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My collection Looking at the World With Broken Glass in My Eye is now available for pre-order from Graveside Tales. For a limited time, as they say on TV, the book is only $13.95.

It's over 100,000 words of chills (with the occasional chuckle thrown in). It's reprints the sold-out Deadneck Hootenanny (thus the chuckles) and includes two previously unpublished novellas.

Get your copy by heading over here.

The Perils of Vocabulary

While speaking at the Dogwood Writing Conference yesterday, I recalled the first story I ever wrote (or the first I finished; I’m sure there were several earlier attempts).

I was in sixth grade, and when I was given the assignment, I set pencil to paper and wrote a story about a bullied sixth-grader who responded by developing destructive telekinetic powers (and this was in the 1960s, long before Stephen King’s Carrie).

The lined notebook paper with my story has long been lost, but I remember that in his rage and fear, the boy destroyed the school, killing the staff and the students. Had a kid written that story today he would probably be hauled off to a shrink and put on a Homeland Security watch list.

Instead, my teacher accused me of plagiarizing the story or of having someone else write it for me.

She said the writing was too advanced for my age, and she was particularly troubled by my use of the word “visage” to describe the bullied boy’s face.

To say I was devastated would be a massive understatement. Like a lot of kids, I craved the approval of the authority figures in my life, especially my parents and teachers. Now I had not only failed to please my teacher, she was accusing me of cheating.

Even now, I remember my frustration and, yes, my fear. I imagined being punished or even kicked out of school. Even worse, the incident could follow me around forever as part of that eternal threat from the forces of education, my Permanent Record.

I tried to explain to her that I had come across “visage” dozens of time in books and, especially, the Marvel comics written by Stan Lee. She wasn’t buying it.

Here comes the part that separates true stories from fiction: I don’t remember how it ended.

I think my parents got involved. If so, they would have told my teacher about my voracious reading habit. And my father would have certainly lost his temper. It was something he did very well.

Ultimately, life went on and my permanent record was unscathed. I got an early lesson in handling rejection. Sometimes I think it would be cool if Dad was still around to yell at publishers for me.

Thanks to the Dogwood Writing Conference for the invitation to speak. The audience asked some great questions and bought several of my books. Being around like-minded people for a little while is always a good experience.

The location was the lodge at Greenbo Lake State Resort Park, a gorgeous setting. Here’s a pic of the lodge, likely taken a few years ago:

Updated Book Cover

Click cover to biggie-fy

Coming soon to an online bookseller.

Writing Talk

I'll be doing a panel at the Dogwood Writing Conference, Saturday April 30, titled "Writing Outside the Genre Box". It starts at 9:00 A.M. and the conference is at Greenbo Lake State Resort Park.

It's a gorgeous location, and here's one thing I know for sure at my panel: it's at 9:00 A.M.

I'll provide more details as they are given to me.

UPDATE:

The talk has a new title: "Thrills, Chills, Collaborations and Podcasts" and it's set to run for 45 minutes. I hope there's coffee.

Oh, and I will have books to sell.

Writing Update

It’s been a while since I’ve done this. Here are where the current writing projects stand.

Looking at the World With Broken Glass in My Eye is done, as mentioned in the last post, and should be available in a few weeks.

Book One of The Dead Sheriff, my supernatural western series, has gone through several rounds of editing and appears to be finished. A release date has not been set but I expect it to be out by summer. Watch this space for future updates.

The third Dead Earth book continues along nicely. I would think it should be finished by the end of May, If accepted by the publisher, it could be in print early next year. Of course, that’s merely speculation on my part.

My novella The Ghosts of Logan County is nearing completion. It’s been put on hold a few times, due to the projects we’ve just discussed, and for some additional research.

Also, I continue to update Donovan Pike and the City of the Gods over at Pulp Nocturne. Work on that pulp adventure novel continues when my schedule permits. I’m having a great time writing it, and the novel is only going to get wilder as it progresses.

Other projects are bubbling just under the surface, though I am hesitant to mention them yet. I have enough on my plate, along with my job, to fill most of my writing time.

I do have a humorous horror story I want to write for an upcoming anthology. I also recently received two interesting invitations to licensed-character anthologies. I’m waiting to hear more details, including deadlines, before I commit. Anything else I sign on for has to fit into my crowded schedule or I can’t do it. This is me trying to learn a lesson from my past.

