6:00-6:30 Ronald Damien Malfi
6:30-7:00 Adam Golaski
7:00-7:30 Donna Lynch
7:30-8:00 D. Harlan Wilson
half hour buffer/break
8:30-9:00 Matthew Warner
9:00-9:30 John Edward Lawson
9:30-10:00 Michael A. Arnzen

On Saturday morning, Aug 16th, the film Exquisite Corpse will be part of the Indie Film screenings, launching at 10am in the convention’s Amphitheater! Other films slotted for this morning session include a claymation version of Poe’s The Pit & The Pendulum and an adaptation of F. Paul Wilson’s Foet.

Saturday evening at 8pm, Raw Dog Screaming will be hosting a huge room party open to all comers.

This convention always has a superb dealer’s room brimming with more weird paraphrenalia than you can imagine, a non-stop carnival of film and fun, and a costume event that rivals any Hollywood film set. Other guests in attendance at this huge annual con for fans of horror film and fiction include writers like Jack Ketchum, F. Paul Wilson, Edward Lee, Thomas Monteleone, John Maclay, Kim Paffenroth, Michael Boatman, and too many more to mention, alongside media celebrities like Roddy Piper, William Forsythe, Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Chainsaw Sally, and so many more.
Visit HorrorFind for more information.

FUTURE APPEARANCES:

Sept 26th, 3-5pm | “The Business & Life of Writing Horror” Panel | 010 Page Hall, Ohio State University | Columbus, OH

Join Lawrence C. Connolly, Lucy A. Snyder, Gary A. Braunbeck and myself for a panel discussion at Ohio State University on “The Business and Life of Writing Horror.” The panel — hosted by the OSU Center for the Teaching of Writing — will be followed by booksigning. A podcastwill likely be available online.

Sept 26-28 | Context-21 | Columbus, OH

I’ll be running a workshop on flash fiction writing (sorry, seats are sold out), reading and sitting on a few panels at this excellent literary convention in Ohio. I was Horror Guest of Honor last year at Context and loved every minute of it. Other horror fiction notables in attendance this year include Guest of Honor Brian Keene, Gary Braunbeck, Mike Laimo, Tim Waggoner, Paula Guran, Maurice Broaddus, Fran Friel, and Lucy Snyder. Apex publishing and Shroud Magazine will also be around, and I anticipate huge parties. Keep your eyes on the Context home page for specific details.

Oct 25-26th | Zombiefest 2008 | Monroeville Mall, Pittsburgh, PA

It returns! And like the living dead, I, too, will be crawling back to the mall. Zombiefest is a two-day zombie-themed convention held at the Monroeville Mall, site of the Romero zombie classic Dawn of the Dead, featuring vendor exhibits, film screenings, author discussion panels, live bands, games and other fun activities for zombie fans like games, concerts and a masquerade ball. And in 2008, it’s FREE admission! Details are still developing, but save the date, which will coincide with World Zombie Day!

Nov 8, 2-5pm | PARSEC Meeting | Pittsburgh, PA
“Horror Today”: Lawrence C. Connolly (author of Veins) and I discuss the state of the genre today with PARSEC: the Pittsburgh Area Science Fiction Enthusiast Club. Location TBA.

Cover for The Book of Lists: Horror

“The Book of Lists: Horror” (edited by Amy Wallace, Del Howison, and Scott Bradley) is coming soon! The cover above just went up on amazon.com and it should be an awesome collection of information, featuring lists by Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Eli Roth, and many other genre greats. My list of the “Best Horror Colleges” will be there. I think this volume is not only going to be a great research tool, but an awful lot of fun. You can preorder the book on Amazon.com now!

Topics we discuss in our interview:

• fantasy vs. realism
• teaching horror in the post-Virginia Tech world
• literary vs. cinematic horror
• death and the draw of horror in a sanitized world
• the cautionary tale — then and now
• optimism, humor, laughter and impalement in horror fiction

Technically, two of the tracks on Audiovile are stories purely concerned with Zombies proper. The rest only feature a zombie percussion player who you can dimly hear in the background, tinkling the triangle and groaning for brains when my cats were out of reach from his chain.

The mall loved the CD so much they wrote a happy review of it, too. Learn all about Audiovile in the gorelets bibliography.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES:

Aug 15-16 | HorrorFind | Adelphi, MD

Join us at Horrorfind for the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY for Raw Dog Screaming Press! I’ll be there, in addition to reading at this HUGE annual convention of horror film and fiction fans in the Baltimore region. Party details will follow; watch the Raw Dog Screaming page for updates.

