Author: Mark All

estselling witchcraft author Trish Sinclair has a shameful secret: sheâ s a lousy spellcaster, and the spells in her books belong to others. So when a dying warlock entrusts her with an ancient and powerful grimoire, she runs for her life from his murderer, psychotic witch Kate Cavanaugh. Kate pursues Trish relentlessly to obtain the grimoire, which holds spells to command the fearsome power of a magic crystal hidden in town
When the town coven refuses to help Trish protect the grimoire, she is forced to turn to cynical warlock Aidan McCarthy, who has a secret agenda of his own, and Rain Devereaux, a novice witch whose spellcasting abilities are even worse than Trishâ s. As Kate unleashes the elemental might of tornados and ice storms on the trio, they desperately struggle to defeat her.â and Kate is determined to have that power.

But Kate is too powerful, and she manages to steal the grimoire and unearth the crystal. Trish knows Kate will use the stoneâ s power to exact her deadly revenge on Aidan and the town coven unless Trish can manifest her latent magical abilities to save them.

Trailer_Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y4R8BRCPkY

Publisher: ImaJinn Books
Release_Date: 2/20/2013
ISBN_10: 1610261216
ISBN_13: 978-1610261210

Includes three stories: Black Tea, Crocodiles and The Janara. The first two stories were previously published in hard copy (in Italian) in the collection Malarazza (Epix Mondadori, 2009), while the last one, The Janara, was published by the author in 2011 in ebook. This new edition offers a fully revised English version of the stories, edited by the Bram Stoker Awards winner Benjamin Kane Ethridge. The collection also contains an introduction by another Bram Stoker Awards winner, Gene O’Neill, entitled: A box of lovely dark chocolate. Samuel Marolla’s stories, are different as for atmosphere, setting and use of the supernatural, and they offer a complete overview of the author’s writing. The three stories are linked by a thin common thread, which after passing through the palate, runs through all the senses. The Black Tea horror has the flavour of a mysterious tea, of a haunted wine and of an alchemical cocktail of milk and blood. Something undoubtedly unique!

Black Tea has got the unwholesome and decadent atmosphere, which presents an original labyrinthine hell. We are in the Marolla’s spectral Milan, the unfortunates will have to deal with a weird house haunted by a presence that seems to live on the edge of a parallel reality, a supernatural stomach slowly digests everything and everyone. The distortion of sensory per-ception, due to ingestion of a hypnotic and mysterious black tea, opens an invisible door to the unfortunate visitors of the house, that will reveal a new reality from which will be impossible to escape. A tale hard to forget that goes far beyond the usual clichés of haunted houses.

Crocodiles is a wicked and disturbing tale that allows us, between the lines, to explore a new way of Marolla’s deforming Milan: neighborhoods, streets, small bars, prostitutes, swindlers, cowards, a throng of characters of a squalid “behind the scenes” reality. A crime news journalist meets a member of the small Milanese underworld called Ligera, and will be dragged into a whirl of blood. His hands, his thoughts, are now guided by something supernatural, a damned wine that he drinks allows him to “make a piece of a dream.” The crocodiles, in Italian journalistic jargon are the articles written in advance in cases when a public figure could die, will mark the time and the sequences of this dark story that leaves no room for hope.

The Janara talks about one of the Italian popular beliefs and superstitions, the witch called Janara, who populates many stories and legends. But the Marolla’s Janara is different, is not limited to steal donkeys and horses, to enter under the doors and windows as the wind, this one is a modern Lilith, a night demon, a human prey hunter. The main character, a young boy, must defend himself from the continuous Janara’s assaults; and there are some rules one should know, in order to sur-vive. The problem is always the same, every time, every night: stay alive until dawn, or use a milk and blood cocktail and get rid of the demon, and someone else has to take the place of the prey.

