Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 263

Reeling in the Years

Back in the late nineties, I’d see Stephen Dixon stories all over and flip back to his author bio at the end of the journal or whatever not because I didn’t already know it, but for the rush: it always said he had some three hundred stories published. I had maybe six at the time? Three hundred was an amazing, impossible, never-get-there kind of number. And I’m not there yet. This isn’t that post. Though I did just total up my stories from print- and e-mags and anthologies and best-of-the-years and textbooks, meaning there’s some doubling, even some tripling, and maybe a ‘forthcoming’ or three sneaked in (I did manage not to count novel chapters that ran in different places, anyway), but still, sitting at 201, looks like. Since my first publication in Black Warrior Review back in 1996 (well, ‘first’ would be this little mag MindPurge, then there was North Texas Review. But BWR was the first I got a check for. And checks matter). Still chasing Dixon, though. And, as anybody who’s ever requested a bio from me knows, that’s the thing I suck at the most. I’d far rather just write another story. Or make up a bio. Just because I can’t keep track. But, near as I can tell, here’s the count as of early March, 2014: fifteen novels (just counting ATBS once, though it’s now two way-separate novels, and including Not for Nothing, already on some shelves), five collections, one e-novella that’s soon to be print, and another novella going  . . . → → →

States of Grace

Exactly fifty stories, none longer than a thousand words, a couple just a sentence or two. Pre-order   If we had to choose one writer to rebuild American literature after the apocalypse, the smart money would be on Stephen Graham Jones, who is in the process of reinventing literally every genre from the ground up. In States of Grace he offers up lean, deftly composed short-shorts that seem effortless but get a surprising amount done considering their style—like a deadly gang of smurfs.  – Brian Evenson    

Z Lives

I can’t remember if I wrote The Gospel of Z right before or right after The Least of My Scars. They were right next to each other, anyway. Oh, yeah: I wrote the first draft of Z before Scars, then the next draft after Scars. I’m pretty sure. And, it wasn’t the first zombie thing I’d written. My first zombie novel was It Came from Del Rio. Which I’m thinking was 05, maybe? -ish? I know I did Zombie Bake-Off in 07, anyway. And, coming into both of them, I knew nothing about zombies. I mean, I’d seen the zombie movies, of course, and read some of the stories, but I hadn’t thought about the zombie in any real way. This is probably why Dodd in Del Rio has a bunny head, and keeps a journal. And why the zombies in Zombie Bake-Off are molting into stage after stage: I was making it all up as I went. It was the same with The Gospel of Z. With that first draft, anyway. Which was huge-long and twice and three different kinds of unwieldy. I’d given myself no page-cap, so just kept throwing down word-as-patches, as you do, and the story kept going and going and going. What I was doing, I realize now, was world-building: going down each blind alley of this post-apocalypse, then backing my way out, looking to map the next portion of the terrain. That doesn’t make for a tight, compelling story, though. Obviously. The people I gave that draft to either  . . . → → →

The Elvis Room

a novella What if you weren’t looking for evidence of the supernatural, but found it all the same? A true research scientist can either hide that evidence or tell the world. Either way it’s going to haunt you. Either way your life is never going to be same. Find out what’s always on the other side of the door. It’s the Elvis Room. first word  

Sterling City

a novella A moon explodes and a marriage dies. An impossible creature rises from the tall grass, watches a farmer’s circle system crawl across the field like a giant insect. That farmer watches back. His wife’s footprints are there in the dirt. The fire in the sky leaves his shadow crisp and deep. This is Texas without the cowboy hat. This is Texas with a soft rain of cosmic debris sifting down over it. This is a dark, dangerous thing hiding in the cellar, but this is also a girl threading her bangs out of her face and smiling with her eyes at a boy. This is that impossible creature, love. This is Sterling City.   Amazon

There Comes a Rider

saw this at BizarroCon this weekend. it’s one of one. the rest coming soon.

All the links fit to link

Update, Steve. Got to remember, got to remember: City of the Dead is easily the best haunted house I’ve ever been to. I learned both NOT to get lost in the backtunnels visitors aren’t supposed to stumble into, and also to NOT let my wallet chain get caught on the wall when Leatherface is chasing me hit two movie premieres recently: Monkey’s Paw in LA and Winter in the Blood in Austin I was on HuffPost Live, talking “Terrifying Television.” was fun. crazy to think there’s still Werthams out there, trying to bring the horror down: and, Mixer asked me to give my top five horror novels, stories, and movies. it’s in here, now, alongside Brian Evenson’s list, which I’m anxious to see: my story “Thirteen” from Paula Guran’s Halloween got a nice mention in AICN my story “Welcome to the Reptile” house is in the charity anthology Blood Type:   my story “Old Meat” got the musical accompaniment treatment by Matthew Treon, at Gutfish Radio: and, just now I was on KMSU radio, talking slashers. Soon to be archived, I’m sure, at which point this image will become a link: I’ve got an interview spread across Jeff Vandermeer’s too-cool Wonderbook: I was lucky enough to make this excellent book: and, finally, this is what I looked like for class for Halloween:  

Looking at Demon Theory

I forget if I’ve properly updated or not, but: Demon Theory, the comic book. We’ve got pencils and temp-lettering in the can, are playing with cover stuff now (I’ve got a fake-o logo/title somewhere, but, it’s somewhere not on this particular computer), as you can see below. As for its eventual realness, as in buyableness: we’re just putting tentacles out to publishers now, and crossing what fingers we’ve got left. It’s a good time for a new horror comic, I think, with both Locke & Key and Hack/Slash sadly going/gone away. However, one thing I’ve found is that I don’t get to make those calls. I just write and write and write, and hope in-between, try to watch some Rockford Files when I can.

Monkey’s Paw

If only anybody were ever smart enough to call a lawyer and an English major before they made their three wishes, right? You’ve got to the get the wording just, just right, with all these exclusionary clauses, with all this over-specific verbiage to indicate exactly what you’re asking for. And bring an artist in as well, to go ahead and illustrate what you’re saying, to storyboard out the smallest most insignificant minutia of these wishes. Don’t worry about being too redundant or pedantic, either. You have to go that far. Because the wishgivers of the world, at least according to the stories, they will willfully misinterpret whatever you say. They’ll gleefully misinterpret it. It’s like—it’s like, sure, they’re bound by ‘laws’ to follow your instructions. But if you leave any wiggle room at all, then look out, you’re about to become a chalkboard on which they can carve a cute rhyming poem about how much it chafes being bound by these rules. Case in point: Another case in point: The Monkey’s Paw, a bloody retelling of that 1905 short story by WW Jacobs. Except, you probably remember it as happening over the course of a single day, yes?   Not feature-length. Here it is in short: a couple acquires a magic talisman that grants three wishes, one of which kills their son, one of which brings him back, one of which sends him away. So, it’s built for three acts, but, in the story at least, those acts are bam bam bam fast, and then  . . . → → →

Three Miles Past

A collection of three powerfully disturbing novellas by multiple award-winning author, Stephen Graham Jones. There are lines that probably shouldn’t be crossed, doors that should stay shut, thoughts that shouldn’t be considered. In these three novellas by Stephen Graham Jones, the dead talk, ancient evil opens its eyes, and that guy across the parking lot, he’s watching you, and has been for a while now. Lock the door, tell yourself it’s nothing, turn the radio up. It won’t matter. You’re already three miles past where you meant to stop.     Amazon |