Announcing the Book Haiku contest winners
The latest issue of The Goreletter (Vol. 7.01: “Cibophobia”) included a special subscribers-only contest that involved writing a haiku summary of one of my books and posting it to LibraryThing’s #bookhaiku page. Here are the winning entries (surprise: I’ve added a bonus for 4th place!).
These fine folks are all each receiving a signed copy of Many Genres, One Craft, an uncased copy of the film based on my short-shorts, Exquisite Corpse, on DVD, and a special signed CD-R single of “The Bleu Man Group” (featuring both live and studio versions), excerpted from the ArnzenSongs CD (currently in production as part of a 26-copy lettered series of double-live recordings for kickstarter backers of The Fridge of the Damned…extra cds will be available for sale from this site in the near future, if you missed your chance!). They also all received a free limited edition broadside (fancy single poem on fancy paper).
***
psychopath of art:
i color my brain in ink –
your death comes to me
– Bill Bush
***
100 JOLTS:
one hundred stories
needle-sharp, potent, sudden
snakebite in book form
– Scott Emerson
***
MEAT SHOTS:
Hidden grandfather,
nothing is as it appears –
read between the lines
– Beth Kegelmeyer
***
THE GORELETS OMNIBUS:
meaty lumps with bite
slice brain and grateful gullet –
piquant papercuts
– Jessica McHugh
***
Thanks to these fine folks for crafting such intriguing haiku. I love every syllable.
Don’t miss out on contests like these for your chance at winning free Arnzen books and scary swag! Subscribe to The Goreletter email newsletter right now. Next issue expected in mid-to-late March 2013.
Goreletter 7.01 Mailed
The Goreletter Vol. 7, #1 was e-mailed to subscribers on 1/13/12 @ 11:59pm est. It contains extra entertainment/material not available here on the weblog version, including a haiku contest exclusive to subscribers with one-of-a-kind prizes.
If you subscribe and did not receive this issue, e-mail me for a replacement or review the archives at gorelets.com. If you need to check or update your subscription’s email address, just enter it in the subscribe box and review the report.
Subscribe today…it’s free and you can always unsubscribe if it terrorizes you too much. Issues are mailed only a few times per year, if even that, so your inbox won’t suffocate.
Happy New Fear,
– Michael A. Arnzen
Congratulations to the Microhorror Contest Winners
If my book, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories, left you hungry for more and more sick flash fiction, then you might want to check out microhorror.com, to get your quick fix of terror.
A few weeks ago I guest-judged (along with Nathan Rosen and Oonah Joslin) a writing contest they held on the site for short-short horror stories related to the common theme of “art.” It generated a huge response, and I read a lot of very sick stories that made it a difficult process to select the very best. My hat’s off to the winners: Caelin Beaty (for “Chiseled”), Mara Morrigan (for “Disturbing Art”) and Angel Zapata (for “The Blood Worms”). Three very distinctive shots of terror. I sent them all a signed copy of The Gorelets Omnibus, in appreciation for their accomplishments. Start reading those three and I know you won’t be able to stop yourself from reading any of the hundreds upon hundreds of short-short stories on the site. Go to microhorror.com and enjoy.
Microhorror is spearheaded by Nathan Rosen, who you might recognize as the graphic designer behind the “100% Arnzen” meat package I shared with you back in May. Since that time, Nate has been working with me on a couple of future projects that I can’t wait to share in the year to come — from graphic design work for the upcoming re-release of my novel Play Dead in new formats, to a new chapbook to come in 2013, to a realization of my old “Refridgerator of the Damned” in a way you won’t be expecting! Keep your eyes here, or subscribe to The Goreletter for all the exciting news to come in the year ahead.
New SFPA T-Shirt: “In Space, No One Can Hear You Rhyme”
Check out the new t-shirts sold as a fundraiser by the Science Fiction Poetry Association (of which, I’ve been a member since something like 1989 — if you’re a genre poet, join us!). I’m honored they chose my proposed slogan for the t-shirt design…
24 Hour Contest on Facebook – Ends 11/27 at 8pm eastern
Click F for My Facebook Page
That’s right…you could even buy a copy from amazon in two seconds (currently just $4.99), snap a picture, and win!
UPDATE: This contest has ended. Please subscribe to The Goreletter for a chance at future giveaways!
COG cover art for Dog Star Books
Earlier I announced new things are coming for Raw Dog Screaming Press — not the least of which is the rerelease of my novel Play Dead in paperback and ebook in the year to come. As proof of their new energy, here’s a sneak graphic that you can dig: the bold cover art by Bradley Sharp for the book, COG by K. Ceres Wright, a cyberpunk title coming in Summer 2013 — debuting the new science-fiction line, Dog Star Books. Ceres was a great student in the MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program where I teach, and contributed an essay on cyberpunk to Many Genres, One Craft. Right on, dawg.