Trailer_Link: http://youtu.be/F6nLWoLyVE4

Publisher: Mezzotints Ebook
Release_Date: february 25, 2013
ISBN_10: 9788890814549
ISBN_13: 9788890814549

Author: Weldon Burge

This is a collection of five horror/suspense stories by Weldon Burge, including:

SIZZLE — A philandering doctor meets a hill man who wants the “sizzle” cut out of his brain

ANOTHER HIGHWAY FATALITY — A college girl, driving alone late at night during a heavy storm, is stalked by a car with a missing headlight

WHITE HELL, WISCONSIN — A snow plow driver, plowing back roads in rural Wisconsin during a blizzard, fights for his life against elusive assailants

PERMANENT DETENTION — A stressed-out teenager believes his History teacher is actually one of the living dead

BLUE EYE BURN — A Vietnam veteran is haunted by a terrifying incident involving a young Vietnamese girl

The stories here have their violent edges, but none resort to gore/ splatter just for the sake of it. Instead each takes reader down a nightmarish descent of madness to the final, horrific conclusion. The stories leave the readers asking questions about society, violence, madness, and how or if any of the stories could have ended differently. They are tales from the insanity of real life. Each of the characters could be the person next to you at the bus stop or in the cubicle across the corridor. – Matt Molgaard, Horror Novel Reviews (http://horrornovelreviews.com/2013/02/17/weldon-burge-broken-stories-of-damaged-psyches-review/)

Publisher: Smart Rhino Publications
Release_Date: 02/05/2013
ISBN_10: 0984787666
ISBN_13: 978-0984787661

Writing a Series

What do writers owe their readers when they write books in series? Or do they not owe anything at all? The readers are the people who buy the books and “pay” the writer with eventual [we hope!] royalties. The people and situations in a book and a series are the writer’s creation and for themselves foremost … but if a writer isn’t thinking of potential readers, then why bother sending the book to an agent or publisher? Why try to get it published? And … what does a writer owe her own characters? Did she form them and breathe life into them only to cut things off in a matter of a few books? Of course, we can think of Sherlock Holmes who died but was brought back after Doyle got a lot of Victorian flak.

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You can follow the Roundtable discussion in the comments section of this post.

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Special Guests:

Nancy Holder is a founding member and former trustee of HWA. She is a New York Times bestselling author (the dark fantasy series Wicked) who has written over eighty novels, and two hundred short stories, essays, and articles, many of which have appeared in “Best of” anthologies. She has received five Bram Stoker awards, one for Novel (Dead in the Water), Young Adult Novel (The Screaming Season), and three for Short Fiction (“Lady Madonna,” “I Hear the Mermaids Singing,” and “Cafe Endless: Spring Rain”). She received a Scribe award for Saving Grace: Tough Love, based on the Saving Grace TV series. She was given a Pioneer award from Romantic Times for her young adult fiction. She also received a Special Sales Award from amazon.com.

Her other horror work includes the young adult Possessions trilogy from Razorbill, stories in Deep Cuts, V Wars, the mosaic novel Zombie Apocalypse series, and the upcoming young adult horror special from Dark Moon. She has written spooky tales for Nancy Drew and as Chris P. Flesh and Melissa J. Morgan for Grosset and Dunlap. She is well known for her work on such properties as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, MTV Teen Wolf, Saving Grace, Hellboy, Hulk, Highlander, Sherlock Holmes, Kolchak, Zorro, and many others. She will be one of two Author Guests of Honor at the 2014 World Horror Convention. She edits comic books and pulp fiction for Moonstone Books and she is on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program offered through the University of Southern Maine. Visit her @nancyholder, https://www.facebook.com/nancyholderfans, and www.nancyholder.com.