Sept 26-28 | Context-21 | Columbus, OH

I’ll be running a workshop on flash fiction writing and more at this excellent literary convention in Ohio. I was Horror Guest of Honor last year at Context and loved every minute of it. Other horror fiction notables in attendance this coming year include Guest of Honor Brian Keene, Gary Braunbeck, Mike Laimo, Tim Waggoner, Paula Guran, Maurice Broaddus, Fran Friel, and Lucy Snyder.

Oct 25-26th | Zombiefest 2008 | Monroeville Mall Expo Mart, Pittsburgh, PA

It returns! And like the living dead, I, too, will be crawling back to the mall. It’s still too early to know details, but save the date, which will coincide with World Zombie Day!

The book is a critical study of theories of the Uncanny/”das Unheimliche” as they appear in advertising, film, bestsellers, and online. Chapters include examinations of such topics as the icon of the dismembered hand in the history of horror cinema, and a treatment of the advertising world’s “Doublemint Twins” as uncanny doppelgangers. (The Popular Uncanny, btw, was originally my doctoral dissertation at the University of Oregon.)

While the entries in the new blog will tend to lean toward the “academic” side and may refer to theories not all readers will be familiar with, my hope is that the blog will keep my research fresh and fun while also giving me a place to muse about the weirdness in pop culture — in addition to raising awareness about theories of the Uncanny. I think the blog will also help me merge my academic and creative personae in new ways. The site design and structure is still under construction, but posts have already been released on such things as the “gaze” in The Ring and the uncanny in a new ’singing robot’ art exhibit by Talking Heads frontman, David Byrne. Comments and recommendations are always welcome.

The Goreletter, of course, will continue. I’ll post news here about the book when its publication is imminent in Spring 2009. For now, I invite you to come on by the new weblog, anytime.

“What can I say? Holy effeing hell this is some brilliant sh*t! …Audiovile has BITE. It sounds like something you would hear late at night in a darkened coffee shop, with wisps of old coffee wafting to your nose….It has a very unique style, something from a David Lynch film. It’s deep, grabs you by the ears and refuses to let go.”
– from Brian Hardin’s review of Audiovile at the Zombie Mall!

Great review… and Zombie Mall is a great store, too, by the way! Here’s a cool offer they gave us for the latest issue of The Goreletter:

ENTER THE ZOMBIE MALL
You won’t believe the weirdness that the Zombie Mall has in store for you — from “infant zombie creepers” to “hot dog zombie pillows” — they’ve got more than any sleepwalking brain-eater could ever need. And they’re currently running a cool promotion where if you purchase an item from their online store, pose in a photo “playing” with it somehow, and then send the picture back to them, you can get 15% off any item.
Visit http://www.zombiemall.com/ to make your purchase
then send your photos to dead@zombiemall.com

Check them out.

If you’ll indulge me for a moment: please pick up your wine glass, water bottle or coffee mug. I want to raise a high toast to a great publisher.

This year marks Raw Dog Screaming Press’ fifth anniversary. Anyone who knows the independent press, knows that simply surviving that long — especially in today’s publishing economy — is a true milestone of success. I’m proud to be one of their authors, an early runt of their raw puppy litter — and when I think about how far they’ve gone to support my experiments in horror, I am not only humbled, but also proud to be a part of their efforts to push the envelope of the genre, if not literature itself. Not only do they persistently take risks on some very edgy work (”A Child’s Guide to Death” anyone?), but they also go out of their way to promote their titles and support their authors in creative ways.

“What we wanted to do was publish the unpublishable, put out books that other publishers wouldn’t touch because they cross genres, mix conventions or just don’t play by the rules,” co-publisher Jen Barnes writes about their origins, in a retrospection on their livejournal. Now, almost five years later, Raw Dog Screaming has published 18 novels, 14 collections (including 2 books of poetry), 10 anthologies and one CD/audiobook.

I’ve been very lucky to have them as a literary partner over these five years. Two of our books together were Stoker award finalists and the one that remains in print — 100 Jolts — continues to be a very popular book. My second novel, Play Dead, was too experimental for the mainstream press, but Raw Dog grabbed it in its slobbery jaws and ran with it: they not only printed Play Dead in both a fine limited hardcover and an amazingly sculpted “Grim Grimoire” edition, but also created a deck of custom-illustrated playing cards (highly collectable now) to go along with it — AND they hosted a charity poker game party at World Horror Convention to debut the book! The fact that this novel sold out its complete run in hardcover says a lot about the committment that John Lawson and Jen Barnes at RDSP have to their authors.

