The Sweaty-Toothed Madman: Reading Is Becoming; Writing Is Telling Who We Are

Editor's Note: In the interest of full disclosure, in my day job, I am a reading teacher and a literature teacher for special education students. I live this stuff every damn day of my life. And I love it.

There are hundreds of movies about writers and writing. I should know. I've reviewed many of them here for the blog. And I'm currently compiling those reviews into a book. But back to the point. Sadly, there aren't as many movies about reading. Writing is something people aspire to. Writers are something people seek to become for fame, fortune, or (for some of us) immortality of a certain kind. 

But readers, well, where are the movies that demonstrate the importance and the immortality of the flip side of writing -- READING? There aren't as many. Perhaps that's because reading is seen as something else -- a pastime, an enjoyment, an additive to life, not a calling, not an aspiration. 

Perhaps the best of the lot is Dead Poets Society. One of the things I really love about Dead Poets Society is how it stresses how much reading is tied to becoming who we are as people. Ideas are learned and adapted or learned and discarded. That's the power of reading. That's why I think a liberal arts education is so important, even for business and STEM folks.

As John Keating (played with legendary panache by Robin Williams) says in the film:

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer. That you are here -- that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

It's not uncommon for Robin Williams to choose roles that make viewers stop and think. He's done it in his serious flicks like Good Morning, Vietnam (another favorite of mine), The Fisher King,  and What Dreams May Come and in his comedies like Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage. His performances have a way of changing the viewer in the same way he explains poetry can as John Keating. 

"What will your verse be?" I can't think of a more inspiring question. 

There is a world, and you get to leave a mark on it. But how do you do that? How do you learn who you are? Sure, a lot of that knowledge comes from the people we grow up with. Family, friends, and community shape many of our views and many of our opinions along the lines of religion, politics, culture, etc. But our growth as human beings doesn't stop there. 

Have you ever heard someone complain that a child went off to college and came back a different person? The word often unfairly thrown around is "brainwashed," but let's be honest. It's not that at all. It's exposure. Suddenly that child is exposed to differing, various, equally valid points of view, and that child has the opportunity to think for himself/herself/themself and decide on their own whether the new knowledge or or the former knowledge, whether the need to think and process for oneself or the familial/community pressure to conform is the greater cause -- or how those two opposing forces are to be blended into something new. 

This takes us directly into our first responsibility when reading as lifelong learners.

"We must constantly look at things from a different way."

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader," says Margaret Fuller, because she understood the power of opening our minds to the experiences of others that can be discovered in the written word. So many people don't have the opportunity to visit all the peoples and places in the world. Books are their tickets to these peoples and these places. It is through reading that the world becomes part of us and us part of it. 

C.S. Lewis tells us, "We read to know we are not alone," and it's true. That's precisely why Stephen King goes even further to call books "a uniquely portable magic." 

Readers consistently and continually  (even continuously for those grammar and vocabulary nerds among us) learning and growing and changing. Readers are far more likely to look back on the people they were ten years ago and shudder, thinking "Was I really like that?" And the greater variety of voices readers expose themselves to, the greater the breath of that growth -- again, not because they accept willy-nilly every new idea and every new point of view they come across, but because such exposure allows them to truly pick and choose where their truths and ideas lie for (in many cases) the first time. The more ideas readers expose themselves to, the better they become at weighing and prioritizing the varying points of view rather than becoming less able to confront them. 

"When I look back," says Maya Angelou, "I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young." It is precisely by reading that writers become... well, just become. They don't exist before the "writer" begins as "reader." They are a non-entity before they discover the power of written words, or as Margaret Atwoods puts it: "A word after a word after a word is power." 

That power is the magic, the nuclear energy, the joie de vivre creates the infantile stirrings to tell stories, to matter, to exist (damn it!), and to make it know that we exist (damn it!). Margaret Atwood calls it power. Stephen King calls it magic. C.S. Lewis calls it sehnsucht. 

“Sehnsucht” is a German word that roughly translates as longing… but Lewis does a brilliant job of fleshing this rather bland translation... Lewis described Sehnsucht as an inconsolable longing in the human heart “for which we know not what.”  It is a haunting sense of longing which Lewis said touched him throughout his life.  It has elements of nostalgia and joy, but also an intense awareness of missing something. (Elizabeth Camden , "C.S. Lewis and Sehnsucht," https://elizabethcamden.com/2011/05/16/c-s-lewis-and-sehnsucht)

In many cases, Lewis uses the word for the long for belief and faith, but I think it's equally evident that he saw it as that longing for story within each of us and for engaging in the pursuit of the imaginative, and for him (by and large) that is a discovery that comes through the stories that are shared from others, particularly for him, fairy stories and mythical legends. Those shaped his understanding of life, not just fiction. And they enabled him to tell us who he is through works that continue to live on, both fiction like The Chronicles of Narnia and nonfiction like A Grief Observed.

