I decided to remove the “comments” feature from this website because of a recent “comment spam” attack. This was not an easy decision to make because it meant removing a few really creative short-shorts that subscribers have posted as well as some very kind and interesting feedback from visitors.

I apologize for this change but it really had to be done to keep The Goreletter in tip-top editorial shape. I know I’ll miss reading your comments, so I invite any visitor who wants to comment on an article to write me personally at arnzen@gorelets.com. Or I’d be happy to receive feedback in the guestbook.

I also encourage folks to try to publish anything inspired by the “Instigation” department… ralan.com is a good place to start investigating potential markets to submit to. I will report any publication that’s “instigated” by the Goreletter in the following Instigation department.

The Battle Robot Contest has ended (in less than an hour after mailing the latest newsletter!).

My bot — “hellboy” — was no match to the contenders. The winners are:

• Palmer — who took first place thanks in part to his dreaded Spring-Loaded Boxing Glove
  
• Lackey in second, whose Onboard iPod distracted Hellboy before she massacred him.
  
• Faulkner whose metal tusks laden with corporate logos impaled Hellboy to the floor.
  
• Clarke whose Nodule-Covered Truncated-Cone Base provided both armor and power to take 4th place.
  

All four will receive free copies of the Dogwitch comic book, autographed by artist Dan Schaffer. Palmer gets a book.

You can still battle Hellboy with your own custom made robot, but the contest is officially over.

Subscribe to the e-mail version of The Goreletter to be eligible for contest prizes in the future and to receive exclusive discounts on horror books and gear not posted here.

Visit The Surrealist for more wickedly strange fun and games.

For some insane reason, last week I kept finding hair in my food. Whether at a restaurant or visiting with friends or even in my own custom-made bowl of oatmeal, there it was: a strand of human protein, resting in the potatoes or floating in the gravy. Most of the time it was brunette. Most of the time, it was short, like an eyelash or, well, something much worse.

I started to get upset. I felt cursed. Who keeps putting hair in my food? My food preparations were randomized because I was eating from different kitchens all week. And yet still I was cursed with hair condiments, sprinkled as rampantly in my dinners as cilantro appears in salsa. But hair is a far more disgusting — yet common — spice. “Unclean!” my dinner shouted at me. “Unclean!”

But then I realized: hair in your food is really not something to, well, pull your hair out over. For example, I have a full beard and I’m eating it all the time. Sometimes accidentally, if the tuft beneath my lip grows too long; sometimes on purpose, vacuously munching the ends the way a girl with pigtails might twirl one of them. When I was young, and I had long hair, I sometimes would chew on the long strands just because I could. I’ve kissed my wife’s hair, and I’ve spit-cleaned the eyebrows of a child with the grooming habits of a monkey. It’s only natural. Instinctive, even. So I think that so long as hair is growing on the body, it isn’t as abject and disgusting as the strands that fall off. And into my food.

However, even those fallen locks and tresses aren’t TOO grotesque, are they? Some folks keep shorn strands from their childhood or from loved ones as a keepsake. Others donate them to wig manufacturers for lukemia patients. Yet the unswept barber shop floor disturbs me quite a bit. Perhaps its the horrifying sense of dead tissue everywhere — the mixing together of a thousand different heads of hair like so much human waste, trampled there beneath a thousand more dirty feet.

But that’s still my reptilian brain talking (and reptiles, you realize, smartly have no hair!). The fact of the matter is that most of that freshly cut hair on the floor is also freshly washed and shampooed in the basins in the back of the barber’s. In fact, most people are civilized enough to wash their hair at least once a day — and many probably put more care (or care product, at least) into their curly locks than they do into soaping their skins or cleaning their nails or brushing their teeth. Yes, hair is probably the cleanest part of the body, even though it’s clipped, broken, and sloughed off like fingernails (it’s sister in protein).

