Get Ready for Chills: "Ghost Writer" Releases November 14th!

A tight deadline. A diabolical disappearance....

Is his tortured mind playing dirty tricks, or is he about to write himself into an early grave?

Joe Riley is desperate. Devastated by his recent divorce, the successful thriller author retreats to a remote cabin he’s inherited, hoping the quiet setting will cure his crippling writer’s block.

And though he’s briefly disturbed by strange noises in the night, the frustrated storyteller blames alcohol-induced memory loss when he discovers a stack of pages he can’t remember typing.

Searching for answers to his newfound inspiration, Joe learns of a long-vanished successful novelist … and is stunned to spot her specter working away at his desk.

As the stubborn forty-year-old researches his family’s connections to her tragic tale, he becomes aware of a sinister and brutal truth … even as he yields to her unearthly seduction.

Will refusing to confront his own demons see him penning his next masterpiece from six feet under?

Ghost Writer by Arjay Lewis is a dark and moody paranormal mystery that delves into the struggles of creativity. The story follows Joe Riley, a writer battling a debilitating writer's block. Seeking solitude, he retreats to an isolated cabin he has inherited, but soon discovers he is not alone. As Joe grapples with his creative demons, he is drawn into an eerie partnership with a ghost who becomes his unexpected co-author. Together, they embark on a journey that unravels a horrifying web of deceit and danger.

Presale from Amazon!

Early Reviews are in!

"A foreboding tale of horror and the torturous act of creation, Ghost Writer by Arjay Lewis is a smoldering story of isolation, dark secrets, and things that bump together in the night." "Unsettling, twisted, and layered with complexity, Lewis plunges readers into a mix of supernatural terror with the terror of creation, which evocatively explores how past trauma and present discomfit are deeply entwined with creative pursuits, resulting in a novel that transcends the ghost story genre by probing the ghost story genre itself."
    —Self-Publishing Review

"Author Arjay Lewis captivates the reader's mind and imagination with a well-delivered story inspired by the beyond. Ghost Writer is one of those stories that you will want to read in one sitting, totally absorbed in the journey, page after page."
    —Ronél Steyn for Readers’ Favorite

"Author Arjay Lewis's suspenseful, terrifying thriller had me sitting on the edge of my seat. There was never a dull moment in the story, and I enjoyed every second of it. I highly recommend Ghost Writer to readers who enjoy thrillers with a touch of horror."
    —Rabia Tanveer for Readers’ Favorite

"Ghost Writer by Arjay Lewis is a supernatural suspense novel that maintains intrigue throughout. I really enjoyed this supernatural mystery, with its constant surprises, tense moments, and a ghost who wants power and closure. If you like creative and chilling stories, I highly recommend this novel."
    —Peggy Jo Wipf for Reader’s Favorite

Happy Halloween! Festive All Hallow's Eve! Blessed Samhain!

 Enjoy your spooky goodness today,

all you monsters and ghouls! 

Spooky Stories That Affected You

For our Halloween week writer roundtable, tell us the spookiest or creepiest book or story you've ever read and why it affected you. 

Amelia Sides: Children of Men. *Waves vaguely at our current state of affairs*

Danielle Procter Piper: It's a very short story... I wish I could recall the title or author, but it's published in a book I read long ago. Two medical students are still cleaning up their workspace after class has ended and begin a conversation about how cadavers sometimes move due to a buildup of gases in their decomposing bodies. They've even been known to sit up or fall off tables! As they finish up, they wheel their cadaver down the hall to the elevator to return to the morgue...and a power failure leaves them stuck between floors in total darkness. That's it. I think the story might be three pages long? So, anything frightening that could happen in real life scares me, while fantasy horror is just for fun. This, Misery scares me more than any other Stephen King story. It could happen. It's the difference between the news and a nightmare you had.

Seth Tucker: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Matheson’s Hell House spooked me. Despite being two very different styles of haunted house stories, Jackson got to me because of the unreliable narrator, which leaves every event in question, while Matheson made you believe in a malevolent cadre of specters enjoying the torment they filed out, and then that reveal at the end. Both of them build atmosphere equally though, which I don’t see as much in more modern ghost stories.

UPDATED FOR HALLOWEEN 2025! Horror Movies that Influence Me as a Writer

 

Note: This is an update to this post. So many new movies have come out and I've caught up on a few I still had managed to miss from the "good old days" that it felt like the right time to update this list. 

As a writer of horror stories and connoisseur of scary flicks, I get asked a lot what my favorite horror movies are. Well, it's not that simple with me (it never is; ask my wife and kids). There are so many and how can one possibly pick a favorite when there are favorites in so many subgenres? (It's like how my wife tells me she can have more than one best friend when "best" is a superlative, not a comparative.) 

