The “Bizarro Day” reading event was a smashing success, and it was fun to hear D. Harlan Wilson, Anderson Prunty, John Edward Lawson, Gary A. Braunbeck and Lucy Snyder all read their latest weirdness. I read song parodies (everyone seemed to laugh at my Journey remake, “Don’t Stop Bleeding”) and other pop culture horror poems. Bookseller Fred Van Patton reported that it was probably the most successful event in the store’s history — and that we even outsold Deepak Chopra! It’s true that I sold a goodly number of books, but subsequently spent whatever I made on sales to buy the other writer’s latest books. I hope you will do the same.

Event Coverage updates posted here as they come in:

• Event Photos at Raw Dog Screaming Press
• Bizarro-styled reportage of the event by Andersen Prunty
• Backlist Books photos on Facebook
• Photo album at Arnzen’s Gallery at gorelets.com
• YOUTUBE: Video of Mike Arnzen Reading parodies of pop culture and more event videos from RDSP.

Signing in Massillon, OH on 3.6.10

Like most puns, some of these are astoundingly bad examples of wordplay, but what the heck: here is the complete collection of Who Horrors for your amusement, my embarrassment, and, well, posterity.

Pinhead Wizard
Tommy, Can You Fear Me?
Blobophrenia
You Deader, You Deader, You Dead
I Can Spree For Miles and Miles
Slip Kidney
The Kids Are All Fright
My Regeneration
Quease Box
I Canned His Brain. / Froze his blood. / Gonna serve to you. / When it turns blue.
Can You See the Real Meat?
Blowing Mo’ Bile
BarkBark O’Diely
No one knows what it’s like. To be the dead man. To be the bled man. Behind Strewn Eyes.
Won’t Eat Food Again
Blood Rain on Me
Embalmee, Can You Hear Me?
Skinned the Wizard — grabbed his magic stick — Skinned the Wizard — it came off at the wrist.
Raspy Jack
I call that a Gorgon. You best not make it mad!
Goodbye Blister Disco
I want you to burn…together…with the brand.
Pictures of Chilly
Slime Free
LONG LIVE SHOCK. Be it Dead or Alive.

Bonus Extras:

Boo! Scar You.
Eating my brain on the 5:15
Another Sticky Day
Phlegminence Front (it’s a spute-ahm!)

Thanks to all the other people who played along and posted their own, including: @BlackDogNate, @nitewanderer, @davidltamarin23, @Adam_Blomquist, @StephenWNagy, @DavidKM, and @chuntastic…you might be able to find their contributions still. And kudos to @jmridenhour for coming up with the best of them all: “Tragic Bus”!

You’re perfectly welcome to keep this sick train a rollin’ by adding more in the comments…but really, why would you?

Flyer for The Unusual Suspects Reading

Saturday, March 06, 3:00 PM
Backlist Books bookstore: 39 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, OH 44646

Reading and signing with Raw Dog Screaming Press authors Michael Arnzen, D. Harlan Wilson, Anderson Prunty and John Edward Lawson at Backlist Books bookstore: 39 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, OH 44646. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
***
To keep up with my readings and booksignings, visit my author page at BookTour.Com

Just a city boy
Dead and raised in south Detroit
He took a bite of brain
Goin’ anywhere

Find a human in a smoky room
The smell of blood and cheap perfume
For a lifetime they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on

Strangers shuffling
Up and down the boulevard
Shadows searching
In the night
Undead people
Living just to find emotion
Feasting somewhere
In the night

Slurping hearts till the lust’s fulfilled
Everybody’s out to kill
Doin’ anything to feel the vice
just one more time

Some are green, some are blue
Some have mouths that cannot chew
Oh, the horror movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

Strangers shuffling
Up and down the boulevard
Shadows searching
In the night
Undead people
Living just to find emotion
Feasting somewhere
In the night

Don’t stop
Bleeding
Hold on to that feeding
Undead
People
Oh-oh-ooooh

Don’t stop
Bleeding
Hold on to that feeding
Undead
People
Oh-oh-ooooh

Orphan Feast

Brought to you by [adult swim] games, so you know that it’s weird. In fact, they’ve got a LOT of crazy games even weirder and more deplorable than this one. Like 5 Minutes to Kill Yourself, a classic favorite.

Getting hungry? Time to partake in the Orphan Feast!

Happy Holidays!

I’ll be returning as a guest lecturer at the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop next Summer (applications for early admission due Jan 30th!). The kind folks at Odyssey just interviewed me for their blog, too, where I talk about how I persisted in the early years of my career, and where I share some advice for writers of genre fiction. [I'll also be returning to teach at the Alpha Workshops for Young SF/F/H Writers next summer, as well!]

A shorter interview is attached to a brief 5-Star Review of my short story “Spring Ahead, Fall Back,” over on Red Adept’s Kindle Book Review Blog. You can get that story and more on your Kindle at amazon.com. [Speaking of amazon, I just posted lengthy "Listmania" of hard-to-find anthologies they sell in which I appear, aptly entitled "Michael Arnzen Is Lurking In The Shadowy Corners of Your Bookstore"].

And finally, a meaty excerpt from my article in the book Writer’s Workshop of Horror appears in this month’s (Jan 2010) issue of The Writer magazine, which is on the racks now!

***
P.S. My 20th Anniversary Contest has passed deadline. If you have entered by kindly writing a customer review, you need to let me know about it via e-mail with your mailing address asap. The random draw for winners will be posted later this week. WINNERS HAVE BEEN POSTED. THANKS TO ALL!

I’ve also been having way too much fun trolling around amazon for weird discoveries, and I have compiled a few other funky lists, like the Goofy Gory Gifts Galore list and other novelty lists. I’m apparently a listmaniac.

Amazon Listmania Collects Books Reviewed

After many years of neglect, I have updated my author profile on amazon.com, where you can find more weirdness and links to many of my books and anthologies. Since amazon now features some of my stuff in their kindle store, and because I am likely to begin publishing The Goreletter for Kindle readers as well as web browsers, I have made gorelets an amazon affiliate, and I have been cleaning up their database when it comes to Arnzen titles by uploading book covers or making corrections. Your reviews and tags on amazon.com are appreciated.

Up for grabs are some exceptionally hard-to-find items:

Live and Vile CD

A “test design” pressing of the Live and Vile audio disc. This CD (pictured above) was released in only 26 lettered edition copies, bundled with the leather bound edition of my novella, The B*tchfight, from Bad Moon Books in 2008. It features a hilarious live reading from the Zombiefest convention and demo versions and outtakes from my recording sessions for Audiovile. Only 26 people in the country own these rare tracks; and only three copies of the hand-made test pressings exist. It’s signed. The winner will get this rare cd PLUS a signed copy of 100 Jolts for read-along fun.

Cards from the Play Dead deck by Liscomb

Also up for grabs is a signed deck of Play Dead playing cards. These cards feature art by David Liscomb, inspired by images in my novel PLAY DEAD. They were included with the “Grim Grimoire” (sculpture-bound) edition of the novel. Not a lot of these exist! The winner will get the cards PLUS a copy of Exquisite Corpse, the film based on my short-shorts and poetry.

Play Dead Advanced Review Copy

A third prize offering is a signed white paperback / “advanced review copy” of my out-of-print novel, Play Dead. Unavailable anywhere, an unknown limited run of these bound paperback versions were sent only to book reviewers before the book’s release. You’ll get this PLUS a signed copy of my latest chapbook, Skull Fragments.

HOW TO ENTER:

I’m trying to broaden my audience, so I need your help. You get an entry for any “user review” or “customer comment” you post about any of my books on any web retailer where you already shop online. I don’t see this as a bribe for false advertising: You can praise or damn me and my god forsaken “writing…I don’t care. Ideal places to do this include the Arnzen pages on Amazon.com, itunes, cdbaby.com, horror-mall.com, or anywhere my work is sold.

ANY old titles from my 20 years of weirdness can be reviewed in this way (for convenience, there’s also a large list on my amazon.com biography page). If you haven’t actually read any of my books, I invite you to review some of these freebies:

• you can review The Goreletter on amazon.com
• you download your free ebook of Sportuary and then post a review on amazon.com
• you can listen to the sampler of Audiovile on cdbaby.com and review it there or post one on itunes

When you’ve published your review, simply e-mail me (or post a link in a comment here) to tell me about it before Midnight eastern on Dec 13th, 2009. Include your mailing address, because the first thirty entries get this signed bookplate for free, while supplies last:

Signed #d bookplate (art by David Weisner)

That’s a lot of cool stuff. If you do not currently subscribe to the email edition of The Goreletter, you will automatically be added to the list. If you are weird enough to be reading this now, you are sure to like the newsletter (which is only delivered quarterly or so, and won a Bram Stoker Award, so it can’t be half bad). You must be on my mailing list to qualify for a prize when winners are chosen, but you are free to unsubscribe anytime you like.

Winners will be chosen from a random draw. have been posted (see comments section on this post).