So why the heck does it bother me so deeply when it happens to land in my food? Is it because I assume the chef is an unwashed brute? Or is it because I just don’t know what sort of hair it is, and what sort of person lost it, and what sort of hygiene they had? It’s often the sheer fact that the hair’s origin is unknown. That little strand of protein could be a fallen nit from a nostril, a lost waxtrapper from an ugly ear canal, or the shedding from the natural filtration of some other bodily orifice. Most of our holes, after all, are hairy. As are our pets. And the rats in the pantry.

Or perhaps it goes further than simply what hair is or where it comes from. Maybe it all comes down to what it’s matched with. The combination of food with hair seems taboo. How many hairy foods are there? No delicacy that I can think of off hand, but that’s only because of hunters and butchers flay their game before it’s prepared, not to mention the hygiene laws that make most restaurant employees wear hats and hairnets. But think about it: in the wild, as in my mother’s kitchen, hair is everywhere. What kind of strange civilization do we live in where it’s perfectly fine to bite into the tissue of an animal, but god help us if any of its fur is still in the meat!

In fact, hair could benefit us. It’s protein after all. We might not need to floss so much. Maybe it’s good roughage. I think I might like a large nest of Natural Red on my salad instead of sprouts. Sure, hair has only a micron of nutritional value, but, gee, if it can smell terrific, maybe it can taste terrific, too?

But still my gut says no, hairy food is sick, diseased, unclean, though my head knows better and it can’t puzzle out the reason why we’re so afraid of it. Are we worried about the potential of human hairballs? Is intestinal blockage the problem? The aftertaste of cheap conditioner?

Or is it subtly cannibalistic? I mean, if hair became a delicacy, what would stop us from turning on each other like monsters, harvesting it from each other’s heads like scalpers? Nah, we’d systematize it all, tame our instincts, make it civil. Groom ourselves the way farmers rotate their crops. Barbershops would have back kitchens.

Imagine the menu. Armpitted Prunes. Bearded Clams. Ham and Wigs. Pork Chops slathered in Pubicue Sauce. Blondies. Mustache Muffins. Honey Combed Cereal. Crew Cut Steak. Hirsute snacks…oh, the possibilities. A rainbow wig of flavors!

Wait, I think I’ve figured out why it sickens me so. There already is hair in the esophagus…hell, all the way down the gastrointestinal tact! Cilia — tiny little cellular hairs in their tiny little follicles that move food through the gut. There’s something uncanny about them. They move on their own accord, like an inside-out caterpillar. Maybe they don’t want to be pall bearers to their own kind. Maybe they don’t like the competition. Yeah, that’s it.

Last weekend, I attended Horrorfind Weekend in Baltimore, sponsored by the genre’s great search engine, horrorfind.com. I had a blast. It’s a huge gathering of people in the scary business, from George Romero and Jack Ketchum to people who make funny black t-shirts for goths and bondage gear for everyone else. Horrorfind is more “multimedia” oriented than the usual “literary” cons I attend, but that only means the bar is even more crowded. You know a convention is cool if it’s got an “Evil Dead Museum” and a dealer’s room where you can buy (fake?) flayed human faces under cellophane with those little bar-code stickers on them just like at the supermarket.

I love horrorfind.com and I’ve even contributed fiction to the site. But I’ve always found the sponsored name — “Horrorfind Weekend” — kind of clumsy for a convention title. It doesn’t have the grand ring of something like “World Fantasy Convention” and it doesn’t even go for a catchy pun, like “ConNiption” or “ExCon.” So to puzzle things out, I decided to play journalist and run around all the late night parties, asking: “When you’re not here, where do you find the horror?” Here’s what people said:

• “In all children.” – Tanya Twombly
  
• “The bathroom toilet.” – Jack Fisher
  
• “My VISA bill.” – G. Italiano
  
• “Pop culture.” – Jon Hodges
  
• “In the people I watch in the streets of the city.” – Gerard Houarner
  
• “Consciousness…within me.” – John Edward Lawson
  
• “Everywhere.” – Deena Warner
  
• “The German toilets…stuff just sits there.” – Darren Speegle
  
• “The Washington Subway — the press of bodies — the fat people with hairy moles — it’s the worst.” – Matt Warner
  