Anyway, as of this moment in time (subject to change), this is my list of favorite horror movies (and those that influenced my ideas and my writing) categorized by subgenre. 

If you want to consider this your own "to watch" list, I won't stop you. It's a fantastic list (at least in my opinion) of the essential horror stories committed to film. 

FYI, you will notice some crossover between subgenres, because, well, that's just the way horror works. 

New Category#1! Sinister Locations

My son Evan recommended that I include this as a new category, and the more I thought about it, he was right. I don't include a mere haunted house tale in this list though. Those will be under Ghost Stories/Haunted Houses. This list is reserved for a place that is more than haunted; it is cursed, unclean, unwelcoming and out to get you.

1. Hausu

2. As Above, So Below

3. YellowBrickRoad

4. In the Mouth of Madness

5. Dead & Buried

6. The Shining

7. Messiah of Evil

8. The Watcher in the Woods

9. Silent Hill

10. Dave Made a Maze

11. Suicide Forest

12. Population 436

13. Cabin in the Woods

14. Pet Sematary

15. Southbound

16. Skinamarink

17. The Dark

18. Neon Demon

19. Jugface

20. Waxworks

New Category#2! Kaiju

Who doesn't love giant monsters? It all began with the two kings, Kong and Godzilla. But American sci-fi quickly picked up on the theme and gave us lots of giant monsters thanks to the dangers of atomic bombs and chemicals polluting our waters. 

1. King Kong 1933

2. Gojira 1954

3. Godzilla Minus-1

4. Troll Hunter

5. Tremors

6. Them

7. King Kong 2005

8. The Host

9. Godzilla 2014

10. Destroy All Monsters

11. Monsters

12. Cloverfield

13. Mothra

14. Rodan

15. Kong: Skull Island

16. Tarantula

17. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

18. Nope 

19. The Mist

20. Q the Winged Serpent

21. Pacific Rim

22. Attack of the 50 Foot Women

23. The Blob 1988

24. Anaconda

25. Colossal 

The Halloween Rerun Show

It's Halloween again! This time of the year is one of my favorite seasons and holidays. A time to celebrate the ghoulish and ghastly, and enjoy the scares. In  honor of this time of the year, here are several of my favorite Halloween themed posts from this here little blog that could.

Cover up with a blanket if it makes you feel safer.

Enjoy.

Classic Scares in Black and White
http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2015/10/classic-scares-in-black-and-white.html

The Queens of Scream
http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-queens-of-scream.html

Outgrow Horror Movies? Never.
http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-writer-will-take-your-questions-now_12.html

Required Reading: 50 of the Best Horror Comics
http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2015/10/halloween-link-required-reading-50-of.html

Scare Me
http://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-writer-will-take-your-questions-now_10.html

Motivational Monday: Show Your Shine

Sunday Funnies: Scotch. Get it?

[Link] How to Use Weather to Create Mood, Not Clichés

by Angela Ackerman

Are you afraid of using the weather in your writing? If so, you’re not alone. After all, if not careful, weather description can be a minefield of clichés. The sunny, cloudless afternoon at the beach. The gloomy rainstorm at a funeral. Overdone setting and weather pairings can lie flat on the page.

Then there’s the danger that comes with using weather to mirror a character’s inner emotional landscape. Mishandling this technique can quickly create melodrama. We’ve all read a battle scene where lightning crackles as our protagonist leaps forward to hack down his foe in desperation. And how about that turbulent teen breakup where the character’s tears mix with falling rain? Unfortunately these have been used so much that most readers tilt their head and think, Really? when they read a description like this.

Agents and editors on first page panels never fail to reject a few openings that start with the weather, either. Why? Because done poorly, it comes across like a weather report, and delays the introduction of the hero. Readers are not always patient and we should strive to introduce our characters and what they are up against as soon as possible.

Wow, weather sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder that some writers are so nervous about using it they cut it from their manuscript. But here’s the thing…avoiding weather in fiction can be a fatal mistake.

Read the full article: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2025/09/use-weather-to-create-mood/

SNOW HITS THE ISLANDS IN AN ALL-NEW THRILLER!

Abraham Snow heads to Hawaii with grandfather, Archer in tow. After the events of Snow Hunt, our hero needs a vacation. He owes his old friend, and former undercover operative partner, Samson Brooks, a visit. Vacation time. Samson and his brother, Walker Brooks, a former CIA officer, now work together as P.I./fugitive recovery consultants. Snow gets caught up in their latest case and finds himself in deadly danger in unfamiliar surroundings when an old enemy shows up with vengeance in mind. He wants to feed snow to the sharks.

