Woodland Press is now taking pre-orders for the latest volume (#4) in the LEGENDS OF THE MOUNTAIN STATE ghost tale series. Featuring transformations of “Appalachian myths, ghost tales and folklore” derived from West Virginian lore, this book is sure to be a gem, with stories by Gary Braunbeck, Brian Hatcher, Steve Rasnic Tem, Elizabeth Massie, Lisa Morton, and a raft of other horror greats. My story involves a ghost child at the end of Childer’s Road… I’ll say no more than that.

Pre-order the book directly from the publisher for $18.95 to get it as soon as it’s release in mid October, or visit Woodland Press at the 2010 West Virginia Book Festival to procure a copy.

I’ve been feeling artsy this summer. Indulge me.

I have begun taking strange photographs of things like abandoned hospitals, so I thought I’d join flickr to have a place to put these. Come warm the place up with a comment or something.

You can also see some of my latest weird drawings — like the piece below, entitled “Shark Starvation” — at the gorelets.com gallery.

For the month of August, Raw Dog Screaming Press (publisher of my novel, Play Dead) is offering a sweet “Retrospective” book bundle of their bestselling short-story collections, which packages together my book, 100 JOLTS, with Jeremy C. Shipp’s Sheep and Wolves and Adam Golaski’s Worse Than Myself, for a VERY low price ($30 for paperbacks, $12 for Ebooks). Orders get a bonus pdf of secret goodies, as well.

To celebrate and promote this event, I’ll be participating in a live chat on TWITTER alongside Adam Golaski on Monday, August 9th, at 9-10pm eastern. Tweet us questions during that hour and you never know what might happen. [Don't miss Jeremy Shipp's chat, too, on Aug 4th] To follow the chat via twitter, just type “#retrospective” into the search window and you’ll track the conversation!

And if that wasn’t enough, RDSP is also hosting a writing contest, with prompts based on all three books, and goodies for prize. See the Retrospective page for details on all three. To get you inspired and instigated, here are the details for the contest inspired by 100 Jolts:

WRITERS: participate in our writing contest with prompts based on these books! The winning stories will be published on the Raw Dog Screaming Press website and the winners will receive a prize pack of goodies.

Rules: 1 piece of fiction per prompt. No piece can be longer than 1000 words, not including title and information. Attached to email as a .doc, sent to publicity@rawdogscreaming.com. Work must be obviously based on the prompt, poetry acceptable. Submission deadline: Oct. 1, results posted no later than Oct. 31.

100 Jolts prompt: Take one of the lines from “Stabbing for Dummies” (from 100 Jolts and/or Audiovile) and use it as the opening sentence of a new story. You can alter the point of view to suit your need. The tale must build to an outrageous conclusion, and fall under 1000 words. If you don’t have your copy of 100 Jolts handy, use this line: “Knowledge of the circulatory system can save time.”

Prize Pack: publication of the winning story on the RDSP website, a signed horror movie postcard, a signed copy of “Audiovile” and the Bram Stoker Award winning poetry collection, Freakcidents (from Shocklines Press, 2005)

I expect your weirdest. Get crackin’! And don’t forget to drop by the chat on twitter on August 9th, at 9-10pm eastern.

Alert! I have decided to cancel the arnzen profile pages at myspace.com. Go kiss it goodbye before August 1st, when it will meet its demise.

I always hated the ‘look’ of myspace.com, but I enjoyed the company of many friends, newfound and old, once I signed up. But the primary reason I joined myspace years ago (in Spring 2007) was to promote my CD, Audiovile. It gave me a convenient way to upload and share mp3 tracks from the disc.

Nowadays I know how to stream music on THIS site myself, and the CD is also sampled everywhere, like on itunes or last.fm. [If you have yet to listen to it, please give it a try. I have some back copies and will happily sell you a signed one for $8 if you email me nicely.] If I ever release another CD, there are plenty of other venues than myspace to spread the word. And I have been spending less and less time there — like most people, who have gone on to facebook — and it feels futile to maintain it any longer.

I may be abandoning myspace, but I continue to post regularly to twitter as my primary social networking venue. Many tell me I should join facebook. Well, I’m not quite ready to do that right now, but I do sometimes pop by the “What Would Mike Arnzen Do For A Klondike Bar?” fan group to see what weirdness people are posting there, and I invite you to join it if you’re on facebook.

The Exquisite Corpse film profile on myspace will remain moribund but present on myspace.

In the mean time, get ready for the next issue of The Goreletter by subscribing to the newsletter, if you don’t already.

