Arnzen Coming to Neumann University on 10.26.12
“The Popular Uncanny” — Event Poster by Julie Smith
[As announced on The Popular Uncanny webpage:]
I will be giving a talk about “The Popular Uncanny”, free and open to the public, at Neumann University (near Philadelphia, PA) on Oct 26th. Come join us at 4:30 p.m. in the Bruder Life Center. In the spirit of Halloween, there will be weirdness, laughter, and intriguing conversation, followed by a book signing for my new, massive poetry collection, The Gorelets Omnibus and other Arnzen titles.
Read more details from Neumann University.
Or check the event information on Facebook.
Gorelets.com Returns to its Mobile-Friendly Roots
While “responsive” is a word I usually associate with “Things Doctors Say In Intensive Care Units,” it’s also a word that now applies to this website. “Responsive” means that the site automatically recognizes if you’re reading it with a touchscreen device and it changes to make it more mobile-friendly. [The same is true of the Arnzen Social Network page at http://michaelarnzen.com/ and most of the other main pages linked in my menu.] While I doubt it’s perfect, you can now far more easily read the text and browse pages while on the road, riding in the back of your hearse or whatever. I’ve only tested it on an iphone and ipad, but it seems to work well. In fact, in iOS, you can not only bookmark it, you can choose “Add to Home Screen” and it will place an icon on your main screen that you can click for instance access to these pages, just like clicking on an “app.” Try it out, Apple-heads!
It’s funny to me to reflect on how far things have changed — yet remained virtually the same — over the decade+ that I’ve been running this website. I bet most people don’t realize that “gorelets” is neologism short for “gory applets” (aka “apps”) — which was how the original poetry series was created and delivered using some of the first handheld devices (PDAs). Here’s a funny before-and-after comparison of gorelets now and then, to show the evolution of this website.
gorelets.com was originally a mobile-oriented site for distributing horror poems.
This is all very trivial, but you can read more about the history behind the gorelets project in The Gorelets Omnibus. An excerpt, answering the question “What are Gorelets?” is available on the book page for the original chapbook, Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems, where more photos and history is provided.
To all my longtime readers and goreletter subscribers over the past decade who have been there with me since the beginning and are smiling right alongside me…THANK YOU.
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Related fiction: “Introducing MyBlade”– a parody of those infamous Steve Jobs-styled ipod/iphone product announcement speeches, published in The Goreletter back in 2007. (And here’s a funny youtube video I found of some kids goofing around with an uncannily similar concept).
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].
“Fuzzy Bunnies”: My First Book Trailer for The Gorelets Omnibus
Visit the book page for The Gorelets Omnibus or go directly to Raw Dog Screaming Press to order your copy today.
By the way: although I’ve messed about with animated poems in the past, believe it or not, this video constitutes the very first “book trailer” for one of my single-author titles. If you like it, please leave comments, post it on your site or your favorite social network, or subscribe to my new channel on YouTube to support my continued efforts in this direction. There are some other trailers in a playlist there for books I appear in. I will likely make more videos of excerpts from the Omnibus, so do let me know if there’s a favorite you’d like me to post.
I chose “Fuzzy Bunnies” because this is the poem that most people remember from the book for some reason. Truth be told, I wrote it because a relative once frowned at me when I told them of my successes as a horror writer, and replied: “Oh, why can’t you just write about happy little bunnies?” So I did.
Friday the 13th Giveaway: Win The Gorelets Omnibus on Goodreads!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Gorelets Omnibus
by Michael A. Arnzen
Giveaway ends July 13, 2012.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
THIS GOODREADS GIVEAWAY IS FOR A FREE SIGNED PAPERBACK OF THE GORELETS OMNIBUS.
You must be a member of goodreads.com to enter. If you win, your book will be autographed and include an original handwritten haiku on the title page, and you will also receive one of the fancy and rare limited edition broadsides that were given only to those who pre-ordered the book a few months ago.
Contest ends FRIDAY THE 13th MIDNIGHT. Better get clickin’.
Reader reviews, and helping to spread the word, are really appreciated.
Preview of New Broadside: “Anonymous”
Earlier this year, the first people who kindly pre-ordered the hardcover edition of The Gorelets Omnibus after it was initially announced by the publisher were promised a free exclusive broadside as a bonus. If that’s you, let me assure you the delay was entirely my fault — the poem that I wrote for this cause just wasn’t quite right, and I try to treat these things special. But now I’ve got something done that I’m proud of and it is heading out in the mail to you. Enjoy!
Here’s a purposely-blurry preview, so you can see what’s to come.
This Exclusive Broadside Could Be Yours!
The broadside poem is entitled “Anonymous” and is limited to twenty-five signed, numbered copies, uncannily dated 6/6/12. Some of these will go to lucky subscribers of The Goreletter newsletter, so if you haven’t signed up for that yet, there’s still time and please do (or please make sure your email address is correct by signing up again — the server will tell you if you’re good to go).
I like doing quirky and creative things like this when I can. You can get a whiff of some other broadsides I’ve done in the past on scribd.com — and they sometimes are reprinted in collections, like my book awhile back from Dark Regions Press, called Proverbs for Monsters.
To learn more about The Gorelets Omnibus, see posts tagged Omnibus on this site. To order, visit Raw Dog Screaming Press. The book is also available in ebook and other editions on amazon.com and all the usual booksellers.
