story wasn’t my cup of tea. We’re all writers, and face it, we’re all a bit sensitive.
·         Reviewing books also opens a door to different job opportunities as well as increases your chances for getting a review back from that person as well.         
      24.   Go with your gut.

·         If something feels shady or wrong, it probably is.
 And most importantly…
25.   Have fun.
·         You’re doing this because you love it, because it’s what you were meant to do. Take that idea and fly, baby.  

Cover Reveal: The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland

And BOOM! The cover reveal for Albert Wendland's THE MAN WHO LOVED ALIEN LANDSCAPES


What could draw poet, explorer, loner and paranoid Mykol Ranglen away from the relative peace of his own ring-in-space habitat?

He has no choice in the matter as one by one acquaintances are murdered or disappear altogether. Propelled by ever changing and deepening mysteries Mykol embarks to uncover secrets which could make people rich beyond their wildest dreams…or tear apart human civilization.

The escalating quest takes him through worlds of many dangerous extremes, leading him to confront the deadly alien Fist of Thorns, extinct species refusing to give up their power over the future, and those racing against him to uncover the secret first. But in the course of his pursuit, he must also face his own secrets. And some of these are even more dangerous.

Albert Wendland's Blog: http://albertwendland.blogspot.com/
Cover Art by Bradley Sharp :http://www.bradsharp.co.uk
Foreward by William H. Keith: http://whkeith.com/home-page.html
Published by Dog Star Books: http://rawdogscreaming.com/books

What They’re Saying About The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes:

"Mystery,  heart-pounding adventure, and the dazzling wonders of far-flung space  play significant roles in Wendland's breakout novel, all while gifting  us with a mesmerizing tour of alien landscapes destined to get under  your skin and remind you of the very reason science fiction exists: Not  to escape to other worlds, but to find ourselves within them."
--Diana Dru Botsford, author of THE DRIFT and FOUR DRAGONS

Inside are alien worlds and titanic space habitats and a brilliant and paranoid hero, all skillfully blended together with long-vanished galactic secrets. Science fiction…good science fiction, by a college professor of literature who loves good SF."
--From the foreword by William H. Keith, New York Times Bestselling Science Fiction Author

MADHOUSE POEM: Hysteria Falls in Sane, in Love

Hysteria Falls in Sane, in Loveby Stephanie M. Wytovich
 Love.

Ha, love is insanity.And if it’s not, then it’s not love…not really, and let’s be honest with each other—you know,
the kind of honest that people don’t like to hear—madness is love because you don’t go mad
unless you’re driven with passion, with obsession, with the kind of adoration that
makes you want to rip out your heart,
tear off your flesh and succumb to any type of pain, threat, or death
for the benefit of someone else.
 
If you’re not going crazy, if you’re not confused,
if you’re not losing your mind,
then it’s not love,
and if it is,
then it’s no kind of love that I want
because the strongest kind of love, is the honest kind of love,
and everyone has their demons,
scratching, clawing, and killing them from the inside out.

Love,
 Ha, love is hysteria.
It’s uncontrollable emotion, a maelstrom of past-present-future pain
that one person can’t handle alone. It’s unfair and it’s normal, and then it’s
not okay and beautiful. It makes no sense and the mind—the mind—stops working
(if it’s ever even worked before) and the invisible crazy that sinks into your heart,
that makes it beat fast like that around him…that’s it. That’s the mania,
that’s the love, the madness we’re all looking for.

MADHOUSE POEM: Love Always Finds His Victims

Love Always Finds His VictimsBy Stephanie M. Wytovich
The girl couldn’t run anymoreLove was too fast,
and he held a knife to her throat,
daring her to move
and she didn’t,
wouldn’t and in that moment,
that moment where the
blade sent blood down her
throat, down her stomach
and thighs,
she knew that it was
time to give up,
time to surrender
to the monster
in her heart because
if the years had
taught her anything
it was that you can’t run
from Love because
Love will always find you,
Love will always
kill you in the end.

52 Books to Madness: My Yearly Challenge

Every year I challenge myself to read 52 books and I'm happy to report that I met and exceeded my goals once again (and still have a few days left to possibly squeeze one more in).

Here's the list:
Smoke by Ellen HopkinsHow to Write Horror Fiction by William F. NolanThe Thief of Always by Clive BarkerWomen by Charles BukowskiThe Art of Description: World into Word by Mark DotyBeautiful Sorrows by Mercedes M. YardleySomething Wicked This Way Comes by Ray BradburyBack Roads & Frontal Lobes by Brady AllenBooklife by Jeff VandermeerThe Strangers by Mort CastleMama Fish by Rio YouersVampires, Zombies and Wanton Souls by Marge SimonZombie Haiku by Ryan MecumThe Body by Stephen KingThe Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins GilmanDaughters of Lilith by Donna LynchDeath Perception by Lee Allen HowardWestlake Soul by Rio YouersFloating Staircase by Ronald MalfiThe Colossus by Sylvia PlathI'm Not Sam by Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKeeThe Crossing by Joe McKinneyErotic Poems by e.e. cummingsTotems and Taboos by Jason V. BrockA Stir of Echoes by Richard MathesonVoodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau by Martha WardDark Duet by Linda D. Addison and Stephen M. WilsonThe Road by Cormac McCarthyTearstone by David L. DayWhat Dreams May Come by Richard MathesonDays of Reckoning by Chris StoutLover Enshrined by J.R. WardRevising Fiction by Kirt HickmanMastering the Techniques of Teaching by Joseph LowmanThe Writing Class by Jincy WilletGone South by Robert R. McCammonBoy's Life by Robert R. McCammonThe Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan GottschallRed by Jack KetchumThe Writing Workshop by Alan ZieglerThe Hobbit by J. R. R. TolkeinA Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House by Mark SpencerThe Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz ZafonAshes by Donna BurgessThe Pact by Jodi PicoultThe Monstrance by Bryan D. DietrichLadies' Night by Jack KetchumWeed Species by Jack KetchumDays of Blood and Starlight by Laini TaylorThe Devil's Wine by Tom PiccirilliPerfect by Ellen HopkinsFallout by Ellen Hopkins