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Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers’ dismay. All efforts to make her produce “normal” stories failed. Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She’s the author of the “Otherworld” urban fantasy series, “Darkest Powers” & “Darkness Rising” teen paranormal trilogies as well as the upcoming “Cainsville” modern gothic series and “Blackwell Pages” middle-grade fantasy adventure trilogy (co-written as K.L. Armstrong with M.A. Marr).  She lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, kids and far too many pets. Photo credit: Kathryn Hollinrake

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F. Paul Wilson is the award-winning, NY Times bestselling author of nearly fifty books and many short stories spanning horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, and virtually everything between. More than nine million copies of his books are in print in the US and his work has been translated into twenty-four foreign languages.  He also has written for the stage, screen, and interactive media. COLD CITY features his urban mercenary, Repairman Jack.  His latest is THE PROTEUS CURE, a disturbing medical thriller written with Tracy Carbone. Paul resides at the Jersey Shore.

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Kim Newman is a novelist, critic and broadcaster.  His fiction includes The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, the Anno Dracula novels and stories, The Quorum, The Original Dr Shade and Other Stories, Life’s Lottery, Back in the USSA (with Eugene Byrne) and The Man From the Diogenes Club under his own name and The Vampire Genevieve and Orgy of the Blood Parasites as Jack Yeovil.  His non-fiction books include Ghastly Beyond Belief (with Neil Gaiman), Horror: 100 Best Books (with Stephen Jones), Wild West Movies, The BFI Companion to Horror, Millennium Movies and BFI Classics studies of Cat People and Doctor Who.  He is a contributing editor to Sight & Sound and Empire magazines (writing Empire’s popular Video Dungeon column), has written and broadcast widely on a range of topics, and scripted radio and television documentaries.  His stories ‘Week Woman’ and ‘Ubermensch’ have been adapted into an episode of the TV series The Hunger and an Australian short film; he has directed and written a tiny film Missing Girl; he co-wrote the West End play The Hallowe’en Sessions.  Following his Radio 4 play ‘Cry Babies’, he wrote episodes for Radio 7’s series The Man in Black (‘Phish Phood’) and Glass Eye Pix’ Tales From Beyond the Pale (‘Sarah Minds the Dog’).  His official web-site can be found at www.johnnyalucard.com.  His most recent publications are expanded reissues of the Anno Dracula series and The Hound of the d’Urbervilles (from Titan) and a much-expanded edition of Nightmare Movies (from Bloomsbury).  Johnny Alucard, the fourth Anno Dracula novel, appeared in 2012; his next novel will be An English Ghost Story.  He is on Twitter as @AnnoDracula.

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Darkeva: There’s definitely a strong contingent of poets among the sci-fi/fantasy/horror communities, and you’re certainly one of the most accomplished with publications in all the top magazines. Tell us a bit more about how you got your first few sales.

BB: I was publishing poetry in literary magazines, mostly non-paying, some of it speculative, throughout the 1970s, though I didn’t yet have the label “speculative” for it. I’d also sold a few science fiction stories to commercial anthologies. In 1978 I saw a market report for a magazine titled The Anthology of Speculative Poetry. I submitted several poems and Editor Robert Frazier accepted them all. He also recommended I join the Science Fiction Poetry Association, which had just been formed by SF novelist Suzette Haden Elgin. Through the SFPA I discovered numerous small press genre publications that would allow me to combine my love of poetry with my love of sci-fi/fantasy/horror. And unlike most literary magazines, many actually paid to publish it. Usually not much, but at least the idea was in place that writers should be paid for their work.

Yet it wasn’t until the early 1980s, when Shawna McCarthy took over as editor at Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine , that I began selling poetry regularly to professional, commercial markets. Prior to Shawna’s editorship, Asimov’s published mainly rhyming poems that were often humorous. Shawna introduced poems that remained genre in setting and content, yet more accurately reflected the state of modern poetry in form and voice. After my poems began appearing regularly in Asimov’s and received a few awards, I soon began publishing poems regularly in Amazing Stories and genre anthologies, and eventually in Weird Tales.

Read the rest of the interview at Darkeva’s Dark Delights.

Darkeva: You’re one of the most respected editors in the genre fiction community, and have edited many bestselling anthologies. Is there a particular favorite among them that you worked on?