Get your water wings ready as Snow jets off to the big island in SNOW ISLAND.

Snow Island is the eighth book in the continuing adventures of Abraham Snow.

Are you ready for a new #SnowDay?

Snow Island is written by Bobby Nash.
Cover by Plasmafire Graphics’ Jeffrey Hayes.
Edited by Michael A. Gordon.
Published by BEN Books.
Audio book narrated by Stuart Gauffi, coming soon.

Snow Island is available at the following retailers:

• Amazon US (paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FVSX9WZX
• Amazon UK (paperback): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FVSX9WZX
• Amazon CA (paperback): https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FVSX9WZX
• Amazon US (ebook): https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Island-Bobby-Nash-ebook/dp/B0FVNCK5SX
• Amazon UK (ebook): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FVNCK5SX
• Amazon CA (ebook): https://www.amazon.ca/Snow-Island-Bobby-Nash-ebook/dp/B0FVNCK5SX
• Available at Amazon worldwide. Read it free with Kindle Unlimited.

More retail options to follow.

Contact the author directly through www.bobbynash.com or social media to buy a signed copy directly from the author.

Check out Snow’s complete adventures here: www.amazon.com/dp/B07G3K7S46

Learn more about Snow at www.abrahamsnow.com

Discovering Yourself In and Through Your Writing

Just one question for this next writer roundtable.

Flannery O'Connor wrote, “I write to discover what I know" and “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

How has being a writer and telling stories helped you discover who you are and what you know?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Very interesting question. For me, some of my stories have helped me to touch on emotions that I didn't realize I had inside. Very much poking a blister and letting some stuff ooze out. I have also enjoyed creating characters who have the bravery I wish I had. That's also very insightful.

Jessica Nettles: Being a writer as a kid helped me embrace my differences from the other kids at school. It gave me a space where it didn’t matter that I was the youngest or the smallest or weird. It was the first thing I felt confident was mine.

As an adult, it helped me rediscover myself after a really shitty marriage in my twenties. I found this spooky girl in the middle of the debris who needed to explore the darkness, my darkness. I learned my dark parts were okay and just as important as being good. I love that spooky, magic-loving girl. I learned that I have a voice that people actually enjoy (still shocked by this) and that I’m funny. Mostly, I learned that writing is who I am. I do many things, but at my core, I am my words. That’s my magic.

Lainey Kennedy: Writing has helped me explore the human conditions by creating characters that are both over the top but rooted in little bits of everyone I know. The adventures are the escapism, but the characters are what I know.

Fay Shlanda: My writing has helped me a lot as a person. I write poetry about my relationship with the world around me, which is mostly about mental illness and being broken.

I have discovered that I have much to say on the subject and that overcoming my hardships is something I would not trade in for an easier life. They have shaped me into someone I like and I use my knowledge to help others.

October Santerelli: I wanted to be a writer as soon as I heard it was a job you could have. I was in 7th grade, and I went home that night and told my parents that was what I wanted to do. And after that, writing became a lifeline, a way to express what I couldn't say, feelings I didn't even know I had. Writing helped me understand myself, like holding up a mirror and seeing with fresh eyes.

Looking into the Abyss of 'Why Bother'

by Judy Black

I have to be honest, the past month I have been struggling. 

My mind constantly circles the 'why bother doing this?' question constantly. I wonder if I'd be better off spending my limited free time sleeping or catching up on all the TV shows I still haven't watched. I wonder if it's worth it, or if anyone would care if I stopped making things. 

Thankfully, I have a wonderful group of creative friends who worry about this too, but who also grab my shoulders and shake me while lovingly screaming 'I'd care if you stopped making things you weird little potato!' which is very reaffirming. 

But, almost every creative person I know struggles with this question. Circles this abyss and feels it start to pull them apart.

Creating things is hard in the best of times. 

Creating things when *gestures vaguely to the chaos of the world* is happening, feels impossible, like trying to bail out a boat with a cracked teacup.

But every time I think 'I'll just stop, why bother?', I can't bring myself to put down the cracked teacup. I want to create, I want to share stories, and games, and weird little ideas with all the people out there like me. Creation is a way to share pieces of ourselves with the wider world, to say 'I'm not alone, and neither are you' and it feels magical when that connection is made. 

So, to everyone else out there circling the edge of the abyss, staring into that bleakness of 'why bother?', I see you and I'll hold your hand until you can move from the edge, and you'll hold my hand when I inevitably teeter towards the edge because that is what art in all its many forms does.

