Heidi Ruby Miller's Blog, page 30

BOOK: Devil Entendre by John Edward Lawson

BOOKS

This collection of horror stories asks: are there moments in your past you ignore...pretend never happened...moments you hide from yourself and others? What if the only thing imbuing our past with a sense of dread and terror is the fact that our future is based on it? And every evil incident has given the devil a foothold to step inside and make himself at home in our hearts. Be it a secret vice, a childhood trauma, or disturbing holiday traditions, Devil Entendre is a Petri dish in which the dark moments of our lives are allowed to evolve unencumbered.

Downloadable Reading Guide

John Edward Lawson is an author, editor and poet living in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. He is the author of 16 books of fiction and poetry, and numerous chapbooks. Over 500 of his poems, stories, and articles have been published in magazines, anthologies, literary journals, and newspapers worldwide. John was a winner of the 2001 Fiction International Emerging Writers Competition; in addition to being a finalist for the Stoker Award (2006, Superior Achievement in Poetry) and the Wonderland Award for Bizarro Fiction (2007, collected fiction), other award nominations include two for the Dwarf Stars Award, the Elgin Award, the Pushcart Prize, and two for the Rhysling Award.

John is also a founding editor of Raw Dog Screaming Press. He spent four years as editor-in-chief of The Dream People online literary journal of bizarro fiction and poetry. Other editorial projects include three print anthologies, four e-anthologies, and freelance work for such companies as National Lampoon and Double Dragon Publishing.

His hobbies include travel, games of strategy, and collecting Hong Kong comic books. He has an intense interest in films. During the 1990s he kicked around in the DC industrial-electro-goth scene in the band Dead Letter Office and owned Rack and Ruin Studio. He has been involved in the production of numerous short films, including award winners Party Girl and Uberman: An Experiment in Consciousness. Director Jayson Densman has collaborated with John for years spawning a trilogy of PoVids derived from his poetry.

Find him at http://www.johnlawson.org/

EVENT: Bizarro Halloween with RDSP

EVENTS

EVENT: Heidi Ruby Miller Reading at World Fantasy

EVENTS


I hope to see some of you at the World Fantasy Convention next month (Thursday, November 6 - Sunday, November 9, 2014) in Arlington, VA at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City . Guests of honor are Guy Gavriel Kay , Les Edwards , Stuart David Schiff , Lail Finlay , and Mary Robinette Kowal . Other wonderful attendees are listed on the Membership Page .

I will be reading from new work and old favorites on Sunday, November 9 from 10:30 - 11:00 AM in Fairfax, right after Navah Wolfe, so settle in for the hour and enjoy. I'll have treats!!

BOOK: Grave Markings 20th Anniversary Edition by Michael A. Arnzen

BOOKS

Grave Markings follows the tortured mental breakdown of Mark Michael Kilpatrick—an artist driven to purge visions of hell from his tainted mind by permanently working his ink into the skins of unwilling victims...the flesh of both the living and freshly dead.

News reporter Roy Roberts finds himself drawn into an obsession with tattoo culture, at the same time as Kilpatrick's own compulsions produce sicker and sicker masterpieces that attract media attention, twisting in a spiral that inevitably brings Roberts and his loved ones into Kilpatrick's morbidly perverse universe, and the artist's deadly inkgun turns toward them...

Now, for the first time in trade paperback, readers can find out why this novel won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Critics Guild Award, and such widespread acclaim across the horror genre. Included in this special Twentieth Anniversary edition are 50 pages of insightful BONUS material by Arnzen: a new preface, five literary essays, and four short stories (two never before published) involving bikers, tattoos and terror.

What they're saying about Grave Markings:
"Grave Markings is a high-speed chase into madness, unpredictable and twisted as a mountain road, written by one of the most inventive and outrageous new talents in the horror genre." -- Karl Edward Wagner, Author

"Michael Arnzen's debut novel is garish, unsettling, and darkly beautiful -- just like the artwork of its main character. Like that artwork, it makes a statement that simultaneously fascinates and repels. You want to turn away. You must turn away. But, oh God, you can't. Arnzen's definitely a writer to watch." -- Paul F. Olson, Author

"The ink gets into your blood and the needle goes straight to your bone."-- Jason Jack Miller, Author

"A Horse's Mouth from hell. A piercing look at art's illegitimate underbelly. Michael Arnzen is an excellent writer, and Grave Markings is a uniquely disturbing debut." -- Bentley Little, Author

"Michael Arnzen pulls the reader into the world of Grave Markings with a vivid, surreal hook, then makes it impossible to escape as the nightmares are unveiled. A great thriller." -- Sidney Williams, Author

"An authentically painful read, which conveys a real sense of a mind and a culture dangerously out of control." -- Ramsey Campbell, Author

Michael Arnzen is an award-winning author of horror and dark suspense fiction, a poet, and an English professor. His trophy case includes four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his often funny, always disturbing stories. The best of these appear in the Bram Stoker Award-winning career-length retrospective, Proverbs for Monsters, which Dread Central called "a guided tour of insanity and the macabre, with a few moments of touching grace combined with repulsive terror...[which] serves to document the evolution of a great writer."