Photos from Morgantown Poets Event
Just back from Morgantown, WV…here are some visual impressions of the Raw Dog Screaming Press book party — sponsored by Morgantown Poets and the Mon Arts Center — to celebrate the release of Jason Jack Miller’s Hellbender and my book The Gorelets Omnibus (both are available from the publisher). I only managed to snap a few shots — not nearly enough — but I’ll let the images speak for themselves for now, and will try to share audio snippets and links to other coverage from the fun reading shortly.
May & June 2012 Appearances for The Gorelets Omnibus
Friday, MAY 25th. 7-9pm. Morgantown, WV
Raw Dog Screaming Press Book Release Party at Monongalia Arts Center
Morgantown Poets is hosting a RAW DOG SCREAMING PRESS book release party Friday May 25 from 7-9pm at Monongalia Arts Center (MAC), featuring the debut of Jason Jack Miller’s HELLBENDER and Michael Arnzen’s THE GORELETS OMNIBUS. Arnzen & Miller will read their work, followed by a signing. A limited number of Raw Dog Screaming Press books will be available for purchase.
Public parking is available near the MAC in the parking garage at the corner of Pleasant and Chestnut Streets and at the city lot behind 142 High Street (enter off Spruce). The MAC is accessible to individuals with special mobility requirements; schedule ahead at least two days prior to the event by calling 304-292-3325, or write to info@monartscenter.com. More details available at http://www.monartscenter.com/
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Friday, JUNE 22nd. 7-10pm. Greensburg, PA
“In Your Write Mind” Book Expo at Seton Hill University
Arnzen, Miller and Raw Dog Screaming will be available again to sign books at this mass autograph session featuring alums, faculty and guests shared by the Writing Popular Fiction MFA Residency and the In Your Write Mind Workshops at Seton Hill University. More details on the alumni page at SHU and the IYWM website. A large number of the contributors to Many Genres, One Craft will also be available for autographs, including Michael Knost, Shelley Bates, Victoria Thompson, Heidi Ruby Miller, Lawrence C. Connolly, William Horner, Rachael Pruitt, Scott A. Johnson, Maria V. Snyder, and many more!
The signing is tentatively scheduled from 7-10pm in the McKenna Center Foyer at Seton Hill University.
The Dream People Hand You a Cookie
The latest issue of the bizarro journal, The Dream People, includes my story, “The Fortune Cookie,” excerpted from The Gorelets Omnibus. You may have seen this before, but go check out The Dream People anyway, because it’s got some good features this issue, including a focus on my Master’s thesis advisor from way back when, the inimitable Lance Olsen (who I recently learned won a Guggenheim Fellowship…way to go, Lance!).
Sick Alternative Cover Art Concept for The Gorelets Omnibus!
I just shared this photo, “Dismembered Handheld Computing,” over on my flickr gallery… it’s one of the original cover concepts I shared with the publisher during the production stages of my latest book, The Gorelets Omnibus. Head on over to flickr to read more about the backstory, if you’re not already running for the bathroom with a hand clamped over your mouth…
The art is sort of an inside joke about the ‘gorelets’ poetry. Visit gorelets.com to learn more about this project and my weird work.
The Gorelets Omnibus for Kindle and More on Amazon.com
Now available for the Amazon Kindle!
You can now get the Gorelets Omnibus as an e-book for the Kindle along with all the other editions, from amazon.com.
I think this is very cool, because gorelets — which, a decade ago, were originally a series of poems that were written for PDAs, the first handheld e-readers — are now available in ebook format for your cell phone (if you have the Kindle app). This feels like coming full circle.
Just so you’re aware: the Kindle edition is an electronic adaptation of the paperback edition. Remember that the Hardcover is substantially expanded, with bonus poetry galore and it even features a “Poetry Writing Workshop” that includes craft articles and more Instigation than you can even find here on this website).
The print edition is also available through your favorite bookseller, or directly from the publisher, as well. Visit those scoundrels at Raw Dog Screaming Press (publisher of my earlier titles, 100 Jolts and Play Dead) today for more information.
Horror Poetry Writing Workshop in The Gorelets Omnibus
My fellow weird writers might want to take note of this.
One of the neat bonus features available only in the hardcover edition of The Gorelets Omnibus is a “horror poetry writing workshop” that includes a handful of essays I’ve written about the craft over the years (for places like Byline magazine and the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Star*Line magazine, among others). The chapter titles are:
-
“The Poetics of Horror”
“The Element of Fear in Horror Poetry”
“Horror Haiku”
“The Dead Draft: When Poetry Fails”
“New Media Horror: Six Lessons from an E-Poet”
Rounding out this virtual workshop in the book is a complete collection of Instigation prompts (aka “Twisted Prompts for Sicko Writers”) that have not only appeared on gorelets.com and in the Goreletter newsletter, but also from my former weekly column in Hellnotes newsletter. I think there are something in the order of 300 creative prompts, all counted…maybe more. Here’s an excerpt from the book that samples of just a few, which I recently shared on my page at scribd.com. :
Instigation: Twisted Writing Prompts – An excerpt from The Gorelets Omnibus
You can order the hardcover edition of The Gorelets Omnibus from amazon.com, or wherever books are sold, including directly from the publisher.
05/20/2013 at 9:55 am 
05/11/2013 at 6:32 pm 