Also, Pod of Horror #65 is coming along. I’m aiming for a mid-to-late May premiere date.

Okay. You’re updated. Now it’s time for more coffee and much more typing.

Looking at the World With Broken Glass in My Eye

This is the cover of my collection due out in the next few weeks from Graveside Tales.

It contains about 100,000 words of fiction, much of it unpublished. The collection also includes the long sold-out Deadneck Hootenanny and two original novellas.

Here's the lineup:

Introduction by Ronald Kelly

Author’s Foreword

Deadnecks

Black Wings

Closure-Unpublished

Life’s Work

Father’s Day

Nursing Home of the Gods-Unpublished

Auschlander’s Gem-Unpublished

Looking at the World with Broken Glass in my Eye-Unpublished

Hell is a Lonely Street-Unpublished

The Losers Vs Beelphegor

Song of the Bones

Deadtown-Unpublished

Agent of Death-Unpublished

Hole in the Sky

The Truths We Cannot Bear-Unpublished

Das Hollenfeuer

The Autumn Man-Unpublished

Deadneck Reckoning

As soon as the book is available, I'll give you a link.

Sex-Charged

I got a mention in Nick Cato's review of the long-awaited, long-delayed anthology In Laymon's Terms. Here's what Nick said:

Mark Justice’s ‘The Red Kingdom’ is a sex-charged thriller dealing with blood-soaked “amazons” attempting to bring their Dark Lord back to earth (did I mention this one was sex-charged?).

You can read the full review here.

The book is a tribute to the influential and much-admired horror writer Richard Laymon, who died too young in 2001. As his readers know, Laymon often used sex to advance the plot in his novels and stories, and I was happy to do the same in my tale.

How long has the book been delayed? I sold the story in February 2003. It was my first professional sale.

By the way, Laymon was one of the nicest guys I've had the privilege to interview. He also seemed to greatly enjoy the genre he worked in and expressed delight when I told him his books gave me the same thrill I got from seeing a cool B horror movie at the drive in.

As a writer, Richard Laymon has long been an idol of mine. His A Writer's Tale is one of the best books on writing ever published, and long overdue for a reprinting in an affordable edition. If you've never tried him, I'd like to suggest that you start with two of his finest novels, here and here.

Pod of Horror #64

On Pod of Horror #64, legendary horror writer Ronald Kelly discusses his many upcoming projects and reveals the publisher of the Essential Ronald Kelly Collection, reprinting all of his novels from the 80s and 90s. Also, Jason L. Keene’s Moonshine Matinee explains that hoodoo and afros can be a powerful combination. In the Call of Kalanta, Nanci covers the news of note in the horror field, and the pile o’ prizes grows large and threatening in The Tomb of Trivia. Get it at iTunes or download it here. Pod of Horror is hosted and produced by Mark Justice.

PoH has a new message board.

And a Facebook page.

New Five Star Review of Dead Earth: The Green Dawn

From Amazon:

"Fun read with an alien twist on the Dawn of the Dead-type Zombie genre. The
book's charms are that its fast-paced & does not take itself too seriously -
the tone reminds me of the Evil Dead movies. The book's only negative is
that it ends with the reader wanting more (which the sequel promises to
deliver)"

A Dead Earth Interview

Dave Wilbanks and I talk about our zombies and aliens and Marvel Comics.

Inspiration, Motivation and Masturbation

I have a new column up now at Horror World. You can read it here.

Winter Writing

There’s little to report this time around, except work continues on the third–and still untitled–Dead Earth novel. At this point, the writing is going well and it feels like a great story. I know I’m having fun.

When I’m not taking my turn on DE3, I’m writing a long horror novella. I’m aiming for 35 thousand words. The story has produced a character that I’m fascinated with, and one that may show up in future tales, provided he survives. We’ll see. Meanwhile, the novella is set during the blistering heat of summer. Is that a reaction to the weather outside the window while I'm writing? Probably. Am I asking questions of myself and answering them ala Donald Rumsfeld? Yes. Yes, I am.

By the way, the novella finally has a title. It’s The Ghosts of Logan County.

Digital Pulp

Black Bat Mystery, the pulp anthology I was a part of, has gone digital. Now you can get all the action and adventure on your e-reader. Click here, then scroll to the end.