Stabble
Fungalberry
Kiweird Cocktail
Poisonberry
Phlegmonaid (With Extra Pulp)

Embalmigranate
Bashin’ Berry
Scabapple
Scrape Juice
Angerine

Spineapple
Strango
Slaughtermelon Smoothie
Crampelope
Slimeade

Neck Nectar
Horrange
Slitrus Lime
Gaspberry
Upchuck Cherry

Slopical Punch
Scarfruit
Granbury
Scarrot
Leech

I apologize for not posting here a lot lately — I’ve been very busy teaching this past year, and I’ll be busy teaching all over again in the month to come, for a number of genre fiction-focused writing workshops. I’ll be running my “Atmosphere in Horror and Fantasy” course in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University next week, followed by a fun guest lecture on “Making the Reader Squirm” at the acclaimed Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop the week after that, then running some workshops on writing uncanny scenes at Alpha: The SF/F/H Writing Workshop for Young Authors in July just to top it all off. Busy days ahead!

All of these are only open for registered students only, but Alpha is hosting a free public reading/signing with myself, Holly Black and Tamora Pierce at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Greensburg, PA on Tuesday, July 20th at 7:30 pm.

To keep up with my readings and book signings, visit my author page at BookTour.Com (updates appear on the gorelets.com front page, as well).

[Are you a writer, but can't attend a workshop? You'll want to read the Stoker Award-winning book, Writer's Workshop of Horror!]

He’s the geek screaming lonely in the night
‘Cuz he can’t reload the pa-ay-age

He’s the tear in your eye
When you drop your Wi-Fi
He’s the hash in your tag
He’s faved

And he’s the fantasy wife
That’s wasting your life
And spamming you to the ground

But on the pages of Twitter
We’ll type and deliver
Be short. And waste time…

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
Tweet at the Devil!
Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
Tweet at the Devil!

He’s the follower you hate
And you won’t reciprocate
But he will not be ignore-or-ored

He follows you to the grave
When you lie on Friday
That you’re friends forevermore

And every single link
Is an URL that has been shrinked
That only sends you to his store

But on the pages of Twitter
We’ll type and deliver
Be short. And waste time…

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
Tweet at the Devil!
Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
Tweet at the Devil!

[Retweet Chorus x 12]

Check out editor Stephen M. Wilson‘s new twitterzine for poetry, called microcosms. I have a poem in the latest “issue” (“twissue”?) released today and more to come soon.

If you don’t know what a “twitterzine” is, then read this article.

I’ve added a new area to the gorelets.com gallery, called “scrawl”, to share visual texts and art work that doesn’t quite fit anywhere. Drop on by.

The 2009 Bram Stoker Award winners were announced by the Horror Writer’s Association at World Horror Convention in Brighton, England, last weekend. I read almost all of these titles and I can vouch that they are superlative reads. (In fact, I lauded Lucy Snyder’s poetry-winning book here in The Goreletter). See the HWA’s announcement for a complete list…congratulations to all the winners!

I contributed work to two of the books (though the editors, not me, rightfully get the awards!). These are pretty amazing books to be a part of, so I want to celebrate them here (and share some breaking news along the way as well):

The winner in this year’s “Fiction Anthology” category was He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson. It includes stories by myself, Gary Braunbeck, Nancy A. Collins, William F. Nolan (who also received a Lifetime Acheivement Award at this year’s Stokers), Joe R. Lansdale, and, okay, too many great writers to list. This hardcover book is notable among horror collectors because it features the first published collaboration between Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, who have since released it as a part of an audiobook package of novellas with Matheson called ‘Road Rage’. He Is Legend is a great anthology, and — here’s the news I promised: I’m pleased to share that the book has recently been picked up for a trade hardcover by Tor Books releasing this September, and will also soon appear in Italian and Japanese editions! [You can see the illustration Harry O. Morris did for my tale, "She Screech Like Me," in the gorelets.com gallery, by the way.] Congratulations to editor Christopher Conlon and publisher Gauntlet Press!

The winner in the “Non-Fiction” category was a fantastic instructional book called Writer’s Workshop of Horror, which includes essays on the craft by a long roster of today’s best horror writers. A coterie of us who teach in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University — myself, Gary Braunbeck, Tim Waggoner, and Lucy A. Snyder — all contribute work. (This book also won a “Black Quill” award earlier this year for Best Dark Non-Fiction). If you write, you need to get a copy! CONGRATULATIONS to editor Michael Knost and publisher Woodland Press!

The Bram Stoker Awards are given by the Horror Writers Association. A complete list of this year’s Bram Stoker Award winners appears on their weblog, Dark Whispers.