THERE BE DRAGONS IN THE MADHOUSE

“Dragons do not cry. They control their emotions. That is what all dragons were taught, but I am now the only one alive to remember this lesson.”   [image error]   Only Human  by  Mike Mehalek Cover Art by  Allie Raines Now for sale at Amazon What does it mean to be a human?  Meet Vincent, a most unusual dragon who has been trying to avoid answering that particular question for thousands of years, ever since his kind banished him and forced him to spend the rest of his life as a human. When a new love arrives unexpectedly, Vincent discovers that the only way to find happiness is to revisit his violent past and to confront his uncertain future. Haunting, heart-felt, and sometimes funny, Vincent discovers that even through tragedy, the things we most often try to avoid are those that make us whole. What others have said ONLY HUMAN takes you on a journey through Vincent's past lives and loves as he navigates his present incarnation and the darkness that follows him throughout the ages. - Heidi Ruby Miller , author of Greenshift There's lots to love about ONLY HUMAN: action, mystery, secrets revealed and redemption. Add to that dragons (who doesn't love dragons?), wicked bad guys and an all-too-human narrator who will win your heart...the strongest element of this book is the love story...This is an epic, timeless story and a small intimate one at the same time. Dip your toe in, I don't think you'll be disappointed. -Jennifer Barnes, editor at Raw Dog Screaming Press Purchased and enjoying!!...AND I had a dream I was a flying dragon last night! It was awesome! -Amazon Reader Watch the trailer below For fun Who would play the characters in the movie version? About Me Mike Mehalek writes fast-paced lyrical books that can be enjoyed with one reading but have enough substance for re-reading. He brings stories to life that demand to be told, regardless of the hopes/dreams/fears/desires of his characters-the Story first-always the Story.  He'd love for you to visit him at his blog, Writing is Tricky or on Twitter @mikemehalek If you'd like to join his email list, please email mike.mehalek@gmail.com with like to join in the subject line.

IT WAS MORE FUN IN HELL

Patient: Stephanie M. Wytovich
Illness: Sin
Treatment: Hell

I spent a lot of time thinking today and yeah, as a writer that’s normally what I do every day, but today was different. Today, I didn’t just think. I figured some stuff out, too. You see, when I finished my thesis novel, I thought the best thing that I could do for myself was to step out of Hell for a little while. I needed to spend some time away from the The Seven, take a break from the fire, and stop breathing in the ashes. I didn’t want to constantly think about pain, about empty hearts, and what happens when we don’t go after the people that we love. I wanted to bury my demons for a while, and with them, their stories, their thoughts, their pasts. I wanted to look towards the light, to start a fresh project and meet new people—new characters—characters that would teach me different things about life, about love, about happiness and pain.
But you know what? Life made more sense to me when I was in Hell. So I’m going back, back to the fire, back to the circles, back to death, to pain, and to sin. I’m re-marrying an old idea and taking the Devil’s hand one more time.
And since I came out swinging once, I think I can do it again.
So here’s to Deadly Sin, to embracing your demons. Here's to regret, to redemption, to not stopping until your heart can feel something again.But most importantly, here's to sin.It’s going to be one Hell of a ride.   Want to follow my sins? Facebook: Stephanie M. WytovichTwitter: @JustAfterSunsetPinterest: Stephanie M Wytovich, board "Deadly Sin"Spotify: "Deadly Sin" Playlist   

MADHOUSE POEM: Psychiatry for the Lonely

Patient: Lonely
Illness: Heartbreak, Doubt
Treatment: Psychiatry Appointment
Case Number: 173 "Embrace Your Madness"
Residing Nurse: Hysteria


Psychiatry for the Lonely
By Stephanie M. Wytovich

ImagineIf you didn't have to be invisible,
If you didn't have to hide,
If you were with someone,
Someone who let you
Be you:
Crazy, wonderful,
Awful,
Beautiful
You.

Now
Imagine
If you didn’t have to be covered in dust,
If you didn’t have to be covered in cobwebs,
If you were loved by someone,
Someone who understood the
Darkness in
Your soul:Your sad, scary
Frighteningly
Insane,
Soul.

Now
ImagineIf that someone related to the madness
If that someone saw your beauty
And loved the death in your eyes,
If that someone loved
Your faults:
Your addictions, your sickness,
Your slurs,
Ticks,
And shakes.

And

ImagineIf you let yourself fall in love
Instead of in suicide,
Instead of in loneliness,
And let that someone      
Save you:
Chaotic, intense,Blissfully neurotic, ExquisitelyPerfectYou. Now AcceptThat it's possible to break your restraintsTo walk out of solitaryOut of lockdownAnd open your heart,Your broken, Shattered, Bleeding, needingHeart. Now tell me,Tell me how that makes you feel.