• “The fever depths of my imagination.” – Scott Allen Emerson
  
• “In my fiance’s bed.” – Kathleen J. Trimmer
  
• “When I wake up in the morning and see what’s beside me.” – Brian T. Rollo
  
• “Where DON’T I find the horror?” – Mark McLaughlin
  
• “In the newspaper office where I work.” – Jonathan Reitan
  
• “All around us, everywhere.” – Jennifer Barnes
  
• “In my hotel room.” – Sean Wallace
  
• “In my kitchen…with three kids, it’s the horror.” – Denise Herman
  
• “I work retail. Think about it.” – James A. Moore
  
• “In the basement in the pit where I keep the cast of CHIPs.” – Kevin Donihe
  
• “In the eyes of religious zealots.” – St. Michael Amorel
  
• “Everyday life.” – Oliver Baer
  
• “In the mirror, baby.” – Nicholas Kaufmann
  
• “The news.” – Dave Friscolanti
  
• “A lot of conventions…Frightvision, Chiller Con, Cinema Wasteland…” – Dr. Satan
  
• “Every. F**king. Where. I. Look.” – John Skipp
  
• “In The Graham Norton Effect.” – Rob Swartwod
  
• “The Nightmare Mansion.” – Ashe
  
• “I’m also a criminal lawyer, so, in the cases I haven’t written about yet.” – Michael Slade
  
• “Where I work.” – Jason Brannon
  
• “In the people who run our planet…the people who think they know what’s best for us, the people who think they know what we should think.” – Tim Lebbon
  
• “FOX News channel, fair and balanced.” – Christopher Golden
  
• “The toilet.” – Richard SanFilippo
  
• “You find it here [breast gesture pointing to logo for Horror Web.com].” – Kelli ["HorrorWench"]
  
• “In our schools today.” – Joe Branson
  
• “In my pants.” – M. Stephen Lukac
  
• “My naked body in the mirror…I’ve had two children.” – Meghan Fatras
  
• “Everywhere I look.” – Geoff Cooper
  
• “On the L.I.E.” – Adam Pepper
  
• “Have you met my family?” – Marcy Italiano
  
• “In the unknown…in the afterlife. I mean, what’s after this?” – Shawn Brannon
  
• “In my toilet after Indian food.” – Jenny Orosel
  
• “In the stock market.” – Paul Melniczek
  
• “Politics.” – Chesya Burke
  
• “Anywhere outside my front door.” – GAK
  
• “When I’m shaving and accidentally glance at my own eyes.” – James Futch
  
• “My family’s history…ya know, murder, that kinda stuff.” – Brandon Massey
  

may your tongue twist
more than twenty times
while you scream
until your throat sloughs out
in a voice box afterbirth
as loose as your lying lips

I have VERY exciting news!

Raw Dog Screaming Press has formally announced that they will be publishing my next novel, Play Dead, in a very special sculpted resin hardcover edition, the second in their “Grim Grimoire Bloodline” of highly collectable horror novel artifacts. (be sure to click that link for an example!) It will also be published in regular hardcover form in mid-2005.

Here’s the full press release from their site…I’ll let it speak for itself. :

Press Release
Raw Dog Screaming Press has reached an agreement with award-winning author Michael A. Arnzen to release Play Dead, his first horror novel in a decade. This gritty gambling tale set in Las Vegas is also a carefully constructed “novel-of-cards” with 52 chapters, one for each card in a deck, plus a joker chapter. The fast-paced story involves a group of homeless gamblers who are playing a deadly game of poker…with photographs of their murder victims. Originally conceived as Arnzen’s Master’s thesis at the University of Idaho, Play Dead will be released exclusively in hardcover in the spring of 2005.

RDSP plans to sponsor a series of poker tournaments to promote the book at cities and conferences around the country, including the World Horror Convention and the Horror Writer’s Association Convention.