It connects us when we feel like no one else understands our hearts. 

So, I guess all this rambling is just to say, why bother? Because I want all the other weirdos like me to feel a little less alone in this chaotic, scary world. 

This article originally appeared in Judy Black's email newsletter.

Motivational Monday: The Importance of Also

Sunday Funnies: Nobody Knows

[Link] To Haunt and Be Haunted: On the Exhumation of Edgar Allen Poe

by Ed Simon

Don’t question the specifics, whether you’ve been kidnapped or unfortunate enough to fall victim to poorly trained pathologists and morticians, for either way you’ve been entombed in the cold earth while still breathing. Just imagine it—you’d abruptly awaken in the darkness, a blackness that’s so all-consuming that your eyes could never adjust beneath the earth’s chill frost line.

Deprived of the sense of sight, but able to hear the shifting of ground on the other side of the coffin’s thin wood, you’d of course panic, but you wouldn’t be able to sit up, or even necessarily raise your arms. You’d fruitlessly knock and scratch at the hard maple less than a foot, maybe only a few inches, from your face. The six feet of dirt separating you from the fresh air of freedom could weigh as much as fifteen thousand pounds so that even if you tried to break through it would be futile.

At best you’d breach the lid, and all of that dirt would cave in and suffocate you quickly, which might be merciful. A person could survive between five and six hours after being buried alive, though panicked scrambling and hyperventilating would deplete the available oxygen quickly.

Eventually, assuming that you didn’t have a heart attack, you’d be suffocated by the increasing carbon dioxide. All of that dirt wouldn’t entirely dampen the sound of your screaming, so there’s always the chance some benevolent gravedigger could save you. Unless he’s the one who buried you to begin with.

There was, as with many of those living in the gloaming aesthetic twilight of Romanticism, a tendency to confuse the characters with their creator, a narrator with the author.

“There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are entirely too horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction,” wrote Edgar Allan Poe in his 1844 short story “The Premature Burial,” first printed in The Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. Poe himself wasn’t buried alive. A common misconception, of the sort that was spread about the cadaverous-appearing Southerner by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, rival writer and self-appointed literary executor, who fervently maligned Poe in his obituary.

“Edgar Allan Poe is dead” wrote Griswold in an 1849 edition of the New-York Daily Tribune, “but few will be grieved by it.” The author of “The Raven” and “The Bells,” of “The Masque of Red Death” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” portrayed as an incurable dipsomaniac married to a child who also happened to be his cousin, a fevered laudanum addict, an itinerate madman wandering the streets of Baltimore.

Read the full article: https://lithub.com/to-haunt-and-be-haunted-on-the-exhumation-of-edgar-allen-poe

Falstaff Books releases Winter's Sting from Sara Bond!

More Faerie Urban Fantasy!

To stop a killer, bartender and Gate Keeper Siobhan sacrificed herself to the Gate between the human and Fairy realms, only to emerge with a powerful magic she can’t control. Now it seems everyone wants a piece of her. To the Summer Court, she’s a challenger. To the Winter Court, she’s a threat. And to the Fair Folk, a growing political movement of solitary fae, she’s a potential savior.

When several members of the Winter royal families are killed, all signs point to the Fair Folk trying to start a revolution against the Courts, setting Siobhan up as their new Queen. That’s news to her, as she wants nothing to do with the political fights of the fae. Still, several Winter Courts name her enemy number one and threaten the Greenwood Knoll as a hub for political unrest.

Siobhan may not be able to control her new magic, but she’ll have to master it as she travels across through the Gate to Fairy to defend herself and her community. Solitary by nature, she will be forced to call on every connection she has, from her sister Bryony who is poised to take the Atlanta Summer throne, to Thierry Kellan, the powerful solitary fae who seems to be everywhere he’s not wanted.

She has already shown she’ll sacrifice herself to save her found family. But now with a murder mystery confronting her that spans both Atlanta and Faeire, how will Siobhan know who to trust?

Amazon

Direct from Falstaff

Other retailers

I'll be at Multiverse. Will you?

My schedule for Multiverse convention this coming weekend. See ya there, right? 

