Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 255

Mongrels Promotional Fallout

Was supposed to be just, you know, fun. But then the news services got hold of it: from : http://www.opengravesopenminds.com/bo... I don’t even know if it finally sold any Mongrels, really. And here’s a grab from the Daily Mail—much the same, just, without the Newcastle Beerwolf:  from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic... I mean, if you can’t trust the Daily Mail, who can you trust, right? And, while this is cool and all: from: http://metro.co.uk/2016/05/15/townspe... We didn’t really capitalize on it, by, say, setting up a Mongrels table on the way to the deep, dark, wolf woods, i.e.  that line of trees there, that’s maybe what they call a ‘hedgerow?’ I mean, whatever it is, we could have sold torches on the way to it. And pitchforks. It would have been perfect. You live and you learn, though, right? Next time, next time.

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Werewolves in London

And all the English-speaking places over there—Aus, NZ, wherever. Turkey too, soon, but I haven’t seen that one yet. Anyway, to proper-launch Mongrels over there, SciFiNow talked about Mongrels—so cool: Click here to go to the there (here to buy it over there). And, talking this UK Mongrels, like, the artifactness of it, there’s . . . different color, different height/dimensions:    the coolest (HarperVoyager) crescent moon, that I had to re-angle the book eighty times in the light to get my camera to see: blood-red endpapers:

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Report from Santa Fe

Always fun, talking to smart people on the television: The click to go to the place: http://reportfromsantafe.com/episodes...

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A Werewolf Playlist

Not what I listened to while Mongrels-writing, but some songs that synch up well with Mongrels, I think. Which you can cue up just on Spotify, here*. Also, before I get to annotating and embedding and pulling my hair about because the versions I want aren’t available, etc, I also put together a Youtube playlist—different stuff, same vein—here* (also, no guarantees there isn’t a bit of overlap between Youtube and Spotify—I get really clicky about werewolf songs). So, take my paw, let me lead you into this full-moon night—really, a certain someone says it all better than I can: And here we go: 1. Five Man Electrical Band The natural life cycle of the American werewolf 2. Townes Van Zandt All werewolf statements start with some version of “If I had a dollar bill” 3. The Gourds Everybody goes to jail at some point. Especially werewolves. 4. Melissa Etheridge When it comes down to being sentimental or being alive, werewolves always pick being alive. 5. Mulehead Werewolf cars eat up the miles. Seven states in fourteen hours? Only if you stop at every last roadside attraction. 6. Tom Waits It’s pretty obvious Tom Waits is a werewolf. 7. Sun Kil Moon Werewolves, they know about burning the trash, and, much like this band, they never win any spelling bees either 8. The Dollyrots This particular werewolf’s name, it’s Layla 9. Dr. John Werewolves don’t want to know about evil. They just want to know about love. 10. Drive-By Truckers I know a werewolf who talks  . . . → → →

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What a Werewolf Drives

There came a point in writing Mongrels where I realized, DUDE: you can’t have them driving a Buick in two chapters in a row! Werewolves don’t have brand loyalty, they drive whatever’s at hand. So began what I call the travails: google-image searching for like two bleary-eyed, numb-fingered days, until I’d not only put all the Chevrolets the proper distance from each other, but I’d set eyeballs (these) on pretty much the exact car for each chapter. However, do a count? You’ll see there’s more cars than chapters, here. Reason: there’s a couple of dupes. Also, there’s a Very Important Hot Wheel. Also, Darren doesn’t just drive a single truck through the whole novel. Doing that’s asking the world to figure out you are what you are. Also—still talking why there’s more cars than chapters—in some chapters, there is more than one car. Also also also: one or two of them, I wanted to be sure to have a couple angles on the car, to be sure I was doing it right on the page. Too? With the two El Caminos there (not the same car), how could I be asked to pick just one? Nobody can pick just a single El Camino, when their stated task is to pick the perfect El Camino. Simply put, there’s just too many perfect El Caminos out there. Anyway, really tempted to put these in proper order. I have a file in which I pasted them all in sequence, I mean; it wouldn’t be hard. But, to me,  . . . → → →

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Werewolves out in the World, part I