If you haven’t been reading their books, you should give their catalog a look-see. They relish the experimental — from Harold Jaffe’s “docufictions” to D. Harlan Wilson’s outrageously funny brand of the bizarro. My 100-story collection, 100 Jolts, is another great example of books that other publishers probably would be too afraid to touch. A single-author collection, filled with short-shorts, some no longer than a paragraph? Unheard of. But creative risks like these pay off, because readers are actually hungry for fresh angles and tired of the same old story. Jolts was successful enough to recently be re-released in a hardcover edition with bonus material — and if that wasn’t enough, they went beyond the pale to supplement it with a CD of musically-enhanced readings, in Audiovile! This induldgence of my musical and oratorical performances is quite remarkable, I think, and it says a lot that the Raw Dog is willing to sniff its gory nose around diverse new media territories, hungry for blood. Seriously: how many publishers really cultivate the artistic side of their writers in such unique ways? I can think of…none. Raw Dog isn’t just printing books, they really care about the Arts — just look at their wild covers, or their recent reaches into children’s picture books, and it quickly becomes self-evident: they’re twisted, but they care about creativity.

So John and Jen (and Ripley) at Raw Dog Screaming Press: here’s to you!

To celebrate, RDSP is hosting a 5 year anniversary party at HorrorFind Weekend in the Baltimore area this coming August. I’m going to be there, along with several other members of the Raw Dog pack: presently, D. Harlan Wilson, Adam Golaski, John Edward Lawson, Donna Lynch & Stephen Archer, Ronald Damien Malfi, John Edward Lawson, and Matthew Warner are all scheduled to appear, with readings, parties, and other fun events. To quote the evil dead: “Join ussss!”

TA-DA!
To pop the champagne early, they are offering Goreletter readers an exclusive discount on Audiovile — their first audiobook, by yours truly. You can get a copy directly from Raw Dog Screaming for just $7.95, ppd! That’s $5 off! EXCLUSIVE ORDER LINK HERE.

Here’s a very short excerpt:

Browse your bookshelves and your video racks. What percentage of these titles are all published and produced in the same country in which you live? How many of them are in the same language you speak? How many are created by people who are just like you?

Nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t make you a racist or a bad person. But you may be guilty of “literary isolationism” — and maybe it’s time for you to break out of your protective, predictable shell.

How aware are you about the horror coming out of countries foreign to you? Are you aware how freaking WEIRD that stuff is? How bizarre and scary? Horror is ALL ABOUT the foreign, alien, and altogether OTHER, and I bet that if you haven’t read a lot of “multicultural” horror, you haven’t really seen just how weird and different tales from foreign lands can be.

All the folks at Horror Library — like Fran Friel, RJ Cavender, Boyd Harris — are all passionate and talented. You should buy their books. A new anthology — Horror Library III — is slated for publication soon… just look at this advanced peek at the table of contents for HL3:

“The Station” by Bentley Little
“Guarded” by Michael A. Arnzen (my story is about airport security checkpoints…arrrgh!)
“The Apocalypse Ain’t So Bad” by Jeff Strand
“Under the Bridge Downtown” by Gary A. Braunbeck & Matthew Warner
“After” by Kealan Patrick Burke
“Masks and Shadows” by Cullen Bunn
“Consumed” by Michael Cavillo
“Ashes of the Dead” by Kurt Dinan
“Clover” by Gina Ranalli
“Being Supreme” by Mark Justice
“The Steel Church” by Charles Colyott
“Them” by Sunil Sadanand
“The River Child” by R. Michael Burns
“Obsidian Sea” by Kurt Kirchmeier
“The Rhythm Method” by Mikal Trimm
“When The Skies Toss Down Rains Heavy” by Eric Grizzle
“The Orange Mammoth” by Matt Bain
“Short Stacked” by Rodney J. Smith
“The Review” by Richard Moore
“Extra Innings” by John Peters
“The Birdie” Stephen Couch
“Toll” by Blu Gilliand
“Blink The Blood Away” by R.M. Ridley
“Teeth” by Alison Campbell-Wise

Not only is the cover art very disturbing, but this line-up sounds like quite a library to me (not just because some of my favorite writers are in there… the fact is, I’m already scared by some of those titles — what the hell is an Orange Mammoth, Mr. Bain? Why should I be blinking blood away, M. Ridley? How can the apocalypse not be so bad, Jeff Strand? Carumba, this is going to be a crazy read!)

Ghoulish Goals: Seton Hill writing professor keeps collecting awards for his horror fiction by Kathleen Ganster (photos by Jim Judkis).