Friday, October 17

Writing Tiny: Flash and Microfiction

5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Canterbury

Friday Night Writing Workshop
8:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Canterbury

Saturday, October 18

Poetry: A Rose By Any Other Name
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Canterbury

Sunday, October 19

Questioned Faith
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
McIntosh Ballroom A

Jukebox Thrillers Anthology Signing
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Campbell

Podcasting for Writers: From Guest to Creator
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Canterbury

Stuart Jaffe and the Definition of Family

Stuart Jaffe is the madman behind The Max Porter Paranormal Mysteries, the Ridnight Mysteries, Nathan K thrillers, The Parallel Society, The Malja Chronicles, The Bluesman, Founders, Real Magic, and so much more. His unique brand of old pulp adventure mixed with a contemporary sensibility brings out the best in a variety of SF/F sub-genres. He trained in martial arts for over a decade until a knee injury ended that practice. Now, he plays lead guitar in a local blues band, The Bootleggers, and enjoys life on a small farm in rural North Carolina. And yes, the chickens are still not allowed in the house.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I'm currently working on the sequel to Pioneers of the Pathway (Pathway Ring #1). It's a science fiction family saga following the Monclova family through the centuries surrounding the creation and use of the first ever stargate-type machine. Once used, those who go through get spit out somewhere in the universe, and if they want to return home, they've got to build the other side. So, we experience several generations of this family through the building of the machines, the family dramas, the political tensions, first contact, and much more. It's a huge canvas and a blast to write.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

The definition of family -- blood versus found family -- certainly comes up a lot.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I've always loved stories. My undergrad degree is in directing theater, and while pursuing that, I started writing plays. That led to short stories which led to novels. 30 years later, here I am still telling stories.

What inspires you to write? 

Food. Paying the bills. Health care.

Also, I think art of any type is one of the fundamental aspects of being human that makes us unique. Art is about human beings expressing to other human beings what it means to be human. Making that connection with readers is the best, and always inspires me to write more.

What of your works has meant the most to you?

Choose a baby? Nah. They're all important to me for different reasons.

Motivational Monday: Stronger, Brighter, Deeper

Sunday Funnies: Bingo!

[Link] The Moral Character of Philip Marlowe: Complexity and Nuance in the Ethical Life of Chandler’s Detective Hero

by Terry Hyland

The central character in Raymond Chandler’s seven acclaimed detective novels – the private eye, Philip Marlowe – is, according to his creator, a man of honour and a kind of hero and, as a man for our times, an archetype who may be compared to Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or the eponymous stranger in Clint Eastwood’s famous Western movies. Chandler’s novels – though derided by the author himself as pulp fiction and merely escape literature – are now considered to be classical paradigms of a certain kind of hard-boiled detective fiction and appear on English Literature reading lists in colleges and universities throughout the world. In this article, I will be analysing the novels in terms of the moral principles and practice of the central character of Philip Marlowe. In particular, the nuances of ethical conflicts and dilemmas will be explored as Marlowe struggles to navigate his way through the shadowy and morally corrupt world he inhabits, seeking to exact justice without compromising his deeply held core values. Moral education programmes now make extensive use of literary sources and – given the prominence of the type of fiction that Chandler helped to pioneer – I will conclude with examples of the ways in which ethical lessons may be drawn from examining the character of Marlowe.

1. Introduction

Describing the general characteristics of his central character, Marlowe, in The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler writes:

down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour — by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world (p.7).

We first meet this man in the short story Killer in the Rain[2] a palimpsest for the subsequent first novel The Big Sleep[3]. Here we are introduced to a private eye (who previously worked in the assistant district attorney’s office) who is fearless, astute, honest, loyal and clear-sighted in his commitment to righting wrongs and acting with ethical determination in an essentially immoral and chaotic underworld.

Read the full article: https://www.qeios.com/read/H1QWFO

Selah Janel reveals her Visiting Hours! Visit the Shadow Realm -- at your own risk!

In the Shadow Realm, everything has a story.

A little girl’s tall tales foretell the end of the world. A monster becomes the hunted at a haunted attraction. Sacrifices aren’t what they seem and traditions are meant to be followed for a reason. Vampire siblings confront their past while fighting about their future. A woman struggles to remember who she is while her rescuers hide their family secret in the depths of their cellar. Love and loss are stitched together in strange ways on the prairie. A young boy finds an unlikely friend who can fit in the strangest of places.

In these pages lurk tales of time loops, travels gone wrong, revenge, strange memories, hard decisions, and new variations on old fairy tales. Take the time to visit all the shadowy places and reflect on what you find. Just make sure you know how to find your way out again.

Available on Amazon. 

The Backstory Iceberg

For our new roundtable, let's talk about your characters, specifically their backstory.

How deep do you go into figuring out your MC's backstory? Your lesser characters? How do you determine how far is enough?

Jessica Nettles: It depends on the character and how much I think I need to know. Sometimes that changes as I get to know the character and learn more about them and where they fit in my world.