JJA: That’s a hard question to answer–kind of like asking a parent to name their favorite child. Of course every parent secretly has one, but never says which it is out of fear of hurting their other children’s feelings. In this case, the ones whose feelings could be hurt are, of course, not the anthologies themselves, but the authors that are in them. So I feel compelled to insist that I love all of my anthologies equally.

That said, although in the end I love them equally, there are some that I enjoyed working on more than others for one reason or another. Wastelands will always be near and dear to my heart, not only because it was my very first anthology, but also because its theme–post-apocalyptic fiction–has long been a favorite genre of mine.

The latter also goes for Brave New Worlds as well, and that book also has the distinction of–as far as I know–being the only book of its kind, an anthology that attempts to collect the best dystopian short fiction all in one volume.

My two zombie anthologies–The Living Dead and The Living Dead 2–were both exciting to assemble as well, because, well isn’t it obvious? I mean, everyone loves zombies (or as Living Dead contributor Hannah Wolf Bowen might say, everything is better with zombies). I suspect The Living Dead (vol. 1) is my agent’s favorite since that one, by far, made us the most money and is far and away my bestselling title. Then there’s The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, which gave me the excuse to type “Mwa-ha-ha-ha!” a lot, and that’s always fun. Or Oz Reimagined, which was my first editorial collaboration… But I could go on and on. SEE, I CAN’T CHOOSE.

Read the rest of the interview at Darkeva’s Dark Delights.

Darkeva: You’re one of the most noted Stephen King artists, particularly for Secretary of Dreams, and your work has frequently appeared in Cemetery Dance. What do you find the most challenging or the most rewarding aspects about being an illustrator working in the horror genre?

GC: As for challenges, every new gig is a challenge. I always try to nail down the atmosphere or flavor of a new story I’ve been asked to illustrate, and the challenge is conveying the right sort of mood or impact in the art that represents what the author is “up to” in the given story. In other words, real dark serious stories would suggest dark art. Stories with a funny or comical tone would require something completely different. So it’s always a challenge to accommodate different tones to projects. Hopefully I’ve pulled off this trick over the years. As for the rewards…hell, if people like what I’ve dredged up that’s the greatest reward. I love what I do and hopefully it comes across to the reader.

Darkeva: Although you’re primarily an illustrator, you’re also a huge horror fan. What were some of your favorite books and films growing up?

GC: I chewed through just about every genre vehicle offered as a kid. Movies, TV, books and comics.

I grew up in a wonderful time when a lot of groundbreaking fiction hit the bookshelves and movie screens. The Exorcist, The Omen…a slew of paperbacks came out that pushed the envelope of horror–and there was that King fella who seemed to have a new kind of knack for scaring the shit out of people. I read all the genre comics of the day—Tales from the Crypt, etc, and loved all the old Warren mags: Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters and so on. And the Hammer flicks absolutely ruled in my book—I’m a big Hammerhead. So it was a great time to be alive with all this scary energy going on in every aspect of the genre and I was influenced by it all.

Read the rest of the interview at Darkeva’s Dark Delights.

• Programming Report #2 (PDF)

http://www.horror.org/blog/wp-admin/post-new.php

The Future of Writing

Technology has surged ahead over the past few years and technological advances show no sign of slowing. We’re living in the future. What does this mean for us writers? Does it open new pathways to success and unlimited options to explore our imaginations and present these worlds to our readers, or will it have an adverse effect? If there are always stories to tell, how will they be told in years to come? Will the written word alone be good enough?

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You can follow the Roundtable discussion in the comments section of this post.

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Special Guests:

William F Nolan writes mostly in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Though best known for co-authoring the classic dystopian science fiction novel Logan’s Run with George Clayton Johnson, Nolan is the author of more than 2000 pieces (fiction, non-fiction, articles and books), and has edited 26 anthologies in his 50+ year career.