The Special Edition
In addition to a hardcover run, Play Dead will also be released in a limited special edition as the second title in RDSP’s highly collectable and unusual “Grim Grimoire Bloodline” series. These special editions feature handmade three dimensional covers sculpted from resin by horror prop artisans Z Malice & Co. The first book in the series, Jeffrey Thomas’ novel Everybody Scream!, created a huge stir in the book collecting community when it was announced in June ‘04, selling out on pre-order in about 36 hours. The Play Dead special edition will not be numbered or lettered. Instead each book will be matched with a custom-designed playing card signed by the author. The special edition will be limited to two decks, each including a joker, for a total of 106 copies. It will also come with a pack of custom illustrated poker cards and a stand for displaying this very unique book.

From the Back of the Book
Johnny had been to the top. Young and slick, he knew how to play the high roller, dress the part, and make his opponents sweat. He’d ridden into Vegas on a winning streak a mile wide. But Vegas took everything, even his lucky gold tooth.

You’d think he couldn’t fall any lower than a homeless shelter full of the downtrodden. And he couldn’t possibly have anything left to lose. But you’d be wrong.

Johnny soon discovers there’s a game going on at the shelter. A game where before you play the cards you have to make them. A game where the payout is survival and folding means death. A game where the question becomes: are you playing the cards or are they playing you?

Using 52 chapters Arnzen’s novel-of-cards is stacked with mischief and thrills. Like the most accomplished blackjack dealer Arnzen will keep you guessing at his hand. Are you ready to play?

+ SMALL BITES TO BENEFIT CHARLES L. GRANT
Another new flash horror fiction anthology, Small Bites, is a charity book being put together in order to benefit the masterful dark fantasy writer Charles L. Grant, who is suffering from chronic pulmonary disease. All the stories in Small Bites are not only under 500 words — they also all involve teeth or eating or mouths in some weird way. My contribution, “Screwy Louis,” will appear in the book alongside writers like Matthew Costello, F. Paul Wilson, Mark McLaughlin, Jeff Strand and about 100 more!
Small Bites homepage
Fresh Air Fund for Charlie Grant

+ FLASHSHOT ANTHOLOGY
If you love flash fiction as much as I do, then you probably already subscribe to the free FlashShot Daily service, which delivers a new short-short of science fiction, fantasy, or horror every day to your inbox. If not, I highly recommend it for your daily dose of the strange. Ten of my contributions to FlashShot appear in the new FlashShot Anthology, which collects the first year of the digest in one volume. It’s available NOW as an e-book from Fictionwise and a print edition will soon be available at Shocklines Bookstore, if not directly from CyberPulp Publishing’s media providing service at Lulu.com.
Fictionwise E-book
CyberPulp Books at Shocklines
CyberPulp at LuluFree Subscribe to FlashShot

+ I’M HONORED
You should all pick up the just published collection, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVII, edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link. And not just because my poem (from Bare Bone #4) received Honorable Mention in the back. It continues to be one of the best collections of horror fiction published every year, and it’s thicker than a log, so you get a lot of contemporary classics for the price of admission.
http://www.lcrw.net/yearsbest/

+ GRAVE MARKINGS SELLS OUT
My publisher, Delirium Books, reports that my Stoker Award-winning first novel, Grave Markings: The Tenth Anniversary Edition has now SOLD OUT in all editions. I still have a handful of signed/limited hardcovers available that I’m willing to part with. If interested, PayPal $75 to gorelets@gorelets.com (or inquire about other payment methods) and I’ll personalize your book with an Arnzen “freestyle tattoo” drawing on the page facing the signing page. Orders also include a FREE signed copy of my trade paperback short story collection, Fluid Mosaic AND a BONUS signed cover flat of the Dell/Abyss paperback original from 1994! Postage included.
GMX
Fluid Mosaic
PayPal

For your next movie night, rent:

.com for Murder (2002)
fear dot com (2002)
WatchUsDie.com (2001)

+ Do something truly nasty with a liposuction device.
+ Kill a overly nice person with kindness.
+ Write about a character who is literally “trying to keep his head straight.”

***
Like these? Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter.

If you publish something instigated by this department, let me know and I’ll mention it here! Or if you’re bold (and willing to forfeit electronic rights), post your response to a prompt at the new Goreletter weblog by clicking on the word “comments” below.