Horror World this month published a knock-out review of my novella, The Bitchfight. Reviewer Ron Dickie writes:  ”If you’re looking for something different, something unexpected, pick up ‘The Bitchfight.’  Not since Jack Ketchum’s ‘The Girl Next Door’ has a story been as equally repellent and captivating as this.”  That’s high praise in this business!  Bad Moon Books still has copies for sale, as does Horror-Mall.  [Bad Moon Books also is now scheduled to publish the anthology, Monster Noir, in the seasons ahead.  My short story, "Exorcystland" -- about an amusement park where all the attractions let you "ride" crazy scenes from classic horror films -- appears therein]

If you’re a writer, you should look into subscribing to Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets. Editor Kathy Ptacek just released the special 150th issue (!) of this long-standing “insider” resource for breaking news in publishing and the magazine industry.  I have an irregular department in GQ, pretentiously called “The Arnzen Seminars,” where I address an advanced topic in creative writing. In the 150th anniversary issue, my latest “seminar” is an essay on “Writing Anniversaries” — things writers should try to do each year to celebrate and reflect and stay organized.

Novello Pubishers informed me earier this month that his complete run of my over-the-top horror novelette, Licker, has sold out.  (You still might be able to track down copies at Horror-Mall if you act quickly.)  Novello also announced this month that they’re launching a new specialty line of “bizarro” fiction later this year under the name “Squid Salad Press” — author Tim Waggoner will be the first writer in their line-up, with his weird book, Skull Cathedral.

The June 2008 issue of Pittsburgh Professional Magazine just pubished an interview with me (called “Ghoulish Goals” by Kathleen Ganster) featuring some awesome photography by the amazingly talented Jim Judkis. 

The Goreletter is my creative workspace & author’s newsletter; the blog is a working sketchbook for that missive and — upon recently changing to a new webhost — I have decided to expand it and revise it from the bottom up, to make it more accessible for “web 2.0″ readers.

Read the All About the Goreletter page for full information on this site and how to subscribe via RSS.

This site is in disarray and heavy construction as I customize the design and consider content elements, while I port over the Goreletter from its former home. You may wind up at dead ends or find dead links or other errors. However, comments are enabled, so do let me know if you have any suggestions. To make sure you don’t miss any news, subscribe to the e-mail version or the rss feed.

My working to do list before going live with the announcement of this blog:

• jigger the css to mimic the gorelets.com front page
• figure out what is blocking the comment window on posts (new plan: comments will be enabled on entries from Jan 2008 forward only)
• integrate plug-ins that mimic the old goreletter blog
• integrate the new zenphoto gallery into this page, perhaps?
• add an about page that features rss links
• announce the move on the old goreletter blog (for rss readers, esp.)
• announce the move on the mailing list
• carry design through the categories consistently; establish categorical structure
• add rss content from tie-in sites
• post separate rss feeds for individual depts
• canvass new search engines
• tweak design for column balance
• consider new ‘web exclusive’ subcontent and/or tagged entries
• polish up gorelets.com subpages (links esp.)

Bit by bit it’s happening. Let me know if you want anything special or encounter any problems.  Thanks for dropping by!

Here you can see what a great job the publisher did with this exclusive collector’s edition, signed, leatherbound in a deep crimson cover, with bonus art and an exclusive CD. The CD is called “Live and Vile,” featuring an individualized “backmasked” message unique for each disc, the recording of a live performance (at Zombiefest 2007), and a cluster of remixes, rare demo versions and outtakes from my spoken word CD from Raw Dog Screaming Press (Audiovile). Only 26 copies of these books+cds were made, as it is a lettered edition. [Awful Books acquired the letter "V" which is even more unique because only the V, I, L, & E -lettered CDs were done in blue ink rather than red!] Like the “Grim Grimoire” edition of my novel, Play Dead, I think this is a neat production!

This book has been getting very positive reviews. The lettered edition sold out on publication, but signed trade paperbacks are still available at the Horror Mall.

The HWA’s Bram Stoker Awards were announced last night in Salt Lake City at the 2008 World Horror Convention. My book, PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS, tied for the win (along with Peter Straub for his wonderful book, 5 Stories) in the “Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection” category.

This is my fourth Stoker award for my horror writing and since this particular award is going to a book that collects stories from across my career, I’m obviously overjoyed.

I’ve posted a copy of my acceptance speech (read by Weston Ochse at the banquet) on gorelets.com, but here I just want to share the good news and to shout out a huge THANKS to the HWA and to anyone who has picked up my book and enjoyed it.