Sheela Leyh: I used to go very in-depth in the past to get to know everything about my main character. The lesser characters I used to do quite a bit of detail, However, I've stopped doing that as much. It's more of what is needed to move the story along while still giving it life. I noticed that when I stopped going as deep and let the story emerge unhindered that it started taking off easier for me. I let my characters talk to me and then gauge it as it comes up during the writing process.

Elizabeth Mirasol: I'm a pantser, so as I'm writing, my character shows me more of their background and I can build on it. I just start with a brief personality and image in my head and go from there.

Wade Garret: I created DnD character sheets for my MCs and some secondary.

Sean Taylor: Mine vary. I used to go a lot deeper, but the more I wrote, the more I internalized that process and didn't need to address it as a strategic part of my process. I was able to have it take shape as needed as I wrote, leaving on the major character beats as something I needed to spec out before writing.

However, when I create characters that other writers will also tackle, I create a very, very in-depth story bible because I can't afford to leave anything stone unturned (as the cliche goes) or anything to chance.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Amy Tan -- Unintended Memoir

I only met Amy Tan once. She was the guest speaker at my college's literary festival, and she had only recently written her smash novel, The Joy Luck Club. I was able to sit in on her reading, and trust me, I hung on every word. 

Then I went out and bought a copy. 

When I learned about this PBS American Masters documentary, I knew I needed to watch it. 

What Is a Writer?

We each have differing meanings of what we are and what we do as a thing called "writer" or "author." When asked the questions, Tan gave perhaps my favorite definition for the term. 

During the writing of this book, I delved into the contents. Memorabilia, letters, photos, and the like. And what I found had the force of glaciers calving.

I am not the subject matter of mothers and daughters or Chinese culture or immigrant experience that most people cite as my domain.

I am a writer compelled by a subconscious neediness to know, which is different from a need to know. The latter can be satisfied with information. The former is a perpetual state of uncertainty and a tether to the past.

The writer, then, is an ongoing nature of curiosity -- an ever-longing, an ever-searching person putting together life's puzzle. 

You know, when you're writing, I think you're naturally going through some kind of subconscious, philosophical construct, your own cosmology, how the world is put together and how events happened and what's related, what's coincidental.

I love that. 

Beneath the thing we think of as "writer" is a subconscious idea, what Tan calls a philosophical construct, constantly trying to make sense of the real world and put all those truths into a fictional one. That's certainly a better definition than "some yahoo sitting at a laptop for way too many hours at a time fighting against a blank page."

The "Before" Days

How often do we take into account the life stuff that happened to make a writer a, well, writer? It's often glossed over (at least until the memoir is written or a biopic is made) as if authors were born fully formed the day their book (at least the one that "matters") was released into the wild, wild world. 

There's a lot of past that formed the bricks of the structure that eventually became the author.

For Tan, that started with reading, in particular, a book she wasn't supposed to be reading:

Two weeks before my father died, a minister came to counsel me because I had been discovered reading a very bad book, "Catcher in the Rye. " Banned book.

He was a youth minister, and he came into the room, and we were sitting on the bed, and he was talking about how I had caused my father more pain than the brain tumor.

Just as sacred cows make the best hamburgers, banned books make the best inspiration when it comes to creating writers. But it's not just the reading. She also was already writing, just not in the world of fiction... yet.

She says: 

You know, I had another bestseller. It sold. You know what these numbers are. When you have a bestseller, you have to sell a certain amount in the first week. I'd sold 80,000 copies and went in for two reprints. It was called "Telecommunications and You." It was published for IBM, and I was a business writer before I started writing fiction.

She also got a little help from a friend's husband. 

Amy was a linguistics and English major. And I remember her wanting to write. John, my husband, started a business. He had one phone line that was Dial-a-Joke, another phone line that was Dial Michael Jackson, and another one that had astrology. So he hired Amy to write astrology. She was very creative, and she would make it up.

Maybe this wasn't the fictional masterpiece that The Joy Luck Club or The Kitchen God's Wife are recognized as, but it was writing. All writing counts toward mastery. All writing gets you closer to locking in technique and talent. All writing moves you closer, step by step, to the place where you can finally, eventually write the stuff you want to. 

Darin Kennedy Ascending

Darin Kennedy is a friend and quite a prolific writer. He's the author of Fugue & Fable, The Pawn Stratagem, Songs of the Ascendant, Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas, and The April Sullivan. Chronicles.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

My new series is Songs of the Ascendant. I’m currently working on Vol. 4 of…9??? 😀 Think X-Men meets Highlander meets Buffy with the mythology of the world built on '80s pop music.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

One of my series is based on Russian classical music, one on '80s pop music, one on A Christmas Carol, and the chapter titles of my magical chess series are all songs from the Broadway musical Chess. You tell me. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

I was deployed to Iraq in 2003, and I’d always wanted to write a story about what would happen if the game of chess came to life, so I did.