What authors and what books you choose to read can and will and should help to shape the way you see the world -- and that is exactly the kind of truth that should be exposed in your writing as well. 

"We're not talking artists, George. We're talking free thinkers."

One of the great wrong beliefs about writing (or really any artistic endeavor) is that the person making art must obtain mastery. The goal of creating any kind of art isn't to become the most proficient or to achieve the capital "A" in Artiste. It is to create. It's that simple. Well, almost that simple. It does go one step further -- it is to create what is uniquely yours and can't be created by anyone else. 

That may sound broader and more daunting, but it's still just as simple. 

Reading helps you think. Thinking builds the imagination. Imagination fuels inspiration. Inspiration fills the mind to become its true self. 

The goal isn't to just rehash everything you read, but to take it in, to mull it over, to keep what feels like you, and then to dump the rest of it out and into the garbage. Or, as Keating tells his students:

"Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Don't be resigned to that. Break out!"

If Step One is to read, then Step Two is to take what you read and form opinions about it. Do you believe it or disbelieve it? Do you use it to build on who you already are? Or do you disregard it? Do you break it apart and mix the pieces into who you are?

Content that is consumed without being reviewed, without being experienced, without being analyzed is meaningless. Or, as Charlie (Nuwanda) tells the other members of the Society: "Are we just playing around out here? If all we do is come together and read a bunch of poems to each other, what the hell are we doing?"

Does what you read help you become? If it doesn't help you do that, then what the hell are you doing? And it's not just reading. It's experience. If what you are experiencing -- both read and lived -- isn't constantly creating and recreating you -- it's just the life equivalent of empty calories. 

Putting words into your brain should lead to something. Putting words into your brain should lead to becoming someone. 

According to Ursula K. Le Guin: 

"As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul."

Once that work of mutual creation has begun, we have both the authority and responsibility to share that new creation we have become, or as Uncle Walt says, ""I sound my barbaric YAWP over the world’s roofs."

"Words and ideals can change the world." (a.k.a. sounding your barbaric yawp)

What does your writing, what do your stories say about the world you inhabit? What do your characters say about human nature? What do the kind of plot your create say about a sense of fairness, liberty, existential dread, love, passion, etc. in the world? 

Even if you don't say it intentionally, these are the things that your writing will say about you regardless of your silence. Why? Because that silence isn't really silence at all. Your work has been subtly (or not so subtly) speaking about you with every freakin' word you've written. 

I've written about theme several times before. Theme is where the writer can't help but enter the work -- not in any kind of Mary Sue or Marty Stu way -- but in the authentic ways no writer can avoid. Some might say even when they try to avoid doing it. Theme is never something to be ashamed of. Theme is to writers the "barbaric yawp" Walt Whitman wants to shout from the rooftops. Theme is to writers the recognition that your opinions and your points of view and your ideals matter and that it's okay for them to be inside your work. They shouldn't be merely tolerated but celebrated. 

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life," says Helen Exley. Are yours dangerous? Are they the kinds of stories that change people and alter the ways people think about each other? Do they "happen" to the people who read them in any experiential way? According to Haruki Murakami, that's the purpose of books and stories. "Have books ‘happened’ to you?" he asks. "Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you."

Even those of us who "just want to tell an interesting story and not change the world" are going to change someone. And that's okay. In fact, that's fantastic. Who wants to create art that goes into the brain and gets discarded without a second thought? Who wants to write throwaway content? What wants to waste a life creating something that didn't matter to anyone? 

It's not just a yawp. It's a barbaric yawp you're screaming. I am here. I mattered. I matter. As writers, you are taking a courageous stance. You are shouting to the universe that you are worth noticing. You are living out loud the kind of life that says "Look at me and what I created!"

"Damn it, Neil, the name is Nuwanda."

The final part of our discussion (okay, monolog) is that of not just discovering who we are and how reading plays into that discovery, of learning to put all that stuff we read together to recreate who we are, or to have the guts to start writing down on paper (or digital space) those new thoughts that stem from who we are newly recreated to be, but it is to proudly proclaim our new identity without embarrassment, to proudly show how it defines not only us as individuals but identifies our people, our tribe as well. 

I know it's a sort of insulting cliche that we all tend to want to be ourselves by copying others (often leveled unfairly against Goths by folks dressed in Country Club cosplay), but even when we do pursue individuality it is often to find where we fit in the world. In fact, it is only when we become truly ourselves can we realize where we actually belong.

I love the way the gonzo director John Waters says this: "It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else."