Dead Earth in Horror Fiction Review

I've loved Horror Fiction Review, dating back to the days when it was a photocopied and stapled fanzine that arrived via the post office. Now it's a digital zine, and I'm happy that Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road was reviewed in the new issue. Check it out.

Pod of Horror #63

Pod of Horror is back with over two hours of ghastly goodness. On episode #63, we talk books with Necon’s Bob Booth and Matt Bechtel, author/actor Michael Boatman, Pod of Horror co-founder David T. Wilbanks, and Cutting Block Press’s R. J. Cavender. Nanci has the news, Jason L. Keene critiques the movies and we introduce our new book review segment, Scary Words. We’re also giving away a bunch of great books in The Tomb of Trivia. Get it at iTunes or download it here. Pod of Horror is hosted and produced by Mark Justice.

Don't forget to check out the new PoH message board.

Pod of Horror Message Board

It just went up at Horror World. Do drop by with your questions and comments and random observations.

Later today, I hope to be back here to tell you that the new episode of Pod of Horror is at long last available for your listening pleasure.

The Social Podcast

Pod of Horror, the Internet radio show I do with Nanci Kalanta and Jason L. Keene, finally got a Facebook page.

This is where all PoH-related announcements will be made first. If you're on Facebook, I hope you'll give us a "Like".

The next episode of PoH should go live next weekend.

***

It's been a productive writing week.

We made great progress on Dead Earth 3 (more on that on the next Pod of Horror).

Both Dead Earth books are selling well. Dead Earth: The Green Dawn is an especially good deal for your e-reader--zombies, aliens and much ass-kicking, all for 3 bucks.

In an Amazon oddity, the e-book versions of the two Dead Earth books appear in two different fiction categories. Dave Wilbanks discusses that here.

I also finished my revisions and edits on my supernatural western series The Dead Sheriff. I'll have a lot more on this as it gets closer to publication.

Now I'm working on an untitled novella set in West Virgina. There are no zombies or aliens in this one; just ghosts, grief and a Drive-In theater. Giddyup!

Chiller Theater/Why Horror/The Dead Sheriff

This morning, The New York Times ran an article on SyFy’s so-bad-they’re-fun original movies. This line caught my attention:

Syfy’s Saturday-night movies harken back to the so-called “creature feature” days of local television. Starting on a widespread basis in the 1960s and continuing through the 1980s stations programmed off-peak hours with old horror movies like “Creature From the Black Lagoon.”

Anybody who reads or writes the stuff I love has gotten some variation of this question: “Why horror?”

(Of course, it’s sometimes phrased differently. As in Why do you read that junk/ that crap/that weird shit, and the line is delivered by someone who, upon discovering your copy of Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith or Salem’s Lot by Stephen King or, going back further, a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, looks like he or she just bit into a nice steak only to find it was filled with thick, squirming maggots.)

Here’s my answer: Chiller Theater.

Chiller Theater ran on Channel 13 in Huntington, WV, from the time I was a child until sometime in the 80s. By the end, they ran the pre-packaged Elvira show and I rarely tuned in.

When I say “a child”, I mean exactly that. One of my earliest memories is a Saturday when I was sick and my parents let me stay up to watch Chiller Theater. I remember walking down the stairs from my bedroom, realizing I had never walked down those steps at night.

We moved from that house when I was four.

So this horror thing has been with me for a while.

Channel 13 (which went by the call letters WHTN when I first tuned in, then later became WOWK), unlike many stations in other markets, never had a horror host, at least that I recall. For a couple of years, they had an out of focus dude with Christmas lights on his clothes moaning about something, but I usually took advantage of his time on-screen to run to the bathroom or get a snack. Remember, those were the pre-VCR or DVR days.

During one period, Chiller Theater had Barnabas Collins doing the weekly opening. Channel 13 was an ABC affiliate at the time (they’re with CBS now) and Dark Shadows was a popular ABC daytime soap (and the only soap with vampires and werewolves). Jonathan Frid, the actor who played the tortured, blood-sucking Barnabas, made a publicity stop in Huntington, and the TV station got him to record some brief segments for Chiller.

Since Dark Shadows was also one of my favorite shows, this was awesome.

At least for the first couple of years.

After a while, it sunk in that the TV station only had Frid for a short time, and they ran the small handful of Barnabas bits over and over and over.