Arnzen holds a PhD in English from the University of Oregon (where he researched his non-fiction book, The Popular Uncanny) and he is presently a Professor at Seton Hill University, where he teaches horror and suspense fiction in the country's only graduate program in Writing Popular Fiction (http://fiction.setonhill.edu).

Arnzen resides near Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife of many years, Renate, and a brood of deranged cats.

Buy Grave Markings and all of Mike's books at Amazon.

WORKSHOP: Pennwriters - A Writer's Roadtrip 2

WORKSHOPS


Register and see the schedule at www.pennwriters.org.

Writers crave time to write, knowledge of craft and communion with like-minded peers. If you’re looking for these and a chance to take your writing to the next level, then plan on attending A Writer’s Road Trip 2 Mini-Conference on October 18 in Erie, PA.

A luncheon buffet is included. Registration begins at 8 a.m. Sessions run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The conference wrap up is from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information, please contact Todd Main at todd_main@steris.com.

EVENT: Fallingwater Fayette County Appreciation Days

EVENTS


From the Fallingwater website:
Advance ticket purchase is essential for all tours at Fallingwater. Tickets may be purchased by calling Visitor Services at 724-329-8501. All Fallingwater tours are walking tours — comfortable shoes are a must!

BOOK: Mayday! Firefighter Down by Gary Ryman

BOOKS

Mayday! Firefighter Down by Gary Ryman

Lieutenant Dave Michaels is a chief officer in the making, according to some, as is his best friend, fellow officer and brother-in-law, Matt Thompson. After an intentionally set fire kills Thompson, Michaels begins to investigate the fire himself, angered by the slow police action. A series of similar fires convinces him that the key lies with the buildings' owner, the ex-wife of his deputy chief. But Michaels' dogged pursuit of the arsonist eventually puts him at odds with his superiors and a gritty, old-school detective named Witkowski. And it's not just his career that's in danger. Michaels' life is also on the line as the arsonist has a plan to permanently extinguish the fireman's burning desire for justice.

Mayday! Firefighter Down by Gary Ryman was released by Hellgate Press in September. The book is available on Amazon in softcover and Kindle versions and also at Barnes & Noble .


What they're saying about the book....

"Gary Ryman is a master storyteller, his intricate details eliciting a full range of emotions as he strategically positions you inside the head and heart of the firefighter feeling the heat, on and off the fire scene."
--Chief Tiger Schmittendorf, Runtothecurb.com

"Mayday! Firefighter Down is a great read in the genre of Dennis Smith's Steely Blue and shouldn't be missed. Ryman kept the firefighter in me interested and the writer in me waiting to see what happens next."
--Deputy Chief Michael "Mick" Mayers, Firehousezen.com

"An incredible read! The Chief has blended just about all of the elements of a great American novel into this one--Mystery, Murder, Greed, A Sexy Love Story and Great Firefighting Action. This book should be required reading for all aspiring and new firefighters."
--Chief Dennis Rubin, former Fire Chief, Washington D.C.

"Ryman hits one out of the park...From the first dispatch to the jaw dropping ending (or is it?), Ryman takes you on a thrilling journey as a Truck Officer in a busy fire station, plagued by an arsonist. Mayday! Firefighter Down is a compelling read; once you start you won't want to put it down!"
--Fred Bales, CFPS, CFI PA Senior Fire/Public Safety Instructor

NEWS: Mike Mehalek to Give Away Royalties for Only Human in October

Mike Mehalek will be donating all the royalties from his novel Only Human for the month of October to the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Youth (BAGLY) . Available in digital and paperback from Amazon. Find out more at Writing is Tricky .

DESCRIPTION:
Dragons do not cry. They control their emotions. This is what all dragons were taught, but I am now the only one alive to remember this lesson . . . Meet Vincent, a most unusual dragon. For thousands of years he’s been trapped—forced to spend what’s left of his existence among us in the form of a human for a crime in which he was unjustly convicted. 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. From a world that’s been hidden from view to a history that if acknowledged would end in torture and death, Vincent’s tale is a timeless one, both epic and intimate—as fierce as a dragon’s breath and as delicate as its tears. Haunting, heartfelt, and sometimes funny, Vincent discovers that even through tragedy, the things we most often try to avoid are those that make us human.

See the book trailer on YouTube.

BOOK: Slayers by T. K. Toppin and others

BOOKS

SLAY; verb (used with object), slew, slain, slay·ing. 1.to kill by violence. 2. to destroy; extinguish… A Slayer has but one purpose.

7DS Books debuts its newest collection, SLAYERS . Seven short story missions of your not so typical slayers taking on highly unusual targets. These captivating stories slice through tales of aliens, super slugs, demons, and beyond.

T. K. Toppin's science fiction story "We Come in Peace" is part of the collection. Other authors include Darke Conteur, Quincy J. Allen, Laurie Lyons, Solange Nicole, Alyse M. Gardner and Jae L. Malone.

Buy it at Amazon.

BOOK: What Tomorrow May Bring by Cary Caffrey and others

BOOKS

What Tomorrow May Bring is a YA Dystopian Boxed set which includes 10 novels (plus bonus chapters) from 11 established and up-and-coming indie authors in dystopian literature in a single collection. Each story contains a brand new foreword by its author. Cary Caffrey's The Girls from Alcyone is part of the collection. Buy at Amazon.