It's precisely when we find who we are, what we believe, how we spread that to others and how it helps us find "our people" that we find that safety zone from which to proclaim, as Charlie, "Damn it, Neil, the name is Nuwanda." 

We find strength in both our voices and the voices of the others we surround ourselves with. That means both human beings in our circles and the human beings in our books. As much as my people are my convention and writing buddies such as Bobby Nash, Ellie Raine, Elizabeth Donalds, Barry Reese, Sorella Smith, Nikki Nelson-Hicks, and so many others, I also consider my people to be Hemingway, O'Connor, Chandler, Hammett, Phillips, Mosely, McBain, Jackson, and the other writers whose work graces my shelves. Both the living and the dead, the near and the never-have-met are my people. They help shape me and help empower me to keep creating. 

And it is that strong, continuously strengthened voice that allows us to yawp and keep yawping, against an industry that is floundering, against a public that devalues reading more and more each year (it often seems), against family members that tell us to be sensible, against the folks who would insist our name is Charlie.

Note: Quotes used in the article come from either the movie script or from this article: https://celadonbooks.com/inspiring-quotes-about-books-and-reading/

Reading Writers?

Can a person be a good writer if they don't like to read? 

www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8LRGjQD/

Kyoko M: Entertaining for an Afternoon

Welcome to the first of my post-Multiverse Con "Meet the Authors" interviews! For the next several weeks I'll be showcasing interviews with the talented folks I met at the show. Be sure to check out their links and their work. 

First up... Kyoko M!

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

My upcoming book is called The Starlight Contingency! It is Titan AE meets Nikita! It’s about two orphaned amateur thieves named Duke and Scarlett Nam. One night, in the middle of a heist gone wrong, they take shelter in a mansion that randomly transforms into a spaceship and exits Earth’s orbit. Scarlett and Duke wake up to find they are now prisoners aboard the Titan International Spaceship, which contains the last hundred-thousand members of the human race. It turns out an alien warship entered the solar system and destroyed the Earth not long after they stumbled onto the Titan, so now Scarlett and Duke have to survive with what’s left of humanity aboard the Titan. 

It is also the first book in a trilogy, so books two and three are in the pipeline as well. 

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

I almost always have elements of Found Family in my work. I love the idea of total strangers meeting, becoming friends, and becoming supportive of each other. You can’t choose your parents, but you can choose who becomes your family in the end and I always love writing about that. 

I almost always write about mental health within the context of relationships, whether it’s part of the plot (as it is with my sci-fi book series, Of Cinder and Bone, and in the upcoming Starlight Contingency) or if it’s something that’s a theme or motif (as it is with my urban fantasy/paranormal romance series, The Black Parade). I think it’s very important that we remove the therapy stigma and encourage people to seek help when they struggle, so I choose to often portray my traumatized characters going to therapy in my books. 

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

It started off with my parents. My parents read to us as kids, so we grew up with a voracious appetite for books. My mom actually used to drop us off on the weekend at the library and we’d stay there and read while she ran errands the whole morning, and she never had to make us do that—we loved it. So I’ve always had an intense love of fiction, so as I got older, I started writing fanfiction with my friends (and that is also why my pen name is Kyoko M) and then midway through college, I attended a lecture by Jackson Pearce, a local author who talked about publishing books. I then realized that was something I wanted to do, so I wrote The Black Parade in 2010-2011 and then started shopping it around to agents. After about two years, I made no progress and my dad asked me to look into self-publishing. I did another year or so of research, then determined I could learn how to do it, and the rest is history. 

What inspires you to write? 

Lots of things. Some of my ideas came to me in a dream, like the main throuple/polyamorous relationship in Of Cinder and Bone, and there is also a high fantasy YA epic I’ve written that was inspired by a dream I had (unfinished, long story, but it will eventually see the light of day in some form). Some ideas are things I’m just really passionate about, like conservationism in my Of Cinder and Bone series, or things like healing from abuse and trauma and making your own family in my Black Parade series. The direct inspirations sometimes also come from others works I loved in the past. The Black Parade is directly inspired by both John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the 2005 film Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves. Of Cinder and Bone is directly inspired by Jurassic Park (1993) and Reign of Fire (2002). The Starlight Contingency is directly inspired by Titan AE (2000) and Nikita (2014). Often, I see something and love it and want to pay it tribute in something that I write, especially if it’s something that inspired me when I was young. 

What would be your dream project?

I really, really want to be either a staff writer for a television show or a screenwriter for a major production. I just want to know what the actual process is like, from conception to execution, in adaptations via film/TV. I find it fascinating and my life’s goal is to have just one thing I’ve written adapted in any format, any director, any budget. Ideally, I’d love to win a contest for a screenplay I wrote and have it optioned for film and picked up by a large studio, but I also know most authors have this same crazy dream, so I acknowledge it’s unlikely, but I have actually finished my first screenplay and intend to begin shopping it in 2025 to at least try for my insane dream goal. 