What inspires you to write?

My desire to tell the stories that fill my head, whether I want them to or not.

Motivational Monday: Truer than Journalism

Sunday Funnies: Questioning Waldo

from offthemark.com

[Link] How to Show Your Character’s Repressed Emotions

by Angela Ackerman

Crafting characters that readers will connect to is every writer’s goal and dozens (hundreds?) of methods exist to achieve it: deep backstory planning, character profile sheets, questionnaires, etc.

Regardless of the roadmap a writer uses, writing an authentic character boils down to one important action: intentionally drawing from the real world, and specifically, the human experience.

The human experience is powerful, an emotional tidal wave that holds us in thrall. We understand it, relate to it, and live it. This is why, even when a character faces a challenge, barrier, or struggle that readers have not experienced in the real world, they can imagine it and place themselves within the folds of the character’s viewpoint.

Portraying an accurate mirror of humanity in fiction means we must master emotions. Getting raw feelings on the page isn’t done solely through a character’s shrug or smile; instead, a marriage of internal and external elements should show readers what is being felt and why. Body language, behavior, dialogue, vocal cues, thoughts, and internal sensations weave together to draw readers into the character’s emotional landscape.

Showing a character’s emotions isn’t always easy, especially when powerful emotions are at work. Characters may feel exposed or unsafe and instinctively try to repress or disguise what they feel. This creates a big challenge for writers: how do we show readers what the character is feeling when they are trying so hard to hide it?

Thankfully again, the human experience comes to the rescue. If a character is repressing an emotion, real-world behaviors can show it. Readers will catch on because they’ll recognize their own attempts to hide their feelings. Here’s a few ideas.

Over and Underreactions

When you’ve done the background work on a character, you know how they’ll react to ordinary stimuli and will be able to write reliable responses. Readers become familiar with the character’s emotional range and have an idea what to expect. So when the character responds to a situation in an unexpected way, it sends up an alert for readers that says, “Pay attention! This is important.”

Read the full article: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2025/09/show-repressed-emotions/

Award-Winning Writer Tony Sarrecchia Unleashes The Skin Man

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Award-Winning Writer Tony Sarrecchia Unleashes The Skin Man

A Terrifying New Techno-Horror Novel Exploring Evolution, Undeath, and Survival 

[Atlanta, GA] – [9/30/2025] – Acclaimed storyteller Tony Sarrecchia (known for his noir-fantasy and serialized horror fiction) announces the release of his latest work, The Skin Man, a chilling techno-horror serial novel set in his expanding Everything Evolves universe.

Blending apocalyptic survival, cutting-edge speculative science, and a creeping sense of cosmic dread, The Skin Man introduces readers to a world where the dead are no longer just reanimated—they’re evolving. This gripping new entry is already generating buzz among fans of The Last of Us, The Stand, and World War Z.

At the heart of the novel is the terrifying figure known only as The Skin Man, a creation born from failed government experiments and human ambition gone wrong. Survivors Matt and Brielle must navigate hybrid horrors, unravel dark conspiracies, and confront a grotesque antagonist who threatens not only their survival but the future of humanity itself.

“It wasn’t a deader anymore…it was evolving…”

— The Skin Man

Tony Sarrecchia, author of In the Shadow of Camelot and the serialized Harry Strange Radio Drama, explains: “With The Skin Man, I wanted to push zombie horror beyond shambling corpses and jump scares. Evolution is the scariest idea of all—what if the things we fear are learning, adapting, and planning? That’s where the true horror lies.”

Why The Skin Man Matters

• Fresh Take on Horror – The undead are evolving with intelligence, strategy, and terrifying purpose.

• Techno-Horror Meets Noir – Gritty survivalism collides with government conspiracies and twisted science.

• Character-Driven Dread – Matt and Brielle’s fight for survival mirrors our own fears of change, corruption, and control.

Availability

The Skin Man is available now at www.tonysarrecchia.com, with serialized digital, print, and Patreon editions releasing twice a month.

About Tony Sarrecchia

Tony Sarrecchia is a novelist and storyteller blending horror, noir, and speculative fiction. His works include In the Shadow of Camelot (in preproduction), The Scarlett Hood Adventures, and multiple audio drama projects. Known for atmospheric world-building and morally complex characters, Tony’s stories push genre boundaries while digging deep into human resilience.