Here’s the full list of winners…and all of these books are just GREAT, so if you like horror fiction, this is the stuff you should be reading, folks!:

Bram Stoker Award Winners 2008

Superior Achievement in a Novel
THE MISSING by Sarah Langan (Harper)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel
HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
AFTERWARD, THERE WILL BE A HALLWAY by Gary Braunbeck (Five Strokes to Midnight)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
THE GENTLE BRUSH OF WINGS by David Niall Wilson (Defining Moments)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology
FIVE STROKES TO MIDNIGHT edited by Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble (Haunted Pelican Press)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection (tie)
PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS by Michael A. Arnzen (Dark Regions Press)
5 STORIES by Peter Straub (Borderlands)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction
THE CRYPTOPEDIA by Jonathan Maberry & David F. Kramer (Citadel Press / Kensington)

Superior Achievement in Poetry (tie)
BEING FULL OF LIGHT, INSUBSTANTIAL by Linda Addison (Space and Time)
VECTORS: A WEEK IN THE DEATH OF A PLANET by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon (Dark Regions Press)

HWA Lifetime Achievement Award: John Carpenter & Robert Weinberg

***

For more information about the Bram Stoker award, visit the Horror Writers Association.

For more information about Proverbs for Monsters, see my website, Gorelets.com or pick up a copy at the Horror Mall.

Back to celebrating… Cheers! — Mike Arnzen

Superior Achievement in a Novel
THE GUARDENER’S TALE by Bruce Boston (Sam’s DotPublishing)
HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
THE MISSING by Sarah Langan (Harper)
THE TERROR by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel
HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
I WILL RISE by Michael Calvillo (Lachesis Publishing)
THE MEMORY TREE by John R. Little (Nocturne Press)
THE WITCH’S TRINITY by Erika Mailman (Crown)
THE HOLLOWER by Mary SanGiovanni (Leisure Books)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
AFTERWARD, THERE WILL BE A HALLWAY by Gary Braunbeck (Five Strokes to Midnight)
ALMOST THE LAST STORY BY ALMOST THE LAST MAN by Scott Edelman (Postscripts)
GENERAL SLOCUM’S GOLD by Nicholas Kaufmann (Burning Effigy Press)
THE TENTH MUSE by William Browning Spencer
AN APIARY OF WHITE BEES by Lee Thomas (Inferno)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
THE DEATH WAGON ROLLS ON BY by C. Dean Andersson (Cemetery Dance #57)
LETTING GO by John Everson (Needles and Sins)
THE TEACHER by Paul G. Tremblay (Chizine)
THERE’S NO LIGHT BETWEEN FLOORS by Paul G. Tremblay (Clarkesworld)
CLOSET DREAMS by Lisa Tuttle (Postscripts #10)
THE GENTLE BRUSH OF WINGS by David Niall Wilson (Defining Moments)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology
FIVE STROKES TO MIDNIGHT edited by Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble (Haunted Pelican Press)
INFERNO edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
DARK DELICACIES 2: FEAR edited by Del Howison & Jeff Gelb (Carroll & Graf/Avalon)
MIDNIGHT PREMIERE edited by Tom Piccirilli (Cemetery Dance Publications)
AT EASE WITH THE DEAD edited by Barbara & Christopher Roden (Ash-Tree Press)

Superior Achievement in a Collection
PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS by Michael A. Arnzen (Dark Regions Press)
THE IMAGO SEQUENCE by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
OLD DEVIL MOON by Christopher Fowler (Serpent’s Tail)
5 STORIES by Peter Straub (Borderlands)
DEFINING MOMENTS by David Niall Wilson (Sarob Press)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction
ENCYCLOPEDIA HORRIFICA by Joshua Gee (Scholastic)
THE PORTABLE OBITUARY: HOW THE FAMOUS, RICH, AND POWERFUL REALLY DIED by Michael Largo (Harper)
THE CRYPTOPEDIA: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange & Downright Bizarre by Jonathan Maberry & David F. Kramer (Citadel Press / Kensington)
STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED by Joe Nassise and David Niall Wilson (Storytellers Unplugged)

Superior Achievement in Poetry
BEING FULL OF LIGHT, INSUBSTANTIAL by Linda Addison (Space and Time)
HERESY by Charlee Jacob (Bedlam Press [Necro Publications])
VECTORS: A WEEK IN THE DEATH OF A PLANET by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon (Dark Regions Press)
PHANTASMAPEDIA by Mark McLaughlin (Dead Letter Press)
OSSUARY by JoSelle Vanderhooft (Sam’s Dot Publishing)

***
I’m proud to be in such good company. I’ve got my favorites, but they’re all very good books by outstanding writers. Congratulations to all the nominees! Voting will take place in the weeks ahead; the award winners will be announced at the Horror Writers Association banquet at World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, at the end of March.