Another dream project would be since I’ve now written for Marvel Comics twice, I’d love to be able to contribute literally anything to the Marvel Cinematic Universe someday, in any tie-in or any capacity that they would have me. It’s been an honor to have the chance to write short stories for Marvel anthologies, and I certainly hope they consider me for any of their future projects. 

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

Yes, The Starlight Contingency for sure. I wrote it for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2011 and it sat in my document folders collecting dust for an entire decade until it was unearthed by John Hartness, the owner of Falstaff Books. Because I wrote it in a month, it has a bunch of things in it that had to be updated for the times and revised and changed. I like the changes, but I wish I’d had a little bit more time in the tight publication schedule to go over a few more character beats. There are some things I wanted to write for the two main leads that were more detailed, but simply got cut for time, so I hope that when I start the third book, I can touch on those places I wanted to improve. 

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

As a kid, I read all kinds of things, but I’d say the series I read the most was the Redwall series by Brian Jacques (may he rest in peace). I devoured those books as a kid. They are so dynamic and engaging. My favorite thing is that the series never talked down to kids. They were often very emotional and moving and they had a fair amount of violence and serious subjects, but I still think it remains one of the best fantasy series of all time. It’s so well-written and I’m still fond of it to this day. I heard a rumor that they want to make another run at adapting it into a series and I really hope it happens, and with a decent budget. I’m aware of the cartoon series it had years back, but it’s very easy to tell they had a tiny budget and couldn’t quite do what was needed to make it a faithful adaptation. 

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

Most of the time, the most difficult times for me are when I’m writing from Point B to Point C in any given story (so if Act One = Point A, Act Two = Point B, and Act Three = Point C, that is) and then the first round of editing. I hate editing. It means I have to read my own book about 800 times, so by the time it’s ready to go to a beta reader, editor, and proofreader, I hate my own book from simply having read it so many times to finish the revisions. 

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not? 

I certainly think my writer friends help me become a better writer. I love hearing them describe their books and poems, as it often will trigger a new thought or give me an idea in return. I have been very fortunate to know some extremely talented and compassionate writers over the years, and we all are trying to help one another grow their careers. In particular, I am part of a local group of POC authors who often throw events or cross-promote one another, and that in turn gives me the confidence to keep writing, even during tough times. 

What does literary success look like to you? 

It’s very hard to measure success in publishing these days. My goal with anything I publish is to simply entertain someone for an afternoon. I know that sounds vague, but really, I’m here to create a world that someone can escape to in the event that their life is less than satisfactory. Fiction has always been my escape, so I welcome the ability to do the same thing for other people. I want to be able to help them smile or maybe show them something new or be their comfort food book series when they need to feel safe. Anytime I get a detailed review that says they enjoyed the world I created, I consider that success. I just want to tell stories and have people enjoy them. 

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?  

As stated above, The Starlight Contingency is indeed part one of a trilogy, so the second book is on its way in the coming year! 

I would also like the plug two of Milton J. Davis’ upcoming anthologies and then one that I am included in as well: The Spacefunk anthology and the Terminus III anthologies will published in 2025, so please look up MV Media Atlanta for all the details for both of them. The Spacefunk anthology is a science fiction anthology penned exclusively by black, African, and African-American authors and poets, and the Terminus III anthology is a speculative fiction anthology penned exclusively by black, African, and African-American authors as well. 

I am also a contributor to Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson, which is a Marvel Comics/Titan Books anthology that will be out January 20th, 2025. It is available directly from Titan Books, Amazon, and all major retailers of books. It should eventually be available in all formats upon release: ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook. 

For more information:

• Visit: http://www.shewhowritesmonsters.com 
• Or find me on most social media platforms as @MissKyokoM

Motivational Monday: Silent Film Scripting (Lillian Gish)

 (Copied and Pasted)

On this day in 1893, silent superstar Lillian Gish was born in Springfield, Ohio.
In 1988, I wrote to her asking if silent films had actual dialogue written
out in the scripts or if there was just a general description of what was
being said. This was her remarkable reply.

(@StoliarSteve)

[Link] ‘A shell of the place it used to be’: readers on the importance of libraries - and their fragile future

by Alfie Packham

“There’s a random element to life, which I think is important to preserve. Browsing through books is not a rational activity; it’s not like using a computer search to find what you want. Serendipity is another word that comes to mind.”

For Jamie Page, 66, libraries can provide the kind of chance encounter that you can’t find in bookshops that mainly tout new titles. In 1980, he was an unemployed graduate wondering what sort of career he might have. One day, at Brompton library in Kensington, he stumbled across a book on bacteria. “I found it fascinating, he says. “It started my career and I’ve been working in science ever since.”