Media Contact

Press Inquiries & Interview Requests
tony@tonysarrecchia.com
Website: www.tonysarrecchia.com

What I Learned from Dead People (Mostly)

No. This isn't a post about me whipping out a Ouija board and contacting the dead, no matter how much I love ghost and horror stories. 

It's just that the bulk of my favorite writers tend to be of the "late" variety. I'm one of the oddball readers who doesn't just call a writer a favorite only because I like their work, but instead they become a favorite more because I learn something from them. I become a better writer because I read them. They influence, nay, infect me with their work. 

That said, I'm really working hard at discovering more living writers who have something to say to me about the craft -- something that isn't just a rehash of the lessons from the already dead folks. (Sure, call me a snob. I've earned it.)

Ernest Hemingway

Papa re-taught me how to write. I totally ignored Hemingway in high school when we read "Indian Camp" and "Hills Like White Elephants," but when I discovered him again in college and tackled books like The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, I actually paid attention. 

What I had thought was boring in high school, I later appreciated as direct, succinct, non-flowery. And I loved it. Then, when I took a class on short stories and revisited the Nick Adams stories (and Hills Like White Elephants), I realized I was seated at the foot of a master craftsman in the art of dialogue. He was the first writer I found who let people talk around the things they wanted to say instead of talk about them. 

And that is a lightbulb moment that has followed me in my writing ever since.

Zora Neale Hurston

Woman have the most important keys of all, according to Zora Neal Hurston, in her collected folk tales Men and Mules. Those are the keys to everything that drives a man to want for himself, the kitchen and the bedroom, food and sex, his belly and his, well, you know. 

Hurston never shied away from the truth of her world. Women didn't have the power they deserved. They were treated like second-class citizens, and if one was a black woman, it was closer to third-class, right behind black men. Still, she knew the power and pride and ability she owned as an African-American woman, and those things permeated her works. Their Eyes Were Watching God, even if divorced from her full body of work, shows the life of a woman who was willing to every tool at her disposal to live life on her own terms and to achieve personal freedom, even if she had to move from man to man to man to no man in order to do it. 

In short, Zora taught me about how who I am and where I am as a writer influence me. Those things make me the way I am. They contribute to my beliefs and my character and my ideals. And there's no reason to shy away from them just because I'm telling a story. Let them flow. Chase the things I believe in and trust the story to find others who believe in them too. 

Ray Bradbury

I can write whatever the hell I want. That's the lesson I learned from Ray Bradbury. 

Do I want to write a collection of science fiction stories? Then do it. Do I want to write a mosaic novel about growing up in a small town? Then do it. Or maybe a sci-fi pseudo-novel told in short stories? Go ahead. Time's a wastin'. How 'bout a horror novel? Sure. Go right ahead. 

Don't let the machine pigeonhole you. Pay no attention to the genre markers that tell you "Thou shalt not pass." The whole of the world of storytelling is your plaything. 

There are no areas of the map you can't travel to. And there's nothing the machine or the marketing department can do to stop you. 

Open Submissions for Gilgamesh from Flame Tree Publishing!

PAY: 8 cents a word

The ancient hero from Mesopotamian mythology and possible historical king of Sumer, Gilgamesh, is a hugely influential figure, not least on Homer's famous tales, the Iliad and the Odyssey, but also on modern culture. His stories, and later Babylonian interwoven narrative, have it all: quests to the underworld, epic journeys, ghosts, giants and beasts, a great flood, love and death. Together with the goddess Inanna (aka Ishtar) and his beloved companion Enkidu, Gilgamesh experiences adventure and self-discovery as gripping as any Hellenistic hero.

So as ever, we are seeking stories that really interrogate this character and all his flaws, traits and relationships. Whether as evidenced in the ancient tablets or extrapolated in your imagination, whether set 2000 years BCE or 2150 CE – your tales will be fresh with insight and inventiveness.

Multiple submissions are fine but must be in separate emails.

Simultaneous submissions are fine but you must have the right to license your story in an anthology.

Stories using AI-generated text will not be accepted.

For accepted stories we pay Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) rates of 8 cents/6 pence per word for original stories, 6 cents/4 pence for reprints.

We will aim to read each story and confirm its status within 4 months of the submission deadline.

Payment for the chosen stories will be made within 30 days of the final advertised publication date (see our website flametreepublishing.com for details), although some may be paid earlier than that.

Submission does not imply the right to publication. Each story will be read and assessed by the selection panel.

Let us know in your submission email whether your story would be a reprint or is currently unpublished.

For more info: https://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/gilgamesh-call-for-submissions