An artist, Nolan was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and worked at Hallmark Cards, Inc. and in comic books before becoming an author. In the 1950s, Nolan was an integral part of the writing ensemble known as “The Group,” which included many well-known genre writers, such as Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, John Tomerlin, Richard Matheson, Johnson and others, many of whom wrote for Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Nolan is considered a leading expert on Dashiell Hammett, pulps such as Black Mask and Western Stories, and is the world authority on the works of prolific scribe Max Brand.

Of his numerous awards, there are a few of which he is most proud: being voted a Living Legend in Dark Fantasy by the International Horror Guild in 2002; twice winning the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America; being awarded the honorary title of Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. in 2006, and receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association in 2010.

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Taylor Grant is an author, multi-hyphenate filmmaker, actor, Hollywood script consultant, and award-winning copywriter. His work has been seen on network television, the big screen, the web, newspapers, comic books, national magazines, anthologies, and heard on the radio. He is an Active Member of the HWA and is currently the Co-Founder and Editor in Chief of Evil Jester Comics, a recently launched publishing company dedicated to quality horror comics. His horror stories have been published in the Bram Stoker nominated anthology Horror For Good, as well as A Feast of Frights from the Horror Zine, Box of Delights; the forthcoming anthologies Fear the Reaper, Blood Type, Nightscapes Vol. 1, and Cemetery Dance Magazine.

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Brad Hodson – Originally from Knoxville, TN, Brad C. Hodson lives in Los Angeles. He’s written several award winning short films and has a few feature options out there. He co-wrote (and co-funded) the low budget horror comedy George: A Zombie Intervention and his first novel, Darling, was recently released from Bad Moon Books.

When not writing, he sneaks into your house and watches you sleep. It’s a little creepy. You might want to think about getting a dog.

Check out his work and musings on various topics over at www.brad-hodson.com.

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Peter Giglio - A Pushcart Prize nominee and an active member of the Horror Writers Association, Peter Giglio is the author of four novels, three novellas, and he edits a successful line of books for Evil Jester Press. His works of short fiction can be found in a number of notable volumes, including two comprehensive genre anthologies edited by New York Times Bestselling author John Skipp. With Scott Bradley, Peter wrote the author-approved screen adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Night They Missed the Horror Show,” and an established screenwriting team in Los Angeles holds the film option on Giglio’s Sunfall Manor.

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Christopher C. Payne was born in January 1967 and grew up in DeSoto, IL. He received his bachelor’s degree in finance from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, graduating in 1990.  Currently, he lives in San Francisco, CA.  In his spare time, he enjoys biking and snowboarding with his two daughters and an amazing wife.

Chris dabbled with writing in his spare time before deciding he would be better served focusing on the publishing side of the literary industry.  He founded JournalStone in April of 2009.  JournalStone began as a blog before transitioning to a publishing company in the fall of 2010.

Journalstone shot out of the gate by immediately launching a short story contest, then a full blown novel writing contest and quickly began to sign authors.  Getting some help from a few HWA members Chris established some author friendly procedures and was well on his way to publishing books.  That Which Should Not Be, the winner of the inaugural writing contest in 2011, received a warm welcome on its publication date and was subsequently honored by being nominated for a HWA 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.  Ghosts of Coronado Bay, another 2011 JournalStone offering was also nominated for a HWA 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult novel.

With two books nominated for awards in JournalStone’s first 12 months of operation, Chris is still not willing to slow down.  2012 has already seen JournalStone on the front cover of Publishers Weekly magazine in an April issue; with three of its authors highlighted on the inside cover.  Additionally, Joseph Nassise (international bestselling author), Jonathan Maberry (New York Times bestselling author), and Benjamin Kane Ethridge (2010 Bram Stoker Award winner), have been added as JournalStone signed authors, complimenting Brett J. Talley and Anne C. Petty on a shared world anthology titled Limbus, to be released in April of 2013.

Look for more announcements from JournalStone as they continue to flourish, establishing their place as one of the premier genre publishing companies in today’s rapidly fluctuating market.

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Any spam or comments posted for the sole purpose of self-promotion will be deleted, and will see you banned from further Roundtable involvement.