The aptly named Page is one of scores of people to share with the Guardian stories of how libraries affected their lives after reports of a decline in council-run libraries across the UK. According to an analysis by the BBC, more than 180 have either closed or been handed to volunteer groups since 2016.

The author Lee Child told the BBC that his crime thriller protagonist Jack Reacher wouldn’t exist without Birmingham’s libraries, which are under threat of closure. “You speak to any writer and they’ll tell you the same thing: that those early years of reading, reading, reading, reading for decades – that’s what turns you into a writer,” Child said.

“I’m so sentimental about it and so emotional about it, because that building saved my life at the time, it enabled it. It largely created it.”

Read the full article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/sep/06/essential-for-me-readers-on-the-importance-of-libraries

Falstaff opens up The Starlight Contingency by Kyoko M.

Thrilled to announce the publication of The Starlight Contingency by Kyoko M.! This is an awesome adventure SF story of family, found family, alien invasion, and ne'er do wells becoming heroes. Check out this kickass new release from Falstaff Books! Ebook available now - print coming as soon as Amazon and Ingram's proof processes!

Orphaned siblings Scarlett and Duke Nam have had it rough. Cast aside by society, they've managed to stay afloat as thieves on the streets of Alexandria, Virginia. Things plunge straight to hell when a heist goes wrong and they're on the run from the cops, but after they stumble into a nearby home to escape, something seemingly impossible happens - the house transforms into a spacecraft and leaves the Earth's orbit.

Scarlett and Duke awaken to find that they are now prisoners aboard the Titan International Spaceship. The Earth has been destroyed by the Bergleute des Todes, AKA The Miners of Death. Scarlett and Duke are given the chance to become soldiers to fight the aliens who destroyed the world.

The only thing left for them is the hardest thing of all: Survival.

The Starlight Contingency is the new space opera from USA Today best-selling author Kyoko M. (She Who Fights Monsters, Of Cinder and Bone).

Happy Halloween! Blessed Samhain!

Enjoy your spooky goodness today,
all you monsters and ghouls! 

Free Hallowreading from Bobby Nash and Rick Johnson! Operation Silver Moon!

Are you ready for a free Halloween treat?

A free read for Halloween week. You can read the ebook of Operation: Silver Moon, a graphic novel written by Bobby Nash with art by Rick Johnson. You can get the ebook FREE on Amazon from now through Halloween Night (ends at midnight Pacific Time). Grab yours today! 

https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Silver-Moon-Bobby-Nash-ebook/dp/B00XH21C0U

The Scariest?

Writers, what's the scariest story you've ever read? Ever written?

John L. Taylor: The scariest thing I ever read was probably The Hitchhiker by Christopher Pike (the story and title have nothing to do with each other). Though as an adult, The Russian Sleep Experiment has challenged that. As for scariest thing I've written, it would be "What Gasoline Won't Burn," a YouTube narration that I had written. I did this under a creative commons license, so feel free to adapt (https://youtu.be/1ybpIJw2HBM?si=hUC1owIkxb27vI_V) How scary a book is depends on what age you read it. These days, after spending decades as a CSI, fiction no longer scares me. But way back when, there was Steven King's Pet Semeatary and before that Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes." As for the scariest story I've ever written, that would be "Choice of Damnation" a Bianca Jones story found in Monsters Among Us.

Danielle Procter Piper: The scariest one I read was a short. Two medical students were getting ready to put their cadaver up after class and one mentioned how cadavers sometimes sit up, groan, and even roll off of things. They walk their cadaver down the corridor into the elevator, enter it to go to the morgue, and while in the elevator there's a power failure. As far as ones I've written...they don't scare me, but my readers would have to vote on which was the scariest. Othy Morris: Brian Keene’s The Rising gave me absolute chills Lucy Blue: For years, my scariest read was Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls." But there were scenes in Grady Hendrix's The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires that left Lovecraft in the musty shade for me--Palmetto bug in the ear is all I'm gonna say. <shudders> But there are different kinds of scary--I put down The Silence of the Lambs and never picked it back up again when it first came out in paperback because I didn't need knowledge of that level of inhuman meanness in my head. (If I live to be a hundred, I will never understand the women who think Hannibal Lecter is sexy.) And The Exorcist (book, not movie) haunts me still even though I read it decades ago. I guess The Devil Makes Three is the scariest thing I've published so far. But there are sequences in my WIP that have given me nightmares. Paul Landri: The scariest lately was Revival by Stephen King. That ending had me messed up for days and days. I was home alone for a few days and I'm man enough to admit I slept with the light on. Scariest I think was a story that was a prototype for a character featured in the Crimson Howl series centering on a guy who discovered a mold like substance after a bad thunderstorm. It's a sentient alien organism that turns him into a cannibalistic monster. It ends with him getting his girlfriend pregnant and the twist is that the story is being told from the child's perspective as he is about to devour his mom. Weird Tales Magazine rejected it for publication but the feedback I got from them was great! They loved the premise and the prose was well written but it wasn't what they were looking for at the time.