But, God, I loved all those horror movies. Chiller was where I was introduced to the classic Universal monsters and the darker and sexier Hammer flicks. It’s also where I saw the AIP library. Even then, I knew a lot of it was crap, but who could resist tuning in to The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow? And don’t forget, AIP also gave us all those cool Vincent Price movies based on the works of Poe that ran every few month during my adolescence.

So if you are wondering “Why horror?” it’s because of Chiller Theater. And Dark Shadows. And Famous Monsters of Filmland and Marvel Comics like Werewolf By Night and Tomb of Dracula and Ghost Rider and The Living Mummy.

***

I got some writing done this weekend, including my latest section of the third Dead Earth novel and another chapter of Donovan Pike and the City of the Gods (that’s three chapters in a week, kids) over at Pulp Nocturne.

I started revisions on The Dead Sheriff today. This is going to take more than the couple of days I set aside for it. There are so many red editorial comments on every page, it looks like the manuscript was used to clean up after a Manson Family party.

I need to hire an editor to edit my stuff before it goes to the actual editor.

Anyway, there are several good editorial suggestions regarding the plot, and I have to give them serious consideration. This will be my major project for the next week or so, along with prepping the next episode of Pod of Horror.

What’s next?

I’ll be getting back to a novella set in West Virginia. It’s a ghost story, and I did some research for it a couple of months ago. It will be good to get the story written.

After that, I’m revising a horror novel to submit to a publisher.

I also have an idea for a 12-issue horror/SF comic book series. I’d like to type up the proposal and script the first issue, but it has to sit on the back row for a while. My 2011 vow is to stick to my schedule. Besides, some ideas get better with age.

Now I need to go find a copy of The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.

Brief Update

For those keeping score at home, I submitted the long (and long overdue) story yesterday. That's one more 2010 obligation out of the way. I'll be sure to let you know when it will be in print. Of course, the editor could always reject it, but I think it's pretty good, and regardless of what happens with it now, I'm happy I finished it.

Today, I also crossed another late assignment off my list, this one a book review.

And I put up a new chapter of Donovan Pike and the City of the Gods over at Pulp Nocturne.

That clears the schedule for a couple of days. Dave Wilbanks sent the Dead Earth 3 manuscript to me last night, so I'll be focusing on it for the next two days. Then I'll do the edits on the first Dead Sheriff prose book, which should be published in the spring. Evileye Books gave me a great editor for the series, and he provided the best notes I've ever received on a project. I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and digging into it.

So far Operation Catch-Up is going well. Don't confuse it with Operation Ketchup, something I plan to combine with Operation Tater Tot later this weekend.

So how was your week?

Machete Don't Blog

But I do.

So let me use the space to tell you if you ever went to a drive-in theater or have enjoyed an exploitation flick, then Machete is must-see viewing.

If you don’t enjoy over-the-top violence, gore and nudity, well, I don’t wanna know you.

Director Robert Rodriguez and his cast have their tongues buried to the hilt in their cheeks for Machete. From the scratchy film in the opening scene to the way every wound fountains arterial blood like a Monty Python skit, this movie is a hoot.

It is such a drive-in flick, at one point I swear I could taste the stale popcorn my local passion pit served.

Speaking of the cast, how did they get Robert DeNiro for this?? The stellar list of actors include Don Johnson, Jessica Alba, Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey and a bloated Steven Segal. The title character is played by the ubiquitous Danny Trejo, who proves you don’t have to be pretty to carry an action flick.
If you still don’t think this movie is for you, allow me to borrow from Joe Bob Briggs. Machete features weedwhacker fu, shoe fu, meat thermometer fu and, in one of the movie’s funniest scene, intestines fu.

Still not convinced? The movie has a naked Lindsay Lohan, a sorta naked Jessica Alba and a nearly-naked and phenomenally buff Michelle Rodriguez.

Here’s hoping there's a sequel some time soon.

***

The writing has gone well this weekend.

I polished my latest section of Dead Earth 3 (nobody, by the way, likes my title: Dead Earth 3-D) and sent it to Dave Wilbanks, then spent the bulk of the day working on that overdue story that is trying to become my personal Waterloo. Fortunately, I have the beast pinned to the mat. Let’s see if I can hold it there until the ref finishes his count.