Dexter Notes
I’ve been a longtime fan of the Dexter series on Showtime, and a new season (#7) is going to begin in about a month. I unfortunately don’t subscribe to Showtime, having caught it through Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand in the past. But last month I picked up the entire run of the whole series (when I spotted it as a blu ray deal of the week on Amazon) and have begun watching it all over again, deliberately, studying this serial killer series for whatever new observations I can make the second time around and to uncover any lessons I can glean.
I’ve begun sharing some snippets of these thoughts on twitter in a series with the hashtag #DexterNotes. If you don’t follow me on twitter, not to worry: these are all handily available in the permanent archive I keep here on gorelets.com, called The Nest; here’s a link to the archived #DexterNotes. I’m also posting links to related Dexterophilia on Delicious. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve only read one of the Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay that inspired the series so far, but I plan to make amends. I’m not just a fan; I think this study may lead to something very interesting and unique in the future.
New Audiovile Review + Twitter Contest Winners Announced
Weird John C. — union leader of Gravediggers Local 16 — just posted a fantastic review of my spoken word cd, Audiovile. Jump to the Gravediggers website to take a look. It’s rather in-depth, reviewing each track deeply.
“Rather than coming of as simple readings, many of the tracks seem closer to songs or poetry….Michael Arnzen has a voice that’s well-suited for telling offbeat stories, both in terms of tone and his ability to adopt different styles of delivery depending on the track….and the flash fiction that makes up this release always kept me guessing.” — Gravediggers Local 16
To order Audiovile visit Raw Dog Screaming Press or pick it up digitally on iTunes!
The Gravediggers also run an excellent horror audio-related web radio show. Tune in to Six Foot Plus to give your ears a (trick or) treat.
You can also follow @GdL16 on twitter. In related news, I just picked two random winners in a spontaneous contest I ran on my twitter page. Here are the results!
Winner #1 of the Audiovile cd (info: gorelets.com/books/audiovil…) is:
@hidingout2Congrats, Lu! Pls message or e-mail me your postal address.— Michael Arnzen (@MikeArnzen) August 1, 2012
Winner #2 of the Audiovile cd (info: gorelets.com/books/audiovil…) is:
@corey_smith Congrats, Corey! Pls message or e-mail me your postal address.— Michael Arnzen (@MikeArnzen) August 1, 2012
Be sure to follow or friend me on your favorite social network to find out about these sort of surprises in the future.
Winner of the Goodreads Gorelets Giveaway Announced
Congratulations to Samantha Mostek — winner of my Friday the 13th giveaway of The Gorelets Omnibus on the website for booklovers, GoodReads.com. [You can follow my profile here: http://www.goodreads.com/MichaelAArnzen
]. Samantha will be receiving a signed paperback copy as well as one of the rare broadsides I produced to celebrate the book launch.
Didn’t win? Sad? Well, contests for all sorts of things always appear in The Goreletter. Subscribe today! The Goreletter WILL run a contest for a few of the remaining broadsides I have on hand, so come join the mad party and stay tuned with all things Arnzen. [Click here to read a description of The Goreletter].
The Books Page is Alive
I’ve made some good progress on the new bibliography/book catalog for gorelets.com — not complete yet, but most of the titles in print are ready to view. You can get to them through the “Books and Other Creative Works” button at the top of this page. Surprises lurk therein, from audio samples to downloadable excerpts to extended tables of contents and great photos.
I’ve been slowly updating the entire website at gorelets.com this summer. I recently updated my bio page with some funky photos and updates, for instance, and I’ve set up a youtube channel (see the micro-buttons in the top-right of this page) where I hope to add more book trailers in the near future. And then there’s also the “trending tweets” subpage that you can find as part of the newly fashioned twitter archive, The Nest. Please browse around with wanton abandon and feel free to leave some comments all over the house.
Former Gorelets Gallery Art Now on Flickr — and Announcing “Ambulations”
'Demonaurus'
I’m still overhauling this website to consolidate things and make them easier for me to manage (so I can spend more time writing). I recently pulled my microblog from the Posterous website (and dumped my pinterest account) and those posts are now happily reintegrated into this blog, which I’m trying to make more active as a genuine blog and less of a page for only sharing Goreletter department drafts. I also started a new department on this blog, called “Ambulations,” to make up for it: it will feature mobile posts, road trip photos, and ideas jotted while on the move, essentially taking over what was formerly found on posterous. The newsletter will continue and I plan to release the next issue in early May, so feel free to subscribe.
I’ve yet to find a new suitable art/photo gallery for gorelets.com, so I decided to post a batch of artwork that was published here in the past to my flickr gallery site, where I’ve been posting digital experiments for two years now anyway. I’m not sure yet where or how I’ll share images of my book covers and other illustrations, but for now, I just wanted folks to know what was happening with the gorelets.com gallery. Go over to http://www.flickr.com/photos/gorelets/ and check out some crazy images I’ve created over the past few years — like that strange “Demonaurus” creature pictured above, which is one of my personal favorites.
February Leapt — my #cowbird #micro #memoir for 3.4.12
In this story…
I spring ahead into leap year…
Read: “February Leapt…”
in my personal journal on cowbird.com
06/18/2013 at 8:43 am 
06/11/2013 at 2:11 pm 