Scott Roche: Pet Semetary is probably the scariest one I've ever read. The scariest one I've ever written? That would be one of two. "Spiders, All of Them" is a short story I wrote about a dad whose son has a big spider collection of big spiders. And his newest one brings something new out in the boy. The dad isn't a fan. Or, "Let Go" about a dad who is trying to keep his family together during the zombie apocalypse even if it means going out and getting them fresh meat. Anna Grace Carpenter: Read? The Thief of Time by Clive Barker. (Which is shelved as Adult, but really more of a YA.) It sticks with me more than Weaveworld. [Those are the only two Barker novels I've ever read.] Written? Maybe the Southern Gothic novellas. One of my beta readers had nightmares after the first one. Kay Iscah: Erm... I tend to avoid horror as genre. If I'm up for a scare I'll read the news or a science journal. Tape worms...ugh. I enjoy action/creepy, but it doesn't necessarily lodge in my brain as "scary". Likewise I don't *think* I write scary, but may dip into creepy. Chris Riker: Read? Either Salem’s Lot or The Stand. Written: https://chrisrikerauthor.com/news/short-stories/youve-won-a-free-cruise-forget-your-worries-forget-your-life Brian K Morris: The scariest story I ever read was probably I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It might be because I recall reading it on a hot summer's night in my bedroom. It was hot and we couldn't afford AC so I was minimally dressed. During one scene where the vampires crept up on our hero and was about to attack, a large bug landed on my bare shoulder. My next memory was standing at the foot of my bed, but not putting my legs over the side and walking down there.

B Chris Bell: The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce. At the end, and it might take a minute, the hero realizes the unnatural. Then you do. Whoa! Brandon Barrows: Ever read: Kafka's Metamorphosis. Only story that truly freaked me out. Ronald Hanna: “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door ...” -- KNOCK - Fredic Brown John Morgan Neal: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and The Stand by Stephen King. I got sick when reading them.

Sean Taylor: The two creepiest stories I've read are both diametrically opposites in terms of why they creep me the hell out. "The Empty House" by Algernon Blackwood is perhaps the best use of setting to evoke tension and fright I've ever read. He's a master of that technique and it's on full display in this tale. "N." by Stephen King creeps me out because of how much I identify with the MC. I too and OCD (I used to only each French fries in fours and only listen to my car radio on even numbers, non-Prime levels, but I've weaned myself off those behaviors now thankfully). But, when I saw that it was those exact behaviors that kept out world save from another, that was truly frightening to me, along with the viral aspect that it could be passed on to new "guardians."

As for the creepiest I've written, I'd have to say it's "The Ghosts of Children" in my collection A Crowd in Babylon. It's a time travel warning about how hell hath no fury about a woman scorned. I love to read it at cons, but it always makes me feel icky. No spoilers. Go read it yourself. Despite being a horror fan I've only written one horror story. And that short story was more of a premise for a short film idea. Taco Hell was the title.

Sunday Funnies: Where It All Began

[Link] Why I Write: Let Me See About Getting the Words Right

by Gary Phillips

I write because I can’t draw. Growing up in South Central back in the day, me and the fellas read and traded Marvel comics. You might sneak in a DC book now and then—say, an issue of Green Lantern rendered in the fluid style of Gil Kane. But certainly not a goofy Batman book. This was before writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams brought back the hardcore Batman, the template for The Dark Knight.

Marvel, however, was different. Beneath Spider-Man’s mask, the teenage angst was plain on Peter Parker’s face. The Hulk’s internal struggle was unending, involving both his horror at reverting to “puny” Bruce Banner and Banner’s own at becoming the man-monster. In the pages of Fantastic Four, meanwhile, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the Black Panther and the scientifically advanced kingdom of  Wakanda. Mesmerized by those monthly adventures, made vivid by the art of Kirby and Steve Ditko, my younger self desperately wanted to write and draw my own comic books.

Harrowing real-life occurrences also captivated me. In my neighborhood barbershop, as well as other barber shops and beauty parlors in the hood, various kinds of stories were told by patrons and haircutters. Often, they involved brothers who had run afoul of the cops out of 77th Division, which patrolled our area. The comics and the community: this would be the transmutable clay out of which I’d later mold my novels.