Didn’t think to start nabbing these pics until a day or two ago, so I’m sure there’s a lot of great and perfect ones out there. And, hope I’m not stepping on any toes, reposting them. If so, let me know? I’ll delete, or crop your name out (or mine?). Just snagged them off social media, usually. Twitter (#), Litsy, FB, maybe another place or two, who knows. Anyway, in no kind of order, and with the poster’s name when I could screencap it in: That dog’s got taste. Here’s another—lying down with werewolves (the book’s small on the cover): But there’s some well-read cats out there as well: And, I assume that’s in B&W because a dog was taking the picture. Who says dogs and cats can’t be friends? Mongrels brings all kinds of species together. Very cool seeing it stripped from the dustjacket, too. And here’s a favorite place to be: In window, with that so-cool “science fiction” label. Another cool place to be: on a phone—have wolves, will travel: Those blue-framed ones are Litsy—kind of my preferred social media haunt, as it’s all about books, books, then a few more books. And, you can do cool stuff like this: And here’s Mongrels out in the meat-world, on the desk of a working artist, Boden Steiner: And, talking desks, we can talk coffee shop tables, which proves that old point that three’s better than one: And of course the non-pirates out there are much appreciated (note the receipt . . .). And, while the  . . . → → →

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Werewolves out in the World

Didn’t think to start nabbing these pics until a day or two ago, so I’m sure there’s a lot of great and perfect ones out there. And, hope I’m not stepping on any toes, reposting them. If so, let me know? I’ll delete, or crop your name out (or mine?). Just snagged them off social media, usually. Twitter (#), Litsy, FB, maybe another place or two, who knows. Anyway, in no kind of order, and with the poster’s name when I could screencap it in: That dog’s got taste. Here’s another—lying down with werewolves (the book’s small on the cover): But there’s some well-read cats out there as well: And, I assume that’s in B&W because a dog was taking the picture. Who says dogs and cats can’t be friends? Mongrels brings all kinds of species together. Very cool seeing it stripped from the dustjacket, too. And here’s a favorite place to be: In window, with that so-cool “science fiction” label. Another cool place to be: on a phone—have wolves, will travel: Those blue-framed ones are Litsy—kind of my preferred social media haunt, as it’s all about books, books, then a few more books. And, you can do cool stuff like this: And here’s Mongrels out in the meat-world, on the desk of a working artist, Boden Steiner: And, talking desks, we can talk coffee shop tables, which proves that old point that three’s better than one: And of course the non-pirates out there are much appreciated (note the receipt . . .). And, while the  . . . → → →

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Torn: a Shock Youmentary

Wordplay aside, this looks to be pretty fun. So it only has one review? It’s a pretty good one, anyway. And I dig the setup: Coming across as a sort of Blair Witch Project version of hunting The Wolfman This is one I’m going to try hunt down myself:

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Three Reads

  Southern Gods A lot of novels out there, they play with the tentacley, the eldritch, the elder, but this one . . . I don’t know. It kind of does it, first, in a way that doesn’t seem like ‘play’ at all, but more important, it does it in a way that kind of rewrites the world I thought I had an all right handle on. Southern Gods‘ running explanation for just the metaphysics or cosmic underpinnings of our world, they make scary sense. However, grand as that may sound, the real trick of Southern Gods, it’s that it manages to thread all that “Supernatural Horror in Literature” stuff in so seamlessly with a dramatic line that cooks. The pacing the dialogue, the action, the gore, it’s all done as well as can be done. This feels like a novel someone went over like a hundred and eighty times. To our benefit. Seriously. The writing chops on display here, they’re something to study, to learn from. However, just try: you’ll get wrapped up in the story, completely forget that you’re a writer. That’s what good novels do—turn you into a reader-only. I can’t recommend this one enough. Seven Sins This story collection jacked with my head, and my heart. A friend I trust connected me with the people doing it, and told me that he thought there was something here I’d connect with. He was right. Only, as with all good horror, I came away kind of wondering if I actually wanted to be connected  . . . → → →

Torn: a Shock Youmentary

Wordplay aside, this looks to be pretty fun. So it only has one review? It’s a pretty good one, anyway. And I dig the setup: Coming across as a sort of Blair Witch Project version of hunting The Wolfman This is one I’m going to try hunt down myself: