October First Sundays Prose Reading Lineup to Feature . . . Me; JWK Best of Horror Received in Print
We may recall from August 3 that the Bloomington Writers Guild’s monthly First Sundays Prose Readings series is back after a two month summer hiatus. So it happened Wednesday that I received an email from coordinator Kamil Khan asking if I would like to be one of the three featured readers next month. This is an honor — I had done it once before, but that was over a year ago in February 2013 (cf. February 4 2013) — except just a week previously, on August 30 (see August 1), I would be doing a half-hour prose reading on the Spoken Word Stage at Bloomington’s Fourth Street Festival of Arts and Crafts.
So I emailed back suggesting that I be scheduled the following month, for October 5, pointing out as well that it would be “[a] good month for a horror tale for Halloween too.” Then the word came back, yes. “I have you scheduled for October!” And now preparations for two readings will be in progress, but separated enough that it shouldn’t cause any undue confusion. I’ve pretty well decided (pending a final test timed reading) that for the Arts Fair I’ll read “River Red” from THE TEARS OF ISIS — more or less my standard 15-minute reading these days, also the one I read at NASFiC last month for instance — plus a light flash piece for a mood change, and end with the short vampire tale “Casket Girls” from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION (see April 17 and 10, et al.). Now, for October when I’ll have about 15 minutes total, I’m tentatively looking at “The First Hundred Years,” a story based on a Jamaican legend except with zombies, that was originally published in my second prose collection DARKER LOVES: TALES OF MYSTERY AND REGRET. 
Information and schedules for upcoming Writers Guild events can be found here.
In other Wednesday news, the print edition of JWK FICTION BEST OF HORROR 2013 has arrived (see August 6, June 24). This is the omnibus collection of what Editor/Publisher James Ward Kirk considers his company’s highlights of last year, in which my story “The Sidewalk,” originally published in TERMINAL FRIGHT #13, Fall 1996, appears third on the contents page, one of two stories representing the anthology GRAVE ROBBERS. For more information and possibly ordering JWK BEST OF HORROR, click here.