The desire to tell stories led me to reach out as a teenager. Before the internet, like-minded youngsters would get together to produce comics with their own characters. Maybe a hundred copies would be reproduced on a desktop Gestetner duplicator. Or, if enough money was raised, offset printed. Trying to get my work into those fanzines, I stumbled across mystery and crime mass-market paperbacks, as well as science fiction, all of it available on the spinner racks at the Thrifty drugstore. Dashiell Hammett, Chester Himes, Andre Norton, and those Bantam reprints of 1930s Doc Savage pulps with eye-catching covers by James Bama.

A few more years would go by before it finally sank in that drawing comics wasn’t going to be my vocation. Yet even as I picked up a slew of rejections for my art, a few of the letters I got back did note that the writing wasn’t bad. Well, OK, then, let me see about getting the words right. This period dovetailed with my burgeoning community activism, which focused on the matter of questionable policing in my own and other Black and Brown neighborhoods.

Protesting police abuses led me to the anti-apartheid movement, which in turn fueled my participation in direct actions against the contra war, financed by the Reagan administration. From there, I went on, among other endeavors, to become a labor organizer and the outreach director for a community foundation. I found myself reflecting on these undertakings in nonfiction pieces for newsletters. Somewhere along the line, I started writing weekly op-eds for a community newspaper and a progressive media service. This discipline of writing on deadline proved useful to me when it came time to tackle writing a novel.

To write a book at first felt daunting. But looking back, it was an organic development.

Read the full article: https://www.altaonline.com/california-book-club/a61958649/why-i-write-gary-phillips/

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS JUNGLE TALES VOL. 3

Once again a quartet of the best New Pulp scribes delve into the mysterious world of the African jungle. The popular pulp hero, Ki-Gor : Lord of the Jungle, returns in two new tales set in the mysterious jungles of Africa. From battling an evil white woman to facing the challenge of lion-riding killer baboons, Ki-Gor and his friends fight side by side against overwhelming odds armed only with their courage and loyalty.

New Pulp writers Carson Demmons and Terry Wijesuriya offer up this duo of action-packed adventures while writer Curtis Fernlund introduces Jenna the Jungle Girl. This volume also includes a bonus jungle yarn by Bob Madison where a seasoned big-game hunter, Richmond Kane, ventures into the forbidden land of the cannibal Bogas in desperate hope of finding his lost brother.

Artist John Gallagher provides the black and white interior illustrations and Ted Hammond the stunning color cover. All put together by award-winning book designer, Rob Davis. Here is old-fashioned action and adventure reminiscent of the best of the classic jungle pulps. 

PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle.

Best Practices: Write Something Scary!

Hey, writers! Give me your one best piece of advice to help someone learn to write something actually scary for a reader. And... GO!

Jessica Nettles: Mine the things that scare you the most, especially childhood fears. Then crank them to 11 (that is a different level for different people). I never fail to hit my mark when I go there.

John L. Taylor: Make the reader care about the character who will have the worst fate. Horror fails if you're rooting for the protagonists to die. Get them emotionally invested in someone who really doesn't deserve their fate and slowly pick them apart like a daisy. They will know fear from that.

John Pence: It's got to scare the author. It's got to be something the author had to be brave and confront.

That's not true for all horror, and can be applied outside of that genre.

Scariest damn thing I ever read was Poe's first-person narrator popping his cat's eye with a pocket knife in "The Black Cat." I read that when I was like 9 or 10, and I still feel it.

Michael Dean Jackson: Get your reader emotionally invested in a character and then scare the hell out of that character. Maybe it's not something that would scare you or the reader, but if it scares the main character, then the reader will feel vicariously frightened along with them.

Lainey Kennedy: Less is more. Leave room for the readers imagination to fill in the gaps. What our own mind comes up with is often scarier than any written words.

Sean Harby: Write something that frightens you. Make sure you include all your senses and express the nature of your own fear. It will translate.

John Morgan Neal: Use your imagination to think of something you were horrified by or you think would be horrified by. Then present it in a way that gets across why it's horrifying. But leave enough room where the readers imagination fills in the blanks. Making it personal to them.

Bobby Nash: I always start with character. Make it scary for the character and the reader will feel it.

Krystal Rollins: Haunted old house in a small town, picture books left inside of the family, only stories are told for the new people in town, until, one gets into the house.

Danielle Procter Piper: Many people go for the gross-out factor, I go for psychological stuff.

Laura Rucker: Describe a physical reaction to the horrifying thing, or a physical description of the horrifying aspects. A. Piece. At. A. Time.

Mike Schneider: You have to establish normal. Scary is a juxtaposition. So many creators want all thriller/ no filler but the reality is those stories aren't scary, no matter how gruesome they get. In fact, show too much of the killer/ monster and we start rooting for them instead.

If you want any part of your story to be scary you need to put more time into establishing things are light and joyful. You need to get us invested in that story to a point where we forget we're reading something scary. Then WHAM.

Barry Reese: If it doesn’t scare YOU as the writer, it probably won’t scare them as a reader, either.

PJ Lozito: End the paragraph or chapter before the thing actually happens...

Jim Beard: Scare yourself. Everything else will follow.

Paul Beale: What scares you? It will likely scare the rest of us too..

Brian K Morris: Study Alfred Hitchcock's films as a blueprint for pacing and escalating the terror.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: This is a great question! While some may say to "write what scares you," I tend to find that the scary part is more in the suspense, pace, and overall environmental feel. Those aspects are what drew me to Poe and Agatha Christie as a child. From learning experiences and currently working on a suspense that's scary short story, the pacing and stakes help build the suspense.

Sean Taylor: The key to writing horror, as least as I see it (and you’ll find as many different takes on this as you can find authors, I’m sure), is to camp out in the concepts of discomfort and dread. You’re not going to surprise scare a reader. You’re going to slowly overwhelm them with several smaller “uneases” that become a full-blown “creepy” and finally if you’ve done your job right, all-out dread.

Dread is that feeling that keeps a reader’s stomach unsettled, that scene that makes them feel phantom pains in the same limb or joint the killer keeps sticking a pin into, the sum of all the chills up a spine and “what if” scenarios of the mind a reader keeps accumulating during the time it takes to read your tale.

Anna Grace Carpenter: Don't self-censor. (Especially on the first draft.) It's a lot easier to take things back off the page later if they seem too much than it is to add things back in when it's not enough.

Gordon Dymowski: Horror and comedy share one aspect in common: timing. The only difference is that comedy results in laughter, horror results in fear

Danielle Procter Piper: Less is more. Let their imagination fill in as much as possible.

Editor's Note: All images are free use from Unsplash.com.

The Multiverse Con Pictorial Recap

 My Set-Up

This year's badge art.

Posing

Good Neighbors

Cosplay

[Link] Script Collection: Supernatural Horrors That Still Send Shivers

by David Young

Horror has so many dimensions, but one of the most celebrated and explored is the horror of that which is supernatural. It’s not enough to be an extension of the natural—the horror we mean is the stuff of legends, myths, or creatures beyond the veil. Spirits, curses, devils, psychic disturbances, and living products of the mind all create stories we shudder to tell. That means they also provide the fuel for some of the most terrifying or fun horror films in history!

Script included in this article:

• The Exorcist
• The Babadook
• Poltergeist
• The Witch
• Candyman
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• Hellraiser
• Final Destination
• House
• Rosemary’s Baby
• Friday the 13th
• The Evil Dead
• The Grudge
• Krampus
• It
• The Conjuring
• Annabelle
• The Omen
• The Ring
• It Follows
• Insidious
• Carrie (1976)
• The Shining
• Fright Night
• Hereditary

Get 'em here: https://thescriptlab.com/weekly-feature/42177-script-collection-supernatural-horrors-that-still-send-shivers/

National Freedom to Read Day

Today is National Freedom to Read Day, sponsored by the American Library Association. I know you know how to celebrate -- with a book! But it's more important than ever this year -- as the Authors' Guild says, "Books unite, bans divide." Speak up for your library. Speak out against bans. Buy a challenged book and give it to someone who needs it. Wear your button proclaiming "I read banned books." Vote for candidates who support public libraries. Support the freedom to read. #writersofinstagram  #ireadbannedbooks #freedomtoread #ilovelibraries

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS BOOK HUNTERS’ APPRENTICE

Airship 27 Production is proud to present writer Barbara Doran’s exciting new Chinese fantasy adventure: The Book Hunter’s Disciple.

Qing began life as a prized the little prince’s prized golden carp living carefree in a delightful pond on the royal estate. Then one day he ingested a magical soul stone and found himself evolving into consciousness. With this came other abilities such as being able to flight and change his shape; even into human form.

All of which would have been terribly confusing and maybe dangerous until he encountered the gifted Book Hunter Master Zhi Wanku who was instantly captivated by him. Enough so that she offered to accept him as her apprentice and teach him the proper way to continue his growth into a fully realized dragon.

From that moment on their adventures together were the stuff legend and along their journeys they encountered all kinds of weird and bizarre people and creature. Some would become staunch allies in their battle against the sorcerer Zhu Khan and his army of puppets locked away in might mountain fortress.

Once again Barbara Doran weaves a beautiful and thrilling Chinese fantasy with truly memorable characters in a story rich with humor and adventure. Artist Gary Kato provides the interior illustrations and Guy Davis the stunning, colorful cover.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle.